IoT in Lighting - Applications and Sources

As Plato quoted - “Necessity is the mother of invention” 

 

From the time of kerosene lamps – each iteration solution challenge of the previous procedure – the way we produce and provide light has progressively improved. 

 

In 1880, Edison's light bulb, which was incandescent, was a big step forward, which proved to be cheaper, convenient, and safe than the widely used gas light. Today, we are still looking for ways to further cut the cost of lighting and make wiser use of the energy.

 

The newest game-changer is IoT lighting. Smart lighting solutions can be operated on schedules by means of a smartphone or smartphone assistant or can be triggered by audio or motion. So what is IoT lighting exactly and how can it benefit us and what are Iot lighting applications?

 

Let’s get to know in detail.

 

Also read: Bright side of IT industry

 

 

IoT in Lighting

 

As company owners and service providers become more aware of energy use, some kind of lighting control system is more likely to be implemented. Many systems already exist today, sometimes as part of a building management system (BMS). Capable of creating a fixed time schedule for the lights (to disable them if nobody is around) can save energy and reduce costs.

 

The IoT illumination system continues one step (sometimes a few steps!). Just minutes before a conference starts, imagine lights illuminating a room. Or accessing information about the length and the look of a customer in the retail stores. IoT lighting can do those things.

 

The intelligent IoT lighting uses wireless switches to avoid directly connecting light to the module. The bulbs can be connected to a network and monitored and controlled from the cloud. You can manage individual lights or groups of lights based on things like occupation, outside lights, and times via the web or mobile app.

 

Smart lighting uses IoT-enabled sensors, bulbs, or adapters to enable users to use their smartphones or smart home management platform to manage their homes or offices. Smart lights can be operated on schedules or triggered by sound or motion via an external device such as a smartphone or an intelligent assistant.

 

Modern smart lighting systems are used as the drivers for light-emitting diode (LED) technology and advanced technologies. The lights now evolve to support different, highly IoT-suitable wireless interfaces. The market propensity for SSL systems predicts the growth of IoT-related lighting systems from intelligent houses to industrial lighting systems in different market segments. These systems offer advanced features such as spectral light source control and multiple communication interfaces.

 

(Recommended blog: What is a smart city?)

 

 

What’s lighting got to do with IoT?

 

The answer to this question is highly likely to be very little unless lighting companies can retain control over both sensors and the socket. Naturally, the lighting system design will always be important, not so much for saving energy, but more and more for considering human factors and possibly li-fi. 

 

Energy considerations remain important, only for controls. Finally, the energy-saving of responsible light consumption concepts and color-tunable lighting designed for improving health and wellness is driven through the development of automated illumination control systems using advanced occupancy sensors, IoT connectors, and Machine Learning/ AI data analytics.

 

Here are some IoT applications of LED lighting systems.

 

Energy Efficiency

 

The sensor density is much higher with onboard occupancy or daylight detection than in a system in which all the components are separate and one sensor can control half the light on the floor. 

 

(Related read: Li-Fi Technology)

 

Decreased sensor area size increases application accuracy. In order to optimize further energy savings, the system will also learn how the building is actually used over time.

 

Office

 

Light fittings with occupancy sensing can report whether a booked lecture room is actually used in commercial offices with high demand for conference areas. If after some time no presence is noticed, there are applications to release the conference room into the space management system.

 

Retail

 

Coupons and promotions could be sent from LED devices with sensors to the shoppers' smartphones in order to see the shoppers where they are at the store while they pass a certain product. The way products are presented can be utilized with observed foot traffic and time patterns. In order to manage inventories in real-time, even luminaires might scan shelves.

 

Store App Indoor Positioning

 

•  Guided shopping

•  Traffic flow 

•  Promotions

• Customer's location is known within the shop so special offers in the vicinity can now be emphasized, which emphasize the shop offers, promotions that can be adapted to the demographic and shopping profile of our customers.

• Scan in-store items to learn more

• Customer-created shopping lists can be used to predict the shop's stock requirements.

 

(Recommended blog: IoT in fashion)

 

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IoT in Lighting

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Security

 

Security is a process. It's never complete and needs ongoing updates and assessments, only the weakest connection.

 

Whether others have the key or you haven't locked it doesn't matter how safe a door is. The software, and especially the user interface, specify the ease of configuration of a system, and a key or certificate should be provided, to enable the system to recognize the device when security is in place.

 

(Also read: IoT security issues)

 

It does not mean that you can connect your system to everything, particularly in terms of security and privacy.

