Definitions and frequently asked questions

Facility performance is how well a building’s equipment does its job over time, judged on three things: systems running as designed, energy managed rather than absorbed, and maintenance and energy costs that stay predictable. Unlike uptime or a single utility figure, it treats a building’s systems as one managed function. With Act Hub, facility performance is measured, so it can be managed strategically. Optimized facility performance is the state where all three hold across every location in a portfolio.

Equipment performance data is the collected, structured, and analyzed high-frequency data from a piece of equipment. Act Hub turns it into three equipment performance scores an operator can act on: an Operations Score, a Comfort/Thermal Score, and an Energy Score. Unlike a periodic reading, it is continuous, so it shows how equipment is actually performing rather than how it looked at a single moment.

High-frequency data is equipment performance data captured at an interval short enough to reveal how a system is actually operating. Most monitoring captures only occasional snapshots, often every 5, 10, or 15 minutes, because cloud-based systems have to stream the data before they can use it, and streaming at high frequency is expensive. Act Hub processes the data at the edge instead, so it can read at high frequency without that cost. That is what reveals the patterns that make prediction and diagnosis possible, such as short cycling, runtime creep, and slow degradation, and it is the difference between seeing a problem develop and finding out after it fails.

Continuous system performance monitoring is the practice of analyzing high-frequency equipment performance data every minute against how a system should be operating, so performance drift is caught as it begins instead of after it causes a failure or a high bill. Building automation contractors and engineers know the practice as monitoring-based commissioning (MBCx), ongoing or continuous commissioning, and fault detection and diagnostics (FDD). Unlike threshold monitoring, which only reacts once a limit is crossed, it watches behavior over time. Paired with automated control (optimization), it keeps systems running as designed without constant human supervision.

ForeSight365 is Actuate’s predictive intelligence engine inside Act Hub. It analyzes high-frequency equipment performance data, looking past the readings to the equipment behavior behind them and comparing how each system is running to its own history and to similar systems that are operating well. When that behavior shifts, ForeSight365 traces it to the underlying problem, whether that is a short-cycling compressor on an HVAC rooftop unit, a defrost cycle running long in a refrigeration walk-in while the temperature still looks normal, or a system using more energy than its digital energy twin says it should, adding to the site’s peak demand. It catches these problems early, before they turn into breakdowns, and explains the correction in plain language before a technician is dispatched. Unlike an alert, which only reports that a limit was crossed, ForeSight365 identifies what changed, the specific issue behind it, and what to do about it.

Predictive diagnostics are diagnostics that happen before a failure, not after, delivered by ForeSight365, Actuate’s predictive intelligence engine. ForeSight365 detects performance drift as it begins, identifies the likely cause, and explains the correction in plain language before anyone is dispatched; after the repair, the equipment performance data confirms the fix held. Unlike an alert, which only says something is wrong, predictive diagnostics say what changed, why, and what to do. Answers, not just alerts.

Repair validation is the use of equipment performance data after a repair to confirm the fix actually held, so a failed repair is caught before it becomes a second call. It raises first-time fix rate, lowers callback rate, and replaces argument with evidence when holding a vendor accountable. Unlike a closed work order, which only records that someone was dispatched, repair validation confirms the problem is genuinely resolved.

Predictive control is operating facilities on what equipment data says will happen next, rather than reacting to what has already failed. It is the opposite of reactive operations: setpoints, run times, and schedules are adjusted ahead of a problem instead of after it. Predictive control is the acting half of Actuate’s approach; predictive operations is the analytics that informs it.

Predictive operations is predictive analytics applied to facility operations: using equipment data to anticipate how systems will behave and what they will need next. It is the intelligence half of the pair; predictive control is the acting half that adjusts the equipment on that prediction. Together they move a facility from reacting to problems to staying ahead of them.

