Agree what every room does before you quote.
Pick each room’s behaviours from ready-made ORBS cards, with the owner, builder or architect. The devices, the price and the handover tests follow from what they pick. No more designing every job from scratch.
Have an ETS project already? Run a free Casient Readback: about a minute, nothing to install.
Same hallway, two briefs.
01Someone arrives: lights on ahead of the person.
03Empty for 3 minutes: lights turn off. Lights-off delay 3 min (range 1–10 min).
Needs presence, switched lighting · tested at handover
02Night mode, someone moves: path light at 10% warm, never full brightness. Night path level 10% (range 5–30%).
Needs presence, dimmable lighting · tested at handover
04Through the day: colour temperature follows the day: cooler and brighter at midday, warm and low after sunset.
Needs tunable white · tested at handover
The brief on the left is written for this page. The answers are the hallway card (res-hall) from the ORBS draft 0.3.0.
Every room type has a card like this.
Start a brief, freeOne card, from the brief to the support call.
Press play, or step through. The same four behaviours become the device list, the quote, the build, the handover checklist and the answer when the owner rings.
Step 1 · Brief, in Casient Brief
The hallway starts with every behaviour on its ORBS card. The owner leaves tunable white out, and the reason is kept with the brief. Everyone signs the same page.
Step 2 · Device schedule, from the card
- Presence detector, model X12
- Dimming actuator channel, model D11
- Two-way switches at each end (already planned)2
Model names are invented for this example. The card names the type of device; you choose the brand.
Step 3 · Your quote, priced from the schedule
Example prices for invented models, before cabling, power supply and travel: your rates, your margin. If the owner wants tunable white later, it is priced as a change.
Step 4 · Build: ETS first, then Casient Keystone
What the bus can do goes in ETS. Casient Keystone adds what needs more than the bus; here, night mode from the house’s schedule. Casient Readback reads the settings in the ETS project, so a 10-second delay set by mistake is caught before you download.
Step 5 · Commissioning checklist: the three tests above, and
- — The switches at each end still turn the lights on and off.Pass
With a free account, Casient Readback writes the handover pack under your name.
Step 6 · The support call, through Casient Fleet
The owner rings: the hall goes dark on them. You open Casient Fleet, start a support session on the site (only with the owner’s permission, one session with an end time) and read the Casient Keystone log before you drive out. The hall went off 3 minutes after the last movement, as agreed. Change it as a priced change, or tune the detector. On pilot sites today.
The rows are the hallway card from the ORBS draft. The owner’s choice, the models, the prices and the results are an example written for this page.
Do this for a whole house in Casient Brief.
Start a brief, freeFour tools, one job.
You do not need them to use the cards. They make each step quicker.
Casient Brief
Free to tryPick each room’s behaviours from the ORBS cards with your client. Get the device list and the handover tests.
Start a brief →Casient Readback
FreeUpload an ETS project. Get every setting and automation in plain sentences, and what to fix.
Run a free Readback →Casient Keystone
Pilot sitesA box in your rack for what needs more than the bus: solar, aircon, AV, house modes. ETS logic and safety stay on the bus.
How it works →Casient Fleet
ConsoleEvery site you have delivered, in one place. An alert when a site stops reporting; a support session when the owner rings.
Fleet sign-in →
Where AI helps: Ask Casient answers you or the owner from the building’s log and the device manuals, showing the lines it used; and it drafts changes for you to approve (in pilot). It never switches anything itself.
A child’s bedroom at night. The card decides.
Five things ask for the light between bedtime and morning. The card says which may, so nobody programs the exceptions by hand on every job.
The light stays off.
res-kids-bed-01 Motion in the room: Never turns lights on; counts as presence for air con only.
The light stays off.
res-kids-bed-02 Night mode: Nothing automatic switches a light on, except an alarm or a parent's all-on; a switch press still works.
The light comes on.
res-kids-bed-02 Night mode: Nothing automatic switches a light on, except an alarm or a parent's all-on; a switch press still works.
The light comes on.
res-kids-bed-02 Night mode: Nothing automatic switches a light on, except an alarm or a parent's all-on; a switch press still works.
The light comes on.
res-kids-bed-02 Night mode: Nothing automatic switches a light on, except an alarm or a parent's all-on; a switch press still works.
Casient Keystone checks each request that comes through it against the room’s card before anything is sent, and logs what acted. A wall switch works on the bus, with or without Casient Keystone. Card text from the ORBS draft 0.3.0; the night’s events are an example.
Get paid for the whole job, not only the install.
Your client stays yours. No consumer pricing, no homeowner shop, no marketing around you.
Run Casient on a real site with direct engineering support, and help shape what we build next.
Built in Sydney, in a real KNX home.
Casient is built by Ted Aravinthan: twenty-five years in technology, including managed services at Cisco and Dell EMC and advice to government ministers on smart cities. He started Casient in his own KNX home. It is now being deployed on a few sites, with more in discussion. Your questions go straight to Ted, not a sales team.
Start with one room.
Open Casient Brief, pick a room type and see its card: what it does, what it needs, how it is tested. Free to try; register free to save and export.
Is ORBS a Casient product?
No. ORBS is a draft standard for describing what rooms do. Casient Pro started it and runs it while founding members join. The cards name types of device, never brands, so you can use them on any job and with any controller.
Where do the cards come from?
Years of designing, installing and fixing smart homes and buildings; analysis of how real installations were set up and behave; and the rules that apply, such as the National Construction Code and the early-learning regulations. Practising integrators, consultants and operators review each draft. The cards do not replace the designer’s or the certifier’s job.
Do I need Casient Keystone to use the cards?
No. Many behaviours are done on the KNX bus alone. Casient Keystone is for the ones that link to equipment not on KNX, or need house modes and schedules across systems.
How does ORBS sit with VDI 3813 and EN ISO 52120-1?
It works alongside them. Those set out room automation functions and their energy effect. ORBS writes each room’s behaviours in words an owner can agree to, with the devices and a test for each.
Where does my project file go?
Into your own workspace. The software reads it. Our policy is not to open it unless you ask for help and give access. You can delete it from your workspace, or ask us to.