Project Haystack Unveils Haystack 5 with Xeto Schema Language and RDF Integration at Haystack Connect 2025

RICHMOND, VA, UNITED STATES, May 13, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The Project Haystack Organization (www.project-haystack.org), a 501(c) non-profit focused on advancing data modeling and interoperability for IoT devices, smart equipment, and building systems, announced several groundbreaking developments at its biennial conference, Haystack Connect 2025, held May 6–8.

The 2025 event served as a major milestone for the global Haystack community, bringing together leaders in building automation, smart infrastructure, energy management, and IoT. At the heart of the announcements was the announcement of Haystack 5, featuring the debut of Xeto, a powerful next-generation schema language, and support for RDF (Resource Description Framework) exports.

Haystack 5 and Xeto: Advancing Beyond Tagging

With Haystack 5, Project Haystack moves beyond traditional tagging into a new era of structured data modeling and validation. At the core of this evolution is Xeto, a purpose-built meta-modeling technology designed to enhance and extend the well-established Haystack tagging methodology. Unlike earlier approaches such as Protos and Defs (used in Haystack 4), or RDF-only models, Xeto introduces:
• Formal schema-based model definition
• Built-in validation and rule enforcement
• Support for inheritance, composition, and typing—making it ideal for APIs, integration pipelines, and automation workflows.

Tagging laid the foundation for Haystack. Now, Xeto brings the structure, precision, and efficiency needed to cost-effectively scale data modeling across increasingly complex systems. In addition to the validation capabilities, Haystack takes a major leap forward toward interoperability with other ontologies.

Project Haystack’s semantic models can now be exported to RDF (via Turtle files) and other data formats enabling interoperability with other ontologies. These new interoperability capabilities of Haystack will provide building owners and other stakeholders the confidence to invest in Haystack and the assurance of interoperability with other ontologies as they emerge.

A Community of Innovation
Haystack Connect 2025 featured real-world use cases from manufacturers, integrators, and building owners applying the Haystack methodology in smart buildings, industrial systems, and renewable energy. The conference reaffirmed Project Haystack’s role as the leader in domain modeling for the built environment and a key enabler of semantic interoperability across ontologies.

Haystack Connect is more than a conference—it is the crucible of innovation for the future of data standards in the built environment and empowering everyone to model, validate, and integrate data.

For more information about Project Haystack, visit www.project-haystack.org.

Contacts
Marc Petock
Executive Secretary, Project Haystack
Vice President, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer, Lynxspring
marc.petock@lynxspring.com

Marc Petock
Lynxspring
+1 804-307-3353
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