Newswatch: LEDs to cash in on smartphone surveillance opportunities
In 2013 Xicato announced a warranty program that set a benchmark for the lighting industry. The Xicato ‘Five-Year Color Consistency and Lumen Maintenance Warranty’ was the first industry warranty that guaranteed modules in an installation will deliver visually consistent light from luminaire to luminaire for a five-year period. The color consistency warranty meant that end users and specifiers could act with confidence knowing the long-term performance of their LED-based lighting installation.
As an early integrator of LED technology with quality monitoring electronics Xicato was able to provide lighting solutions using the company’s light engines while also recording and reporting their temperature performance over time. The detailed data logging capability per engine allowed Xicato to project remaining LED lifetimes accurately to underpin their warranty offer with real historic data.
Now it is clear that Xicato’s focus on quality monitoring may pay dividends in other ground-breaking areas of LED technology. By introducing measurement and monitoring electronics into the light engines will provide retailers and marketeers with valuable customer movement traffic data.
By combining Xicato’s XIM Intelligent Modules that integrate driver, dimming and diagnostic electronics within the light source, and Digital Lumens’ Digital Light Agent (DLA) wireless sensing and control modules, luminaire manufacturers can now offer intelligent lighting via LightRules Digital Lumens’ energy and intelligence software platform.
Linking the LightRules-based software system with Xicato’s XIM Intelligent Modules will enable companies and retailers to wirelessly manage lighting and collect key data about the operating environment. The smart lighting solution is targeting efficiency improvements and lowers ownership costs.
Only a few months ago Xicato announced a new intelligent platform powered by Echelon Corporation, the world’s leading control networking platform provider. The platform development spotlighted how the Internet of Things could become a reality in professionally-lit spaces and showed how Lighting 2.0, the convergence between networking, building management and lighting could begin gaining traction in the commercial sector.
Xicato’s intelligent module, XIM, integrates sensors, diagnostics and communications in the light source combined with Echelon’s command and control system, provides retailers, hoteliers and building managers with an open approach for the connection and collection of critical data, which turns existing light points into intelligent nodes and lets them control and manage their spaces from virtually anywhere, on any device.
Menko de Roos, CEO of Xicato summed up the scale of the ambition by saying: “A smartphone has about a dozen different sensors, including ambient light for the screen. With chip technologies, sensors and networking protocols, we are enabling an Internet of Lights. The ability of light sources to communicate with each other, a management system or with people in spaces sets the stage for a broad range of applications that improve a customer’s experience.”
The Xicato partnership deals with Digital Lumens and Echelon Corporation look like forming a template for a string of similar partnership tie-ins with other players in the lighting control systems and security/surveillance sectors.
Lightfair International 2014 provided a number of examples of what is likely to come. One example being Acuity Brands demonstrating how smart lighting can be connected with shoppers’ mobile phones via Qualcomm visible-light communications technology.
Acuity Brands’ lighting technology empowers retailers to enhance customers’ experiences through their mobile devices and increase in-store sales. With more than 60 percent of mobile shoppers using smartphones while in-store, and 85 percent of consumers using retailers’ native apps or websites during shopping trips it is clear that retailers have a numerous opportunities to engage consumers on smartphones.
Using Lumicast technology from Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, Acuity Brands’ smart LED lighting technology allows retailers to engage with customers on mobile devices based on their location in the store. The visible light communication technology is the gateway for retailers to interact with shoppers on a intimate level, from providing relevant coupons to enabling customers to quickly and easily find merchandise throughout the store.
"This demonstration showcases the ability of our commercially available eldoLED driver platform to deliver both illumination and visible light communication," said Steve Lydecker, Acuity Brands Lighting Senior Vice President, Applied Integrated Solutions. "This new technology allows LED lighting to be an asset for retailers, not only because of the productivity gains, energy savings and overall environment improvements it provides, but also because of its emerging capacity for enhancing and changing in-store customer experiences. Guiding the shopper through the store based on the shopper’s actual position, visible light communication technology opens the door for retailers to more effectively engage and influence consumers on the retail floor."
"Qualcomm’s Lumicast technology determines a mobile user’s location within 10 centimeters, as well as the user’s orientation within the aisle," said Jeff Henckels, Director of Product Management at Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.’s research group. "Combined with the LED lighting technology from Acuity Brands, this is enabling retailers to provide new levels of value in customer engagement, analytics, and workforce efficiency."
Related articles and links:
www.xicato.com
www.digitallumens.com
www.echelon.com
www.acuitybrands.com
News articles:
Digital Lumens partners Xicato to develop intelligent lighting
Web-based software provides lighting control from mobile devices
Smart lighting LED solution boosts energy savings
Samsung unveils first Bluetooth-enabled smart LED light bulb
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