KNX at the forefront of Smart Building Expo 2025: interview with President Massimo Valerii
Interview with Massimo Valerii, President of KNX Italia, a key player at SBE 2025
KNX will play a leading role at Smart Building Expo by managing one of the Innovation Squares. What are the main topics you intend to highlight for the technicians and designers attending this important event?
This year, KNX Italia celebrates its 30th anniversary. We’ve decided to mark the occasion at SBE with a “widespread event” involving all our participating members. The goal is to engage the entire supply chain and promote a spirit of collaboration by giving everyone a voice.
We’ll talk about products with our manufacturers, address the challenges of system integration, and facilitate dialogue between users, installers, distributors, and universities.
We’ll also bring together a variety of associations that, like KNX, are committed to building digitalization and professional training within the industry, as well as to educating and supporting the next generation of system integrators.
What is the role of an association that manages one of the leading standards in home and building automation within the evolving framework of the so-called “twin transition” of the built environment?
In the digital transition of buildings—championed by Europe through the recent EPBD (Energy Performance of Buildings Directive), also known as the “Green Homes” directive, to be adopted by Member States by May 2026—technology clearly plays a key enabling role.
This transition involves generating data from buildings to monitor performance, ensure occupant comfort, enable predictive maintenance, and offer value-added services to those who live and work in them.
The fundamental requirements of enabling technology are standardization and interoperability. KNX is the enabling system for the digital transition—the “twin transition.”
When combined with artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms, it will form the winning formula for the future of smart buildings.
Interoperability seems to be the keyword in home and building automation. What is KNX’s position on this strategic topic, and what are its medium-term goals?
Today, there is growing awareness that the widespread, sustainable adoption of any technology by users must go through a process of standardization and interoperability.
KNX was born 35 years ago as an interoperable technological standard for home and building automation systems—a pioneer in a sector previously dominated by numerous proprietary solutions.
Few would have bet on its success at the time.
Today, KNX is recognized worldwide as the interoperable standard for building automation applications.