 

It is possible to have a far greater sense of where and where people shouldn't be with sensors everywhere. The exact venue for an event can be determined by flashing lights. Besides sensing the security failure, the lights could dim elsewhere and focus on the situation to help the first respondents. If a building evacuation emergency exits, the lights can guide occupants to a safe area. 

 

Education

 

There is a growing sense of how lighting can benefit or harm individuals through its circadian rhythms. LEDs are tunable from cool white to warm white, which allows the school to have an LED lighting system, for example, tuned to light in the morning or tuned to warm light, so that second-grade teenagers can calm down after a rest period.

 

• Adaptive and dynamic lights

• Harvesting of daylight

• Window shading to prevent blindness and maximize the external connection

• Integration with other construction services

• Teachers or lecturers' personal control

• Detection of presence for energy savings but also for safety and personal safety

• IoT will increasingly improve the student's access to learning environments that only a few had before.

 

Healthcare

 

The hospital is also used for human-centered lighting where LED lighting enabled by IoT can help minimize patient disorders. Hospital did a noise study and how it can be calmed down. They set a decibel meter and gradually dimmed and changed the levels of light in a particularly loud hall and found that they could reduce the noise levels by reducing the light level. 

 

(Related read: Applications of augmented reality in healthcare)

 

Together, sensors can do things we never imagined possible before. Imagine you have a microphone on the light and when it gets warmer and dimmer on a certain sound level, it keeps people calmer and quieter. IoT-enabled lighting can help the public to guide the patients in need and emergencies and easily locate and track essential equipment in cases of evacuation.

 

Creating a robust system connected

 

It is good and good to charge the luminaries using temperature, stress, vibration, daylight, occupancy, or humidity — with cameras or microphones or any other digital measuring device — but unless the lighting system is connected to greater facilities and analytical capacities, the service providers will not get very far. If the lighting has all those cool sensors, and it doesn't interact with the rest, then the end of the game is really highly integrated. 

 

What is this infrastructure for IoT lighting?

 

• Networks we cannot possess 

•  Interaction 

• Public interest creates and attracts people 

• Interactivity and participation 

• Access to parking 

• traffic management, security, environmental detectors  

• Growing and revenue local authorities 

• Facility to solve and maintain problems 

• Failure to locate and monitor networks we cannot own.

 

 

Lighting Sources

 

Let's take a look at the notable sources of lighting. 

 

White light based on LED

 

Human beings are suitable for work in healthy environments that imitate the spectrum of sunlight. This is why we usually try to shine the spatial light with white light which imitates the solar spectrum. 

 

(Related read: What is clean energy?)

 

A combination of red, green, and blue (RGBs) LEDs is the most common way to obtain white light for illumination or optical communications.

 

Energy-efficient LED drivers

 

Devices are electronic drivers for illumination purposes. This controls the power for LEDs and offers varying output power for light source features. Most IoT-enabled lighting systems include an ongoing power conversion stage with a continuous LED driver, multiple arrays of LEDs, and the integration of sensors and a communication interface.

 

Architectural elements

 

Intelligent lighting solutions encompass different types of devices, systems, and networks. Mainly devices contain sensors, actuators, and state-of-the-art algorithms. A combination of state-of-the-art algorithms enables observation of light and occupational levels of daylight to determine a final action. 

 

The algorithms are running within devices, or to reduce the workload, the algorithm can run in the cloud-stored on the web to send command messages to perform controls in different ways. Many intelligent lighting algorithms relate to advanced operations to adjust in real-time color reproduction.

 

Some interesting potential uses for IoT lighting in commercial facilities are:

 

• Asset tracking: IoT lighting can be used to locate critical assets marked with sensors using the signals they deliver.

• Monitor the perishable goods conditions: Smart lighting solutions that monitor storage or space constantly can benefit from products that require certain environmental conditions, such as the temperature and humidity levels. Anomalies and spoilage prevention alerts can be adjusted.

• Space utilization: Occupancy Data collected by IoT lighting can be analyzed to optimize building use. This data analytics helps you manage your space more easily and react to under-use or overuse.

 

(Also read: IoT in Fleet Management)

 

Conclusion

 

In the early phase of developing Iot LED lighting systems applications and quantifying their advantages in hard figures, the lighting industry is easier and easier, as the cost of technology continues to decline, for service providers to equip their lighting systems with custom made-to-use systems.

 

IoT is gaining traction thanks to increasing understanding, education, and interoperability, partly enabled by networked control. This emerging category allows a dialogue between customers that extends far beyond lighting and energy-saving to the field of information-strength business issues. 

 

The demand for connected lighting is expected to accelerate and can now be installed in order to build on this for IoT strategies in the future. Improve the technological mix, reduce costs, and speed up adoption with further final data on use cases.