Although the smart lighting market has been growing, it is still often confined only to expensive, high end, products.

Ikea’s TRÅDFRI LED fixture is simpler than many of the already established smart lighting products on the market.

‘The new luminaire has been developed after research showed that small changes in lighting can have a great impact on people’s well-being and intellectual abilities,’ a spokesperson for Ikea commented.

Ikea’s smart luminaires are simple screw-in fixtures that are able to sit in pendant lights and lamps.

The plug and play solution features a tiny transmitter that has been installed within the luminaire, which can communicate with a remote control.

The remote device is able to control up to ten LED light sources around the house and can adjust lighting levels from a warm yellow glow all the way through to ‘full beam’ brightness.

It will also be possible to control the lights using a smartphone app but this will require a hub, similar to the Philips Hue, which allows users to change the brightness levels of their lighting.

The luminaires will be available to buy in stores in April next year. Ikea has not yet put a price on the light sources, but it is expected that they will be affordable and in line with current prices at the budget retailer. Ikea intends to extend their smart lighting range further in the future to include light panels.

Scientists use pulses of light to end heart attacks. PLUS: Verizon eyes city revolution with LED purchase. AND: Meet ‘Alexa’….Amazon’s new device that can control your home lighting. Lux Today September 20th 2016.

Ironically, I used to get exactly the same response when I spoke about LEDs some 15 years ago. Change takes time as Bill Gates once said:

I tend to be an early adopter of technology but sometimes I fail to spot the trend. I could not, at first, for example, understand YouTube. Why would you want to make your own video and share it on the Internet? Why would you want to watch that video on a tiny screen on a mobile phone, while sitting on a bus? Yet 11 years on Lux has its own YouTube channel, which has clocked up over 1.4 million views. This is, of course, quite pathetic, when placed in comparison with the multi-millions of views that funny cat videos attract.

The birth of YouTube came well before smartphones and high speed mobile connectivity, it needed some other megatrends to develop for it to rise to its full potential

Now, let’s get one thing clear, the term ‘smart’ is not a replacement for dimmable. Just because you can dim your lights with a smart phone does not mean that you are at the forefront of the IoT revolution. Instead IoT hides in various overused and sometimes difficult to understand terms, Connected Lighting, Smart Cities, LiFi and PoE, being just a few. These are the trends that are helping IoT to take off.

Verizon, the American communications company have bought Sensity in order to widen their IoT offering.

So why has the world changed this week?  For starters Verizon, one of the world’s largest mobile phone operators, purchased Sensity Systems. Hugh Martin the CEO spoke at one of our conferences two years ago, his vision was simple, all lights are going to be replaced with LED over the next ten years, so, he said, when we do the conversion let’s pack them full of sensors, cameras and wireless networking devices and use the network to build new business apps.

It was jaw dropping for our audience at the time, but Hugh was right on the money. While Sensity’s gun shot detection app may not find a ready use in Europe, Verizon clearly see value in some of their products that they can offer to their millions of subscribers, leveraging the data collected by millions of lighting points.

The Amazon Echo, which allows users to switch on their lights with the sound of their own voice.

Next up, Amazon. The multi-billion-dollar corporation has added the ability to control lighting to its Alexa digital assistant. If you haven’t had cause to buy one yet, Alexa is part of the Amazon Echo, which is a smart speaker that is able to respond to voice commands.

For years we have talked about the death of the light switch and the reason given to prevent this is that people don’t want to reach for a smart phone in the middle of the night to turn the lights on, even though your smart phone is surely going to be closer to your bed than the nearest light switch.

The giving of verbal instructions could well be the true intuitive lighting control, but it won’t work for me, as my wife says I have a habit of talking in my sleep, and lighting is frequently the subject.

The Yellow Dot program allows manufacturers to develop LEDs that work with Philips’ indoor positioning technology.

Of course, Amazon won’t be making lights, although they do have their own brand, Amazon Essentials, so rule nothing out when it comes to anticipating the next move of this cunning company.

Amazon currently relies upon other manufacturers to make devices compatible with Alexa, such as LiFx smart lamps. If I made residential lighting controls I would be very concerned about this move. Lighting control is moving from the cupboard to being in the lamp, and the user interface is migrating from the wall plate to an Amazon owned device.

Finally, Philips has open sourced their light based indoor location system, which is perhaps a canny move for the future. Many smaller OEM’s can’t play in the IoT space and clients and designers will not want to be held to ransom in order to buy Philips fixtures to implement a system.

It also gets Philips away from the dirty business of having to sell rapidly commoditising fixtures. Instead they simply collect data from lighting and sell it on to the end user. Thus data starts to replace lamps as a continuous revenue stream.

These are, of course, just announcements from the last week. But if you throw into the mix Cisco and Acuity Brands buying tech companies with gusto and huge, but lesser known, companies such as Delta Electronics who snapped up Loytec Electronics earlier in the year, you start to realise that the stage is being set for a revolution.

Big technology companies want to use the installation of LEDs to harvest as much data as they can.

It’s becoming clear that big technology companies want to be active on the lighting scene. They don’t want to join in our fun debates about standards, colour quality, lamp bases, glare and flicker though. All they want to do is gain access to the billions of lighting fixtures in the word and harvest the data they collect, enabling new business models to be built that don’t exist today.

You may not believe me, and I’m sure you can find hundreds of reasons as to why it just will not happen…but, read my lips, in ten years time IoT will be on everyone’s mind.

www.novelenergylighting.com

Smart traffic lights to ‘communicate’ with drivers to inform them when they are about to change. PLUS: Saudi scientists create ‘fastest li-fi luminaire’. AND: New building standard aims to protect the health of occupants.

 

Some 32 per cent of white-collar employees told the researchers that they were unhappy with the light intensity, with only a fifth were able to alter the light level.

