Need to connect DALI and BACnet? The Weble WBox routes DALI BACnet natively: one gateway speaks both protocols and maps data points in real time — no PC, no middleware, no cloud dependency.

DALI⇄WBoxgateway⇄BACnetOne WBox gateway · native conversion · no PC

The protocols

DALI

DALI (IEC 62386) controls and queries each luminaire individually or in groups — dimming, scenes, status and failure feedback over a simple wire pair.

DALI driver →

BACnet

BACnet (BACnet/IP, MS/TP) is the standard for building management systems and HVAC supervision.

BACnet driver →

Typical use case

In an office building or a car park, the BMS supervises HVAC on BACnet — and facility management wants lighting in the same head-end: zone levels, on/off states and, above all, lamp and ballast failures for the maintenance rounds. The WBox exposes the DALI line to BACnet, so the BMS schedules the lighting zones and technicians see every failed fixture without walking the floors.

Example deployment

Typical scenario DALI luminaires supervised over BACnet The site BMS runs on BACnet/IP. The WBox exposes each DALI luminaire or group as BACnet objects (level, on/off, failure state): supervision drives the dimming, logs burn hours and flags failed ballasts — without a proprietary lighting controller. Technical documentation →

How the WBox bridges DALI and BACnet

The DALI driver polls the ballasts for levels and failure flags and drives them by short address or group; the BACnet driver publishes each point as a native object — Analog Value for the level, Binary Value for switching, Binary Input for a lamp failure. COV notifications push changes to the head-end instead of slow polling. Writes go the other way: a BACnet schedule or command sets the DALI arc power. One WBox handles the DALI line and the BACnet/IP side simultaneously.

Example mapping

A worked example on one line:

  • DALI short address 12 arc power → BACnet Analog Value 3 (level %)
  • DALI group 2 (open space) ↔ BACnet Binary Value 1 (on/off)
  • Lamp failure, address 12 → BACnet Binary Input 7 (maintenance alarm)

Capacity & limits

  • DALI — A DALI line addresses up to 64 control gear (short addresses), plus 16 groups and 16 scenes; the driver handles several lines, connected through a serial DALI interface.
  • BACnet — BACnet/IP scales to large object counts; BACnet MS/TP carries up to 127 master nodes per segment.

On the WBox, a driver licence enables the whole protocol — there is no artificial per-point tier to unlock. Capacity scales with the gateway model, from the compact S103 to the E413: you are bounded by the field bus, not by your licence.

Frequently asked questions

How do I connect DALI and BACnet?

DALI is the digital lighting bus and BACnet is the building-management (BMS) protocol. A single WBox gateway runs the DALI and BACnet drivers, speaks both protocols at once and maps the data points between them — no PC, no middleware, no cloud dependency.

Is the DALI ⇄ BACnet bridge bidirectional?

Yes. The WBox reads and writes on both sides: a value or command on the DALI side propagates to BACnet, and vice-versa.

Do I need a PC, a PLC or proprietary hardware?

No. The DALI and BACnet drivers are licence-activated on one WBox — no gateway PC, no intermediate PLC and no proprietary hardware.

Which WBox model do I need?

Any WBox with the DALI and BACnet driver licences. The online configurator recommends the right model from your interfaces and point count.

What you need

One WBox gateway with these two driver licences:

DALI DALI Driver licence 100.00 CHF BACnet BACnet Driver licence 100.00 CHF

Route DALI BACnet on your project

Find the right WBox gateway for your installation, or get in touch to validate your case.

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