Easy BACnet
Is there a BACnet scanner app for Android?
Updated 18 September 2026
Yes — Easy BACnet is an Android app that broadcasts a BACnet Who-Is, lists every BACnet/IP device that answers, reads each one's points, and — with safety rails — writes to them at a chosen priority. Unlike Modbus, BACnet has real discovery built in, so a phone on the same network as the controllers will find them in seconds. The one thing to get right first is the network: a phone can only find what its Wi-Fi connection can actually reach.
Why a phone is the right tool here
BACnet controllers live in plant rooms, ceilings and rooftop units. When all you need is to confirm a device is alive, read a sensor, or release a stuck override, getting a laptop onto the control network is most of the work. A phone already on the building network does the same job and fits in a pocket — which is the difference between checking a point on the spot and booking a return visit.
How discovery works — and why it sometimes finds nothing
Easy BACnet sends a Who-Is broadcast and collects the I-Am replies. That broadcast only travels across the local subnet, so the usual reason a scan comes back empty is not the app — it is that the phone landed on the wrong network. Guest Wi-Fi, a separate controls VLAN, or a switch handing out an address in the wrong range will all leave you shouting into a room the controllers cannot hear. See why can't I find my BACnet devices? and what is a subnet, and why doesn't the switch give me the right one?
What a phone can and cannot reach
| Situation | Works from the phone? |
|---|---|
| BACnet/IP devices on the same subnet as the phone | Yes — the normal case, found by Who-Is |
| A specific device you can reach by IP but not by broadcast | Yes — add it directly by IP address |
| MS/TP devices on a serial trunk behind a BACnet router | Yes, if the router advertises them onto IP — you reach them through it, not directly. See MS/TP vs BACnet/IP |
| Devices on another subnet, with no BBMD | No — broadcasts don't cross a router without a BBMD |
The honest limits worth knowing up front: Easy BACnet speaks BACnet/IP. It reaches MS/TP devices through a router that publishes them, not by plugging into a serial trunk directly, and it does not register as a foreign device with a BBMD, so a device on a different subnet needs either a BBMD or a direct add-by-IP.
Reading is safe; writing has rails
Discovering and reading changes nothing — a phone is a perfectly safe way to look around a live system. Writing is where BACnet is genuinely careful, and so is the app: write mode is off every time you launch, each command goes out at a priority you choose, the priority array is read back so you can see what won, and a one-tap release to auto hands control back. If you have ever left an override in a controller by accident, that matters — see BACnet priority and stuck overrides and how to write to a BACnet point.
What you walk away with
Every device, point, present value, unit and status the scan finds can be exported as a CSV — so a phone standing in a plant room turns a system nobody had documented into a list somebody can use. Walk through a full scan in how to use Easy BACnet.