A wall mountable universal backplane (100, 200) for accepting a plurality of building control sensors, the wall mountable universal backplane (100, 200) comprising: a housing configured to be secured relative to a wall of a building; a plurality of universal sensor receiving bays each including the same mechanical and electrical interface for selectively receiving one of a plurality of compatible building control sensors; a controller operatively coupled to the electrical interface of each of the plurality of universal sensor receiving bays, the controller configured to automatically discover and enroll each compatible building control sensor as it is plugged into a corresponding universal sensor receiving bay; a communication module operatively coupled to the controller for communicating with a building control system; characterized in that the controller is configured to: receive a device identification of the building control sensor; assign a local address to each of the compatible building control sensors and communicate the local address to the corresponding compatible building control sensor; receive additional information from each of the compatible building control sensors, the additional information comprising a device type and/or available functions of each of the compatible building control sensor; and register the building control sensor with the building control system; and in that the universal backplane (100, 200) further comprises a wireless transceiver configured to broadcast a location beacon signal to allow a host device and/or control devices (22, 32, 42, 52, 62) to determine a location of the universal backplane in a building by triangulation. a housing configured to be secured relative to a wall of a building; a plurality of universal sensor receiving bays each including the same mechanical and electrical interface for selectively receiving one of a plurality of compatible building control sensors; a controller operatively coupled to the electrical interface of each of the plurality of universal sensor receiving bays, the controller configured to automatically discover and enroll each compatible building control sensor as it is plugged into a corresponding universal sensor receiving bay; a communication module operatively coupled to the controller for communicating with a building control system; characterized in that the controller is configured to: receive a device identification of the building control sensor; assign a local address to each of the compatible building control sensors and communicate the local address to the corresponding compatible building control sensor; receive additional information from each of the compatible building control sensors, the additional information comprising a device type and/or available functions of each of the compatible building control sensor; and register the building control sensor with the building control system; and in that the universal backplane (100, 200) further comprises a wireless transceiver configured to broadcast a location beacon signal to allow a host device and/or control devices (22, 32, 42, 52, 62) to determine a location of the universal backplane in a building by triangulation. receive a device identification of the building control sensor; assign a local address to each of the compatible building control sensors and communicate the local address to the corresponding compatible building control sensor; receive additional information from each of the compatible building control sensors, the additional information comprising a device type and/or available functions of each of the compatible building control sensor; and register the building control sensor with the building control system; and in that the universal backplane (100, 200) further comprises a wireless transceiver configured to broadcast a location beacon signal to allow a host device and/or control devices (22, 32, 42, 52, 62) to determine a location of the universal backplane in a building by triangulation.