SPECIAL FEATURE
LIGHT – THE IDEAL INFRASTRUCTURE FOR THE IOT? Simon Blazey, strategic solution sales manager at Tridonic UK, discusses how lighting systems are the perfect infrastructure and basis for a successful IoT.
S
mart building is already a much-used phrase. It stands for the efforts to create intelligently networked, energyefficient and sustainable buildings – always linked with new technologies and the Internet of Things (IoT). However, implementing the IoT requires a powerful and reliable infrastructure. The IoT will produce the next generation of integrated, open architected, IP-centric, smart, connected, high performance,
sustainable, energy-efficient, operationallyefficient, green, intelligent buildings that we have been discussing for over a decade. The reason that it is important to transform our existing buildings and ensure that new buildings are constructed to these smart buildings or IoT standards is quite simple. We want to operate buildings in the most cost-effective manner, save energy, be good stewards of our resources, make sure the occupants are safe and happy, and ultimately achieve a more profitable enterprise. The IoT allows objects to be sensed and controlled remotely across existing
network infrastructures, creating opportunities for more direct integration of the physical world into computerbased systems and resulting in improved efficiency, accuracy and economic benefit. The Internet of Things has the potential to offer business value that goes beyond operational cost savings. Providers in the IoT ecosystem have a largely unexplored opportunity to develop compelling IoT solutions that explore how the ability to collect and analyse disparate data – in real-time and across time – might transform the business.
42 | January 2019
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21/12/2018 09:33