Act Hub pricing is per site and depends on which systems are covered and which package fits the client’s needs. Act Hub is a modular, scalable platform built for the budgets of the small and mid-sized facilities Actuate serves, typically under 100,000 square feet. The Starter package, energy monitoring and intelligence for one facility, starts at $79 per month. The Temp Only package, temperature monitoring with ForeSight365 predictive intelligence for five refrigeration units, for example two walk-ins and three reach-ins, starts at $99 per month. The Essential package, energy and temperature monitoring for a typical restaurant with two HVAC units, two walk-ins and three reach-ins, starts at about $150 per month. The Plus and Pro packages add controls and optimization and are priced per facility and per piece of equipment. Every package includes unlimited users. A one-time setup fee of $99 to $395 applies, depending on facility size and complexity, and that range covers an average cafe, QSR, restaurant, retail store or larger dealership facility. These prices are for the base system with Gear-as-a-Service, so no capital outlay is required beyond the setup fee. Most clients start with a basic package and add equipment and facilities as they use the platform to manage facility performance across their portfolio. Before quoting, Actuate builds an equipment-level Maintenance Cost Baseline and, where utility bills are shared, an Energy Cost Baseline, so the final price is set against modeled spend and savings opportunity at your specific sites rather than a list figure.

About six to eight weeks from signature for a portfolio, and a single visit per site. Sensors are wireless, so there is no conduit, no controller replacement, no IT project and no store downtime. Automated alerting and diagnostics delivered on the work order are live as sites come online; full predictive capability is generally available within about 90 days of install.

Yes, and it is designed to. Actuate does not replace service providers or the CMMS that manages them; it supplies the diagnosis that goes onto the work order before a technician is dispatched, and the equipment performance data that confirms the fix held afterward. Existing vendors keep the work. What changes is that they arrive knowing the problem, and that the outcome is verifiable.

No, it does not touch the payment network. Sensors communicate over their own wireless path rather than through store systems, so there is no connection to point-of-sale or payment infrastructure and no dependency on store IT. Equipment performance data describes machines (temperatures, run times, electrical draw) and contains no customer or transaction data.

Actuate delivers optimized facility performance for multi-location operators. Act Hub collects equipment performance data every minute from HVAC, refrigeration and the other systems a site runs on, identifies problems as they begin, and tells the operator what to do about them. Unlike a service provider that responds after a breakdown, Actuate works ahead of it: predictive diagnostics identify the likely cause before anyone is dispatched, and equipment performance data confirms the repair held. Answers, not just alerts.

Act Hub is the platform Actuate delivers optimized facility performance on. It reads equipment performance data at high frequency, scores every system on operations, comfort and energy, and surfaces only the sites that need attention with the next step attached. Unlike a building management system, it requires no capital project and no control-system replacement; unlike an alarm service, it explains what changed and why rather than only reporting that a limit was crossed. Not dashboards. Action.

Act Hub is built for operators running equipment across many locations with a lean central team: restaurant and QSR groups, convenience and retail chains, franchise operators and the facilities directors who support them. The model assumes nobody is standing in front of the equipment: the platform surfaces the handful of sites that need attention this week and leaves the rest running in the background. A small, lean team can cover hundreds of locations because Act Hub does the watching and diagnosing, so the team spends its time on judgment and action instead of on screens.

Act Hub covers the systems that carry the cost and the risk: rooftop HVAC units, refrigeration racks, walk-in coolers and freezers, compressors, motors and the electrical loads behind them. These are the systems Actuate’s equipment-level Maintenance Cost Baseline consistently finds at 50 to 65% of the repair-and-maintenance budget, which is why they are where the platform starts. Coverage is by system, not by sensor count, so a site is either fully instrumented for a system or it is not.

A building automation or management system is infrastructure installed inside one building: controllers, wiring, commissioning, and someone trained to operate it. It is a capital project, and it stops at the property line. Act Hub delivers what an operator buys a BMS for: systems running as designed, energy managed, costs predictable, across an entire portfolio, without the capital or the complexity. It installs wirelessly in days, reads equipment performance data centrally, and needs no specialist to run. Most multi-location operators will never install a BMS in every store; this is the version that reaches all of them.

An alarm fires once a threshold is crossed, which means the problem already happened: the product is already warm, the compressor already failed. Act Hub analyzes equipment performance data every minute against how the system should be operating, so drift is caught as it begins and the likely cause is identified before anyone is dispatched. The difference is what arrives: an alarm tells you something is wrong, Act Hub tells you what changed, why, and what to do. Answers, not just alerts.

No. A CMMS manages work orders, vendors and maintenance records: the workflow around a repair. Act Hub enhances that workflow rather than replacing it: it supplies the diagnosis that goes onto the work order before the technician is dispatched, and the equipment performance data that confirms the fix held afterward. The CMMS still records what was done. Act Hub determines what should be done, and whether it worked.

