The next chapter in our smart building technology odyssey circles back to where many building operators first started, with lighting. 17% of all electricity consumed in U.S. commercial buildings is for lighting, and it’s the largest attributed end use of electricity.[1] The availability, reliability and relative ease of energy savings have defined generations of energy projects as lighting technology has matured.
While the savings might be simple to calculate, that doesn’t necessarily make them easy to capture. There are 94 pages in Title 24, the California Buildings Standards Code, on nonresidential indoor lighting requirements.[2] A single hotel in downtown San Francisco might have 3,000 lamps, and rolling a truck and ladder out to 18 regional bank branches takes time and coordination.
And as technology matures, so do the savings questions. What does a light save when it has its own occupancy sensor? What does a light save when that sensor is connected to the thermostat on the wall? Or, the damper in the high-volume conference room?
Enter the open protocol systems of the building internet-of-things.
Building IoT means analytics in the mechanical room, the lobby, and the conference room
LED technology companies have realized two things; a) the complexity of the challenge a chief engineer faces when thinking about upgrading thousands of fixtures in the building, and b) the imaginable value of pairing each of those fixtures with an internet-connected sensor.
Lunera–an IoT-infrastructure company–has just launched a technology partner ecosystem that helps partners seamlessly integrate real-time location services, IoT networking, and energy management applications together with the Lunera Smart Lamp that have embeded sophisticated IoT-edge technology—networking, compute, sensors and controls—directly into the end-cap of LED light bulb. Other applications available as part of Lunera’s Ambient Compute Marketplace include indoor wayfinding, asset tracking, Wi-Fi monitoring, proximity messaging, employee engagement, and space utilization.
It only sounds like Hollywood
Gridium believes in this vision of the future. Imagine a demand prediction signal from Snapmeter modifying HVAC and lighting settings inside a small commercial building, without a central BMS but instead a web of internet-connected and interconnected LED lamps and smart thermostats.
Apple’s CEO Tim Cook talks about “iOS Everywhere” when describing an interconnected consumer experience across the iPhone, Apple’s new HomePod and wireless headphone AirPods, and the Siri voice assistant. Analytics everywhere in your building offers a similarly seamless future to building operations, unlocking rich experiences for building occupants and efficient operations for the bottom line.
For more information on Lunera’s Ambient Compute software platform partnership, see the official announcement here.
