A wall mountable universal backplane for accepting a plurality of building control sensors , the wall mountable universal backplane 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 further comprises a wireless transceiver configured to broadcast a location beacon signal to allow a host device and/or control devices 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 further comprises a wireless transceiver configured to broadcast a location beacon signal to allow a host device and/or control devices 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 further comprises a wireless transceiver configured to broadcast a location beacon signal to allow a host device and/or control devices to determine a location of the universal backplane in a building by triangulation. <EOS>