Wireless sensors on each walk-in, freezer and refrigerated unit read the temperature and, alongside it, the refrigeration system behind it: the compressor, the defrost cycle, door activity and the unit’s energy profile, continuously. ForeSight365 looks past those readings to the equipment behavior behind them, comparing how each unit is running to its own history and to similar units that are operating well. When that behavior shifts, such as a defrost cycle running long while the temperature still looks normal, a compressor cycling more often, or a door held open at the same time each day, it traces the shift to the underlying problem and explains the correction in plain language, so the failing unit is caught while the product is still safe and the response is a planned service call rather than a full walk-in of lost product. Most systems tell you when the temperature crossed the line; Act Hub tells you before it does.

An alarm fires once the temperature crosses a limit, which means the product is already warm and the decision in front of you is what to discard. Temperature monitoring with predictive intelligence watches the pattern instead of the line: a defrost cycle running long, a compressor cycling more often, a door held open at the same time each day. The failure is identified while the box is still in range. Most systems tell you when the temperature crossed the line; Act Hub tells you before it does.

Temperature is the reading; the refrigeration system behind it is what determines whether that reading holds. Alongside walk-in cooler and freezer temperature, Act Hub reads the compressor, the defrost cycle, door activity and the energy profile of the unit at high frequency. That is why a cause can be named rather than just a symptom reported: a box drifting warm because a defrost cycle is not terminating is a different problem, and a different repair, from one drifting warm because a door seal has failed.

Yes. Temperatures are recorded continuously and retained, so the log is produced automatically rather than written on a clipboard twice a shift. Automated records remove the two failure modes of manual logging: readings taken at the only two moments of the day nobody is looking, and readings recorded after the fact. They are also available per site for an inspector or an auditor without anyone assembling them. Manual line checks remain a food-safety practice; what changes is that the temperature record no longer depends on them.

The drift is identified as it begins and escalated with the likely cause attached, so the decision is made while the product is still good. In practice that is the difference between a planned service call the next morning and arriving to a full walk-in that has to be thrown out. Because the cause travels with the alert, the technician who responds knows whether this is a defrost problem, a compressor problem or a door problem before leaving.

It closes the gap between checks. A manual line check records the temperature at the moment someone looked; continuous monitoring records it every minute, which is where overnight and weekend failures actually happen. Drift is caught while the box is still in range and the cause is identified before anyone is dispatched, so the outcome is a service call rather than a discard decision. For time and temperature controlled for safety (TCS) foods, that difference is the whole risk.

Automated logging records every reading continuously and retains it, so the log exists without anyone writing it down. Paper logs capture two or three moments a day, depend on staff remembering, and are frequently completed retrospectively, which means they can look perfect while a box spent the night out of range. An automated record is complete, timestamped, and available per site without assembling anything.

By identifying the failure while the product is still good. A walk-in rarely fails instantly: a defrost cycle stops terminating, a compressor starts cycling differently, a door is held open daily at the same hour. Those patterns are visible at high-frequency resolution well before the temperature crosses a limit, and they arrive with a likely cause attached so the right repair happens the first time.

Manual checks remain part of food-safety practice and of most operators’ brand standards: staff still verify product condition, not just box temperature. What changes is that the temperature record no longer depends on them, and nobody has to detect a failing system by noticing it. The check becomes a confirmation rather than the only line of defense.

Start where failure costs the most: walk-in coolers and freezers, refrigerated prep and display units, the refrigeration equipment serving them, and the rooftop HVAC units that keep the dining room and kitchen habitable. Actuate’s equipment-level Maintenance Cost Baseline typically shows HVAC and refrigeration as the largest share of the repair-and-maintenance budget, which is why coverage starts there rather than with the longest equipment list.

Because nobody is standing in front of the equipment. A single operator walks the building daily and notices a cooler that sounds wrong; a fifty-store group finds out when a manager calls, which is after the product is lost. Scale also hides cost: the same failure repeated across a portfolio reads as a run of unrelated incidents rather than a pattern. Equipment performance data makes both visible: the individual failure early, and the pattern across sites.

Continuity. A visit captures one day; equipment performance data captures every minute between visits, which is where failures actually develop. It also makes comparison legitimate: normalized for weather, billing days and operating hours, two stores in the same climate become genuinely comparable, so an outlier is a real outlier rather than an artifact of the calendar. A visit tells you what a site looked like. The data tells you what it has been doing.

