IoT lighting for smart cities, the bet of networking and lighting manufacturers

There have been many IoT smart public lighting solutions presented in recent months by networking and telecommunications manufacturers together with lighting companies to promote energy savings with advanced control and connectivity systems for streetlights in smart city projects..

The recent celebration of important systems integration fairs, Smart buildings and lighting have been the framework to present advanced smart lighting solutions for smart cities based on the Internet of Things (Internet of Things – IoT), result of joint developments between telecommunications, networking and lighting operators.

The following examples of IoT lighting solutions highlight the importance of these developments not only to improve energy efficiency in increasingly populated cities., but as a business opportunity for these industries, as discussed below.

One of the first solutions in the Spanish market, as he advanced Digital AV Magazine, It's Zero Site, a prototype of a connected urban streetlight Ericsson installed in Santander that combines advanced ICT features with state-of-the-art LED lighting and offers macro coverage for 4G technology in 2.600 Mhz.

Huawei Connected City Lighting Solution

The Chinese multinational presented during the recent CeBIT competition 2016 its first IoT lighting solution with multi-level intelligent control that, according to the data provided, will save a 80% of energy in municipal urban lighting.

Connected City Lighting Solution de Huawei connects streetlights to IoT and adopts a GIS-based management system that allows cities to improve the control and performance of each one. The solution offers municipal managers information about the status of each streetlight, on every street and allows precise control of on/off switches and individual brightness, with on-demand lighting.

According to data from The Climate Group, there are approximately 304 millions of streetlights around the world, and this figure will reach 352 millions for 2025, with significant energy consumption and management and maintenance costs for municipalities.

In Huawei's solution, Each street lamp is equipped with a power and brightness controller. Unlike industry standard access methods, like Wi-Fi, Connected City Lighting Solution adopts 6LoWPAN technology, which has low energy consumption, Automatic diagnostic function to solve network problems, in addition to better interaction between streetlights and other smart devices, like sensors.

To improve the control and performance of streetlights, The solution integrates a series of preset smart lighting policies to automatically calculate lighting duration based on local longitude and latitude, and dynamically adjust the lighting direction according to the season, specific month and day.

It is also possible to intelligently adjust the brightness by connecting integrated sensors with third-party traffic and people flow, or based on climate and other environmental conditions. This solution adopts a GIS-based management system, showing complete information about streetlights, including the number of streetlights on each street, your current state, as well as its position and installation time to manage thousands of units located on different roads.

Huawei Connected City Lighting Solution aporta controles inteligentes multinivel. Agile IoT gateways and streetlight controllers are equipped with lightweight components to execute lighting policies and provide a localized decision-making mechanism at two levels, with an open architecture in all its layers.

ZTE BluePillar

This provider of telecommunications and mobile Internet technological solutions has presented the BluePillar solution, an integrated street lamp with BlueBox charging pillar ZTE, base station (BTS) 4G iMacro and smart controller that allows the traditional streetlight pillar to function as a 4G/5G BTS signal repeater or serve as a charging point for electric vehicles.

BluePillar not only solves the difficulty in 4G network sites, but also ensures the construction of Wi-Fi network, environment monitoring, security and management of data collection in hotspots (climate, environment, transport, etc.), while its large outdoor LED screen can be used to display information and advertising.

Philips CityTouch y Vodafone M2M

Another recent global partnership to offer IoT connectivity and lighting services stars Philips Lighting y Vodafone, with the aim of making it easier for cities around the world to deploy connected public lighting systems with remote management to offer energy savings and efficient maintenance.

For this, Philips CityTouch will use Vodafone's global M2M network to connect light points individually, so that each streetlight will integrate an M2M SIM from this operator so that the municipalities can remotely control and manage the system of all the parameters. (performance of each light point, brightness, automatic configuration, fault detection, etc.).

This solution offers energy savings of 30-40%, according to the data provided, as well as the maintenance cost of each streetlight, and its scalable architecture can also incorporate other IoT applications and services.