If you are an Architect or Interior Architect or any form of Architectural technician you probably enjoy all of the automation Revit has to offer. However if you are a Technology Engineer/Designer or any variation of technology design engineer. Then you may not enjoy the inner workings of Revit as much.
Autodesk Revit has no version of the program that caters to in building technology design. Yes they have families that can be considered low voltage but they do not have the properties I would consider beneficial to the design team as a whole. I work for an AE firm and I design in building technolgy infrastructure and or technology systems. Project to project, client to client the situation is always unique. And dont get me started on Healthcare technology in building design. Lets just say Healthcare facilities and healthcare IT have no bearring of what it takes to produce a construction document set of drawings that a contractor can bid on. Dont get me wrong they have an idea. They just dont understand the over all process from start to finish from a Revit point of view. If they did undestand they may not be as high maintenance as they are today. However not all healthcare clients are hard to work with. Just the majority of them. Now add all the bugs and glitches in Revit when you add customized fanilies and you have your self a nightmare.
Ok enough about that… When we were using AutoCAD to produce the same exact end product we made profits on most projects. Not all but most. That is because nothing is perfect. I am not even implying Revit is a poor product. What I am saying is it is not ready for Technology design. The reason we saw higher profit is because we had already standardized on layers, blocks etc. In Revit we are re-creating the wheel to be able to incorporate what we were doing in AutoCAD. The time it takes to operate Revit vs. AutoCAD is astronomical in comparison to regeneration delay. Yes if an AutoCAD file is set up poorly you can experience very long regeneration delay. However in Revit if your file is simply large due to the amount of information your model has to generate it can be set up properly but still have a very long regeneration delay. That delay is worse if the Revit model is set up poorly.
Until Autodesk develops a version of Revit tailored to low-voltage design it is a mistake to use it on a large project. Especially if that project has an aggressive deadline schedule.
Now with all that said both programs can be utilized for a successful project. The following will hopefull point out why.
The low voltage/technology designer can help the Architect out by placing symbols in identified rooms and spaces that need to be Elevated for detailing purposes. In other words the technology designer uses the exported backgrounds to layout the entire plan but, only places families in Revit in areas identified by the archtiect or interior designer. This however takes coordination. Coordination should be happening anyway and I believe this process would actually promote that coordination between the technology, MEP and Architecture teams.
Low-voltage design incorporates a ton of 2D diagrams to illustrate system connection and to identify cable types and all equipment the cabling connects to. This is not easily done inside of Revit. Becasue technolgy design is diagram heavy Revit is not a suitable solution for this. Yes you can draw a diagram in just about any program you wish to. AutoCAD’s famous layering makes drawing diagrams a breeze. Diagrams are unique project to project, client to client. And yes you can import them into Revit. However I would only point out why I am writing about this. When it comes to the building itself the program has too many bugs and glitches when you add your own customized families. Also when you are dealing with worksets with multiple disciplines within technology design mistakes happen more freqently within Revit. Time spent coordinating what workset is on which floor plan type has proven to be tedious. That means tedious and time consuming at project set up and project delivery. When you have 4 or more multi-discipine designers inside one Revit model mistakes happen. Lets face it until we replace humans with cyborg AI designers mistakes will always happen. The human element is the limit in which all programs can fail to be productive. Expecially those programs not designed to perform certain tasks.
Random thought of the day.
chardoranks 
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