Controls

Both Forbes and the E-commerce site Houzz have recently published about the growing adoption of residential smart lighting. According to Houzz smart lighting grew from 14% of Houzz lighting purchases in 2021 to 17% in 2022. The March 31, 2023 Forbes article interviewed designers and found ever greater adoption rates. Designers around the country shared [...]

  In January, the Design Lights Consortium (DLC) published a new report about quantifying the non-energy benefits (NEB) of networked lighting controls (NLC). The most valued non-energy benefits varied by stakeholders, but included: extending the life of lighting equipment improved safety and security reduced maintenance improved light quality The top three takeaways of the report are: [...]

A company named Photon Group created a mobile APP called, J’Ignite Ma Rue,” which enables citizens to control the streetlights in their neighborhood. Currently, eleven towns in France are allowing citizens to use the APP to control local streetlights. The primary benefits are saving energy by allowing citizens to turn down or off the lights [...]

On January 4th, 2023, the U.S. EPA announced the first Smart Home Energy Management System (SHEMS) to receive ENERGY STAR certification. Samsung SmartThings is the first platform to earn ENERGY STAR certification for a SHEMS. SmartThings creates smart home IoT control, integrated across any phone, any device, and any brand. With ENERGY STAR certification of [...]

  Mui Board is a smart home system that allows you to control and manage your smart home devices through a single-touch interface. It has a sleek, minimalist design and can be mounted on a wall, making it a convenient and elegant way to interact with your smart home devices. The Mui Board supports a variety [...]

The Zhaga Consortium is launching a new awards program, the global Zhaga Smart City Sensor Awards, to address the needs of many cities that have installed Zhaga-D4i certified streetlights. The awards encourage and recognize excellence in smart city sensors that can be installed on streetlights using the Zhaga Book 18 standard and are suitable for [...]

The Consortium For Energy Efficiency (CEE) Integrated Home Competition seeks high-performance products that deliver energy savings and automated load management while continuing to meet consumer expectations for interoperability, reliability, and simplicity. Innovative submissions gain recognition through endorsement and promotion by Competition Sponsors. Residential end uses in the 2023 Competition span electric and natural gas equipment. Eligible products [...]

ABI Research expects 6.4 million smart hotel room devices to ship worldwide in 2027. That’s double the smart hotel devices that shipped in 2022, with a CAGR of 24.6% between 2021 and 2027. Some of the early adopters are Mandarine Oriental Hotel Group and Hilton. Many more brands are expected to adopt smart hotel technology [...]

A new level of integration between electrification and smart homes was introduced at Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, last week. Schneider Electric unveiled its “Schneider Home” ecosystem that combines home electrification with IoT controls, including: An entire smart main electrical panel called the Schneider Pulse that can control its own relays and acts as [...]