IoT – or the Internet of Things – has been the buzzword for a while now and businesses are constantly on the lookout for ways to fast track their IoT adoptions and rollouts.
I spoke with Jitender Khurana to find out how a traditional lighting network can be harnessed to rapidly transform a dumb building into a smart IoT-enabled environment.
Jitender Khurana is the Country Head & Managing Director for Singapore and Emerging Markets at Signify. Photo: Signify.
I asked Jitender the key to Signify’s competitive advantage in helping its customers embrace IoT.
Three simple words: “Lighting is ubiquitous,” says Jitender, head honcho for Singapore and Emerging Markets at Signify.
“Lighting is ubiquitous,” says Jitender Khurana, head honcho for Singapore and Emerging Markets at Signify.
But how does that give Signify a leg up in helping businesses embrace IoT more quickly and easily?
Well, the most tedious aspect of rolling out an IoT implementation is typically the deployment of IoT sensors and the network connecting these sensors back to the IoT platform.
Laying the network for both power supply and data tends to be both costly and time-consuming.
For Signify – that network is simply the lighting network that forms the basic infrastructure of any building or facility.
As far as the world leader in lighting is concerned, “Where there’s light(ing), there can be an IoT sensor integrated into the luminaire”.
Jitender explains that the electricity for lighting can be used to power both the sensor and LED while data can be transmitted over the same electric cables through PoE (Power over Ethernet).
“Where there’s light, there’s IoT,” Jitender muses .
So for an existing building, the network is already existent and the endpoints tend to be quite pervasive.
The time, costs and trouble of laying the electric and data cables to build the sensor network is saved.
The same goes for public spaces such as the streets or landmarks.
Remember that adage earlier?
“For Signify – where there’s light, there’s IoT”.
Jitender showed me a sensor that can be deployed at lighting end-points.
Philips SC1500 Multi Sensor Bundle for Signify’s Interact IoT platform; with sensors for humidity, daylight, sound pressure, BLE, IR, people count and radiant temperature.
The Signify SC1500 multi-sensor bundle is really compact, measuring roughly 4 x 5 x 3 cm – that’s roughly the size of a regular light-bulb.
It contains a comprehensive set of seven environment and people sensors to provide the information needed to enable key office management functions.
So you have the sensor and you have the network, what remains is the IoT platform to tie everything together.
Jitender tells me this is where Signify has gone beyond illumination to develop the Interact IoT platform – the company’s anchor offering for IoT.
The Interact platform makes lighting intelligent and can provide a wireless network for transmitting data from the sensors, in addition to PoE.
Interact Office is a scalable and multisite solution, offering a hassle-free upgrade of an existing building, transforming it into a smart environment with a wireless connected lighting system.
Signify’s Interact collates environment and people data from the extensive sensor network in the building or public space and provides a consolidated situation picture on a dashboard.
This facilitates real-time awareness and enables either automated or human-initiated actions to better control the facility.
All manners of lighting and value-added IoT-enabled applications become quickly available via Interact.
I could feel the enthusiasm when Jitender listed the eclectic range of IoT applications that Interact is able to enable.
In the workplace, has everyone left a meeting room or an office? Switch off the lights and raise the temperature setting for those areas by a few degrees to reduce energy consumption – saving costs and increasing sustainability.
For the smart city, dim the light to 30% in the middle of the night when nobody is around, or increase lighting in areas where crime and accidents are frequent. Beautify landmarks and create dynamic architectural lighting and stunning light shows.
For sports and large scale events like the National Day Parade – monitor, manage and co-ordinate the entire lighting infrastructure from a single dashboard.
If you’re running a supermarket or retail space, analyse customer footfall for in-depth retail analytics and monitor stocks on the racks to trigger top-up of goods on display.
In a warehouse, manage lighting and energy optimisation, as well as indoor navigation, space and lighting asset management to improve efficiency, productivity and safety.
I asked Jitender why his customers choose Signify.
Who is Signify?
Signify is the world leader in lighting, formerly known (until a name change in 2018) as Philips Lighting.
Founded in Eindhoven in the Netherlands, the company has a legacy of more than 125 years of innovation in providing conventional, LED and connected lighting; with more than 86 million connected light points around the world, and 6.5 million Euros in sales in 2020.
Jitender is proud to report that the company is 100% carbon neutral in its global operations and helps his customers towards that goal as well.
With 39,000 employees in over 70 countries, Signify has been in Singapore for 52 years, since 1969.
The company has established a centre of excellence for IoT for the region, with an upcoming centre of excellence in horticulture.
For Jitender, the four pillars of his strategy for Singapore and the region are IoT, sustainability, horticulture and UV-C solutions.
UV-C solutions are especially pertinent to aid nations in being pandemic-ready.
He is introducing pioneering solutions to enhance the health and well-being of the people in Singapore through proven effective disinfecting technology.
He shares that for a start when a typical facility replaces its conventional lights with LED, they immediately enjoy a 40-50% savings in energy costs with a further 15-20% savings from optimisation of usage through intelligent lighting enabled by the sensors.
The implementation pays for itself usually within 2-3 years.
He estimates that, in Singapore, roughly 80% have already made the switch to LED lighting.
But in addition to the greater sustainability, Interact bestows upon a building or facility an entire new dimension of capability and efficiency enabled by IoT, for lighting and beyond.
How fast can a company come on board?
Jitender says he can offer a rollout as a Lighting-as-a-Service (LaaS), with zero upfront costs.
So if a company hasn’t budgeted for a much-needed upgrade or simply doesn’t want an upfront CAPEX, they can subscribe on an LaaS model and after say 5-7 years, the organisation goes on to own the infrastructure in perpetuity.
That sounds like a great value proposition for any businesses looking for some low-hanging fruits in terms of immediate operational cost savings, whilst building for the future by embracing IoT.
Tags: Business IT, horticulture, interviews, IoT, opinion, Philips, Signify, Singapore, sustainability, UVC
I’m familiar with SaaS, PaaS etc in IT, learnt today that there’s also LaaS! interesting!
ikr. It’s a new term for me too! 🙂
I notice the sensor has BLE, can I deploy it for indoor navigation in my shopping mall?
Yes you can. It’s also used in warehouses too.