Audits confirm that standards were met on the day of the audit. They cannot catch a compressor that starts degrading the following week, and they generate work rather than resolving it. Equipment performance data runs continuously in the background and surfaces only what changed, with the next step attached, so the audit program keeps doing what it is good at, and the equipment stops being something anyone has to remember to check.

As a short list, not a screen. Each week a handful of locations surface with a described change and a recommended action; everything running as designed stays in the background. A regional lead works the list, a facilities director sees which sites repeat, and finance sees maintenance spend that follows condition rather than arriving as surprises. Nobody is expected to watch anything. Not dashboards. Action.

FacilityHub is the portfolio layer of Act Hub. It scores every location on operations, comfort and energy from equipment performance data, then surfaces only the sites that need attention, with the next step attached. Unlike a reporting tool that shows every site at once and leaves the reading to you, FacilityHub answers a narrower question: which locations changed this week, and what should be done about them. Not dashboards. Action.

Each system is measured every minute against how it should be operating under current conditions, not against a fixed threshold. When behavior drifts from that expectation, such as a compressor cycling more often, a runtime creeping up, or an energy profile separating from its twin, the site surfaces with the change described and the likely cause attached. Stable systems stay in the background. The question the platform answers is “what changed,” not “what is the current reading.”

Coverage scales with exceptions rather than with sites, so the limiting factor is how many genuine problems a week a team can act on, not how many locations it owns. Operators running several hundred sites work them with small central teams because the platform removes the search step: nobody reviews locations that are running as designed. Adding sites adds exceptions proportionally, not review work.

A smart building system automates one building and is bought as a capital project. FacilityHub manages equipment performance across every building in a portfolio and installs wirelessly in days. The comparison operators actually face is not one against the other, it is a smart building system in a handful of flagship sites versus equipment performance data across all of them. FacilityHub is the option that reaches the whole portfolio.

Three scores per site, built from high-frequency equipment performance data: an Operations Score for whether systems are running as designed, a Comfort/Thermal Score for whether the space is holding condition, and an Energy Score for consumption against the digital energy twin. Each score decomposes to the specific system driving it, so a falling number resolves to a named unit rather than a general concern.

Because the bills are not comparable as issued. Two stores can differ by billing period length, by weather, and by hours of operation, and any one of those can move a bill further than the waste you are hunting. A digital energy twin removes those differences by modeling what each system should have used under the conditions it actually ran in, so the gap between modeled and actual is real waste rather than an artifact of the calendar. A bill is not a benchmark.

A demand charge bills you for your highest short interval of consumption in the period, not for total usage, so a few minutes when several large systems start together can set a cost that stands for the whole month. Because it is driven by coincidence rather than volume, it responds to sequencing: EnergyHub sees the high-frequency load profile, identifies which systems are peaking together, and staggers them so the peak never forms. Reducing a demand charge often costs nothing but timing.

By comparing each system against its own digital energy twin every minute rather than against a fixed threshold. Waste appears as a widening gap: a freezer drawing above its modeled baseline, a rooftop unit running when the store is closed, a system whose consumption climbs while its output stays flat. Because the comparison is per system rather than per bill, the answer names the unit rather than the site.

Comparable operators see energy savings in the range of 10 to 30%, and the first tranche generally comes from sequencing and scheduling rather than from capital equipment: systems running when nothing needs them, and peaks that form because nothing coordinates a start. An Energy Cost Baseline sizes the opportunity per site before anything is installed, so the number is modeled from your equipment package and utility rate rather than assumed.

Not for the first savings. Sequencing, scheduling and correcting systems that are running out of spec require no capital at all, and they are usually where the largest early gap sits. Where equipment measures do make sense, such as advanced rooftop controls, evaporator-motor upgrades, adaptive defrost and variable frequency drives, the economics depend on local rates and utility rebate programs, which is why EnergyHub models them per site rather than recommending them across a portfolio.

On condition and trajectory rather than on age. AssetHub tracks how far a system is operating from its design point, how fast that gap is widening, and what it is costing in energy and repeat repairs, which together answer whether the next repair buys useful years or postpones an inevitable replacement by a season. Age alone is a poor predictor: a well-run fifteen-year-old unit can outlast a six-year-old one that has been running out of spec since install.

