Developing expertise in smart office lighting through implementations

The collaboration between one of Asia Pacific’s largest advisory, design and engineering consultancies, and a world leader in lighting, yields positive results.

Beca’s Singapore Digital Innovation Hub (DIH), launched in 2019, is a focal point for applications of emerging digital technologies in advanced manufacturing and smart cities. Interact Office light management software transformed the hub into an intelligent workplace while advancing Beca’s proficiency in connected lighting systems.

Established in 1979 and as one of Asia Pacific’s largest advisory, design and engineering consultancies, Singapore-based Beca wanted to sharpen its ability to offer cutting-edge and pragmatic advice in the field of smart buildings, by gaining first-hand experience in the deployment of connected lighting systems. Their focus was on transforming their DIH into an intelligent workspace integrated with IoT sensors and road-testing technologies such as augmented and virtual reality, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and other applications. Beca also aimed to collaborate with an industry leader in lighting technologies to co-create smart solutions that effectively address implementation, cybersecurity and privacy challenges.

Beca collaborated with Signify and installed its Interact Office software applications and data-enabled services at the DIH. The implementation started with replacing the DIH’s lighting with energy-efficient luminaires and connecting its lighting systems using standard networking and communications technologies to realise cost savings and operational efficiency. A key feature of the smart lighting system is an integrated chatbot called Charlotte that receives data on room usage from a series of sensors. These sensors are embedded in the lighting system for fast, secure collection and sharing of data with DIH’s existing management systems, using secure, well-defined APIs. Besides optimising usage of meeting rooms throughout the building to reduce energy consumption, the chatbot also maximises space usage and provides employees with a simple and fast way to book a room. With the support of ICT service provider, Getronics, the chatbot was trained to communicate with the lighting and meeting room management systems to deliver an efficient user interface (UI) for users. With this UI, users can easily communicate with the building infrastructure using any standard messaging application on their smartphones, with complete security and authentication. Valuable practical knowledge was gained in the process of deploying the chatbot - it was trained to understand human speak and overcome privacy issues encountered in the analysis of the employees’ room-booking habits via their emails. This chatbot integration realised Beca’s goal to coinnovate with Signify and create smart solutions for connected lighting systems.

Overall, Interact Office has transformed the DIH into an intelligent building and brought Beca another step forward as a value-adding consultancy. Key outcomes of the Interact Office deployment include:

The implementation enabled the Beca team to understand issues in cybersecurity and privacy that could arise when deploying smart building solutions.

By collecting data on meeting room usage over the smart lighting system, Interact optimises room usage.

DIH employees can now interact with and control the building's lighting infrastructure, with their phones, as well as gather insights into lighting usage via an intuitive deshboard, and optimise operations remotely. Beca has, since, designed smart lighting solutions in more than 50,000 m2 of commercial space.

The smart lighting system collects data through sensors in the LED lights to provide insights on the use of space and lighting.