Lighting in Design Q4 2018

The future for smart street lighting

Network connectivity and intelligence integrated into LED-based luminaires form the backbone of smart buildings and cities, and make the Internet of Things (IoT) vision feasible. Lighting in Design spoke to BEKA Schréder’s Daniel Kasper, Product Development Manager, and Grant Combrink, Marketing Manager, about how smart lighting is infiltrating South Africa beyond smart homes and the latest commercial developments.

“W hat is important to us is the product itself – there are a lot of the buzzwords to do with connectivity, but you can’t connect something to nothing. Our main focus is the product, because ultimately, we want users to manage our products the best they can from a performance, energy and monitoring point-of- view,” says Combrink. “In terms of smart lighting, a product can be ‘basic’ smart or it can be very complex and sophisticated,” explains Kasper. He believes that – at this point – we are still at the early stages of smart lighting, commonly referred to as ‘remote management’, i.e. the remote control of a light. BEKA Schréder’s work in remote management began in 2008 when the first management system was deployed, but, as with any other new device, Kasper believes that smart lighting will only get traction when it offers substantial benefits to the end-user while being easily in- tegrated to the existing IoT platform. Combrink thinks the smart home bubble first has to burst for smart lighting to filter down to other sectors. “You can find smart lighting online these days. Once smart lighting in the home has become the norm it will start filtering through in the market and, when it becomes successful, it will become a demand in other segments very quickly. The preparation for that is already hap- pening in the background,” he says. Kasper adds, “In the commercial sector, smart lighting has a fair bit of traction because it pays off quite quickly and adds value to building

management.Where I see the change for street lighting is when municipalities start to outsource the maintenance of luminaires. As soon as that happens, the companies performing the main- tenance will be very interested in recovering a return on their investment as quickly as possible”. The future of smart lighting “Currently, there are too many configurations of luminaires and customers don’t know which configuration to choose,” says Kasper. “I see smart lighting simplifying things. A self-adjusting luminaire will allow users to have one type of configuration – the luminaire will be smart enough to adjust itself in respect of colour tem- perature, photometry and light intensity on site. “BEKA Schréder manufactures luminaires to be as ‘plug-and-play’ as possible, with con- figuration, commissioning and training as part of the package, along with connectivity to a third party,” says Combrink, noting that with new technologies come requirements for different skillsets. “You need data analysis, network understanding, and so on, so it’s an upskill to other technologies.” He foresees that data and analytics will become imperative for end users. “The maintenance aspect of street lighting is going to shift; maintenance teams will be data collectors added to their current role” With technology changing so quickly, there is a possibility that luminaires could analyse data through video. “This will be different to what we currently use video streaming for,” says Kasper.

Smart lighting column.

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LiD Q4 - 2018