Below is a new item I wrote for the September issue of tED Magazine, the official publication of the NAED. Reprinted with permission.
One year after its founding, in May 2018 the IoT-Ready Alliance released a standard specification allowing any type of Internet of Things (IoT) sensor or control module to connect seamlessly to a luminaire or other building system. Standardization is a significant step in enabling the IoT.
Already disrupted by LED technology, the lighting industry is now undergoing another revolution in intelligent control and wireless communication. Because lighting has coverage almost everywhere in a building and can be used to power sensors, potential now resides in LED lighting serving as an IoT platform. In these solutions, integrated, intelligent building systems generate data for building optimization, business process analytics, and new services.
Ideally, integration should be seamless, but significant technical hurdle are compatibility between devices and upgradeability. This is of particular concern as new LED luminaires are being installed that may later be difficult to retrofit with sensors as the IoT develops. Additionally, even in installations featuring smart sensors, fast-moving IoT technology will likely offer numerous upgrade opportunities, creating demand for sensors that are easily replaceable in the field.
In response to this need, the IoT-Ready Alliance developed an industry open standard allowing sensors and control modules to connect to luminaires and building systems. Interface Specification V1.0 defines a socket (combination of mechanical, electrical, and software elements) that allows any type of luminaire-integrated or remote IoT sensor or control module to connect to a luminaire or other building system. The standard enables IoT-Ready-compliant products to utilize any networking protocol, either wired or wireless (ZigBee, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, IP/Ethernet, etc.). Communications between the sensor and driver are standardized to enable lighting control, driver status, and energy information.
It is suitable for all LED lighting and building control networks, backwards-compatible with legacy lighting controls, and implementable with traditional controls until the IoT is needed. No disassembly is required for in-field retrofit and replacement. Installation of compliant products provides IoT capability, future-proofing for future implementation, and ability to easily upgrade sensors.
The specification is available to manufacturers via royalty-free licenses. At LIGHTFAIR 2018, two manufacturers launched compliant products:
The luminaire-integrated Enlighted Sensor by Enlighted, now being acquired by Siemens, collects and monitors real-time occupancy, light levels, temperature, and energy consumption using a 32-bit ARM process with enhanced processing and memory capacity. Feature and security advancements are provided through automatic remote software upgrades.
Tridonic’s IoT-Ready-compliant LED driver is designed to work with any protocol and smart sensor. The driver is constant current, dims from 100 to 1 percent, features adjustable output current, and has built-in power metering.
“The Specification achieves our design goals of broad industry support, extensibility, low-cost, and simplicity of implementation,” Evan Petridis, Chair, IoT-Ready Alliance Technical Committee stated in a press release. “Now that our first Specification is published and products are on the market, we look forward to working together with other technical standards bodies in the lighting, building management, and IoT spaces to ensure a single set of coherent standards world-wide.”
Click here to learn more.
