IoT Innovation for Lighting

Lighting among the greatest frontiers for IoT innovation…

The idea of the connected light bulb may sound like the product of marketing hype gone too far. We’ve all seen technology gadgets that nobody wants or needs hit the market, get lots of press and then fizzle away when everybody comes to their sense. Internet of Things-enabled light bulbs is not an example of this trend. Instead, they are emerging as incredibly practical and valuable components of the building automation sector. At least, they are extremely valuable if organizations get moving on innovation.

Connected lights represent IoT low-hanging fruit, so it’s already a mature market, with a few leaders emerging across the sector. These brands are: 

Phillips

It’s popular Hue series of connected light bulbs for the home included, Philips has its eyes on just about every place where illumination is needed. The company believes that rapid urbanization and a growing population will lead to significant demand for lighting advances within smart city ecosystems. Essentially, demand for light will outpace what current urban infrastructure can sustain, so more energy efficient, intelligent lighting models are necessary. 

Philips is also getting involved in the connected lights for smart buildings and smart retail settings. For buildings, the goal is to interconnect lights so they can communicate. With connected lights in place, organizations can optimize system output relative to their operational needs to maximize energy efficiency at any given time. In the retail sector, versatile, flexible lighting models empower organizations to establish displays that will draw consumer attention and create innovative shopping experiences.

Gooee

Gooee is focused on the back-end of the intelligent lighting system. The company has created a full sensing, control and communication ecosystem for connected lights that are housed within a cloud platform and ready for enterprise-scale deployment. Essentially, Gooee has built the back-end needed in commercial, retail, hospitality, and industrial settings so organizations can easily customize lighting experiences based on their demands.

This process is built on three key pillars:

• Lighting analytics systems that provide data into how lighting systems are performing at any given time and allow for predictive analytics.
• Cloud-based processing systems to analyze real-time building data while allowing the on-premises components of the system to operate simultaneously without disruption.
• Beacon management services to ensure connected lighting systems can take full advantage of emerging beacon technologies. 

Enlighted 

This startup has entered the connected lighting system to create an intelligent control system that uses unique sensors and analytics capabilities to drive more intelligent decision-making. Besides unifying lighting data to drive energy savings and reduce system maintenance, the platform is aimed at using occupancy data and daylight harvesting tools to maximize efficiency across the entire configuration.

Getting moving on intelligent lights 

Smart lighting has been rising quickly like a simple way to take advantage of the IoT. However, lightbulbs tend to hang out in the background in most locations and many of the benefits of connected lights come with standard LED bulbs, just to a lesser degree. For this reason, a Digital Lumens report pointed out that, as a society, we currently are in the middle of our best opportunity to enter the intelligent lighting space. Once a bulb socket has a regular LED light in place, the cost benefits of a connected LED become less attractive.

However, moving directly to smart LEDs can lead to considerable cost and value benefits. As such, organizations that want to maximize the value of the IoT for lighting may want to start taking strides now to avoid running into diminished margins in the future.

Smart lighting has been rising quickly like a simple way to take advantage of the IoT. However, lightbulbs tend to hang out in the background in most locations and many of the benefits of connected lights come with standard LED bulbs, just to a lesser degree. For this reason, a Digital Lumens report pointed out that, as a society, we currently are in the middle of our best opportunity to enter the intelligent lighting space. Once a bulb socket has a regular LED light in place, the cost benefits of a connected LED become less attractive. However, moving directly to smart LEDs can lead to considerable cost and value benefits. As such, organizations that want to maximize the value of the IoT for lighting may want to start taking strides now to avoid running into diminished margins in the future.