Because the condition that killed the first compressor usually survives it. Replacement compressors fail at four times the rate of originals (Carlyle Compressor Division, Carrier Corporation, “Identifying Compressor Failure Modes”). A new compressor dropped into a system with a restricted line, a failing fan or a refrigerant issue inherits the same stress that caused the original failure. Equipment performance data before and after the swap shows whether the underlying condition was actually corrected, which is the difference between a repair and a warranty claim in eighteen months.

It replaces an age-based replacement schedule with a condition-based one. Instead of budgeting to replace every unit at a fixed age, capital goes to the systems whose performance data shows them degrading fastest and costing most to keep, and stays away from equipment that is running as designed regardless of its age. The result is a defensible list: each line carries the operating evidence behind it rather than a date of installation.

Yes. Portfolio risk ranking orders sites and systems by how likely they are to fail and what that failure would cost, so limited capital and limited technician time go to the same short list. This capability is real in AssetHub and is rolling out to new clients over approximately the next 60 to 90 days.

Yes, because it replaces argument with evidence. When a repair is followed by equipment performance data showing the system still operating out of spec, the conversation is about a specific measurement rather than competing recollections. The same record supports warranty positions and service-contract reviews, and it tends to change vendor behavior before it is ever used in a dispute.

Preventive maintenance runs on a calendar: the same service at the same interval whether or not the equipment needs it. Predictive maintenance runs on condition: equipment performance data shows which system is drifting, so work happens when there is a reason for it. Preventive maintenance services healthy equipment and still misses the unit that fails in between visits. Predictive maintenance finds that unit. Both sit on the maturity ladder: preventive is the second rung, predictive the third.

Fault detection and diagnostics (FDD) is the practice of identifying equipment faults automatically from operating data and determining their cause, rather than waiting for a person to notice a symptom. FDD is the established industry and research vocabulary, used in ASHRAE and Berkeley Lab literature, for what Actuate delivers as predictive diagnostics. The distinction Actuate adds is timing and plain language: the fault is identified as drift begins, and the correction is explained before a technician is dispatched.

Commercial HVAC maintenance that waits for a breakdown is the expensive kind. Most emergency failures announce themselves first: a compressor short cycles, a runtime creeps up, an amp draw shifts. At high-frequency resolution those patterns are visible weeks before the failure; at a monthly inspection interval they are not. MaintenanceHub finds the drift, names the likely cause, and puts it on a planned work order instead of a 2 a.m. call. Comparable operators see 40 to 60% fewer emergency breakdowns and repairs completed 2x to 3x faster.

Commercial HVAC maintenance cost varies by site, equipment mix, and service history, so a single per-site figure is a guess. Actuate replaces the guess with a Maintenance Cost Baseline, a bottom-up estimate of a facility’s repair-and-maintenance spend, built equipment by equipment, every rooftop unit, compressor, walk-in, and motor, from real service data and industry benchmarks. Unlike a “1 to 3% of sales” rule of thumb, it produces a real number by system and per site, and it consistently shows HVAC and refrigeration at 50 to 65% of the R&M budget. Actuate runs it for every operator in its sales process, so an operator sees what commercial HVAC maintenance costs today, system by system, before deciding what to change. From there, MaintenanceHub works on that spend by finding performance drift as it begins, so work moves from emergency calls to planned service.

Actuate is a facility and equipment intelligence company. It delivers optimized facility performance to multi-location operators through Act Hub, which reads equipment performance data at high frequency, identifies problems before they become failures, and tells the operator what to do about them. Unlike a service that reports equipment conditions, Actuate delivers predictive diagnostics: what changed, why, and what to do, before a technician is dispatched. Answers, not just alerts.

Predictive diagnostics and continuous system performance monitoring for the HVAC and refrigeration systems multi-location operators depend on. Equipment performance data is analyzed every minute against how each system should be operating, so drift is identified as it begins, the likely cause is named before dispatch, and the repair is confirmed with data afterward.

Actuate was founded in 2015 as Multi-Site LED, built its own platform in 2021, and rebranded as Actuate in 2022. It is headquartered in Denver, Colorado.

Actuate owns the whole chain, from sensors and connectivity to the Act Hub platform, delivered as a managed outcome, so one company is accountable from the sensor battery to the 2 a.m. diagnosis. Two things follow from that. Data arrives at high-frequency resolution rather than as periodic snapshots, which is what makes prediction possible. And where a diagnosis is not yet conclusive, Actuate completes it, so the client always receives diagnostics with the work order rather than raw output to interpret.