The results are sure to bolster critics of the lit environment in the nation’s commercial workplaces, who have slammed the sector for a lack of creativity. Top lighting designer Paul Nulty, founder of Nulty+, tweeted: ‘Bad lighting effects workplace productivity. Who’d have thought!?’

UK offices still have a preponderance of so-called Category 2 lights – recessed, deeply-louvred fittings designed to minimise reflections on computer screens – which deliver a gloomy environment.

 

The study of over 12,000 workers across 17 countries showed that the UK workers are the least satisfied with their office ambience. The study appeared to add weight to the argument that local lighting control boosts employee engagement and satisfaction, as the biggest issue was a lack of control. Only 39 per cent of respondents say they can adjust the temperature, while a mere 21 per cent can alter the lighting.

‘This could be seriously affecting the concentration, productivity and engagement levels of workers, with the study showing that a lack of flexibility and control over the physical work environment correlates with a lack of engagement’, the study said. In contrast, highly engaged employees are those that have the most flexibility over how and where they work.

The situation in the UK is likely to be influenced by the country’s dominance of open-plan design, with 49 per cent of workers based in this kind of space due to its cost-saving benefits. However, this can limit employees’ individual control over their environment.

Christine Congdon, director of Global Research Communication told Lux: ‘Our research has consistently shown that the most engaged workers are those who have autonomy over how and where they work, whether adjusting the temperature, lighting, or workspace to suit their needs. ‘When people feel like they have choice and control over various aspects of their physical work environment, it leads to greater satisfaction overall.

‘Everybody is different and personal preference will depend on an individual’s natural physiology, their mood on a particular day and the task they are working on. To cater to these constantly changing needs, employers should pay more attention to providing a range of working environments, including the ability to adjust workspace basics as required.’

The study was commissioned by office furniture manufacturer Steelcase.

 

Visit us at www.novelenergylighting.com to explore our range of office lighting products, including LED panels and LED tubes. Call us to discuss your needs: 0208-540-8287, or drop us an email: sales@novelenergylighting.com

 

Main picture copyright Ripton Scott 2016

Sustainable lighting

The three-floor, 9,000 square meter garage has 1,500 parking places. The original existing lighting installation was divided into 4 zones per floor, each lit with traditional batten luminaires, each housing a 1 x 58W T8 fluorescent tube. When a car entered the garage, the lighting operated at 100% of its full output for two hours, before switching off completely. The lighting quality was poor, and the luminaires were starting to fall apart. When it came to the renovation, Klövern AB didn’t just want to replace the fluorescent lamps with LED lamps. The company wanted something more sustainable. “We’re highly committed to sustainability, so it was very important that we installed a ‘future-proof’ lighting system,” explains Lennard Lindkvist, Energy Manager at Klövern AB.

“We wanted a lighting installation that would produce bright, well-distributed white light, so the garage felt safe and secure for our customers. But at the same time, we wanted a smart, energy-saving system that would help reduce our operating expenses.”

Klövern AB wanted to avoid the cost of replacing the cabling, meaning that the new LED luminaires had to be the same length as the existing fluorescent lamp luminaires. “After exploring various options on the market, we decided that the GreenParking system from Philips, which couples Pacific LED waterproof luminaires with wireless control, was the best long-term solution from a sustainability perspective,” continues Lindkvist. “We replaced the luminaires and kept the cabling, which saved significant labor and material costs.”

GreenParking is an easy-to-install, full lighting system: PacificLED luminaires paired with wireless movement detectors create a complete and controllable wireless lighting system, which enables the luminaires to communicate with each other and behave according to how they are programmed. “For the new lighting installation, the parking garage was divided into 13 zones per floor and more than 120 wireless movement detection sensors were mounted in strategic locations” says Lindkvist. “Unlike with our previous system, we’re only paying for lighting when it’s needed. When a car or pedestrian enters the programmed ‘zone’, the lighting comes on to 90% of its full power. When the car or pedestrian leaves the area, the output drops to 10% after 2 minutes”. “The LED lighting produces a crisp white light – essential for customers to feel safe and secure. And because Pacific LED luminaires are IP65 class rated, we know the luminaires are tough enough to withstand the exhaust gases.”

For Klövern AB, it was crucial that the new lighting system saved energy and cut operating costs: “Energy consumption is a major business expense for us – but also one we can address by investing in new technology. With every penny we save on energy, the property becomes more profitable”. “We’ve cut energy consumption by more than 50%. The LED luminaires account for 75% of the energy savings, the lighting controls 25%. “We’ve saved 350,000 kWh per year by switching to the Philips GreenParking system. In fact, we save as much energy as 17 houses consume every year.” The long life span of the LED luminaires means Klövern AB will also reduce its maintenance costs: “With the old system, we had to replace the fluorescent lamps every other year. The new LED modules won’t need replacing for 15 years. This not only saves time and money – it makes us a more environmentally friendly company as well.”

Contact us at www.novelenergylighting.com, T: 0208-540-8287, E: sales@novelenergylighting.com to discuss LED retrofit options for your car parking or outdoor lighting facilities.

The Equality Act 2010 is intended to protect partially sighted people from unfair treatment in employment and when accessing public services. But what more can be done with light to make life a little more equable for those with disabilities? In particular, how can light be best utilised to benefit partially sighted people?

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Lighting

The Equality Act 2010 requires employers to provide individual lighting provision to any employee requiring it.

Anyone registered as blind or partially-sighted automatically meets the Equality Act’s definition of a disabled person. Anyone with a sight loss that has a ‘substantial and long-term effect on your ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities’ may qualify for registration. In these circumstances, the requirements of the Equality Act 2010 must be met.

Credit: John Bullock, Lux