A successful platform must work across vendors and protocols and provide capabilities to simplify these interactions. Eclipse VOLTTRON, open and flexible by design, enables applications written by different organizations to easily and securely talk with both each other and devices being controlled.

Platform capabilities enable communication with a variety of devices through standard (Modbus, BACnet, etc.) or custom protocols. Also, Eclipse VOLTTRON design eases integration of legacy systems by hiding complexities of device interactions. If the device can be made to interact, it can participate in the platform.

Virginia Tech, in using and testing the platform in its Building Energy Management Open-Source Software (BEMOSS), concluded that Eclipse VOLTTRON is interoperable between devices from different manufacturers, a significant benefit in the field.