At the 2017 Smart City Summit and Expo, held in Taipei, Taiwan, connected lighting is one important trend that cannot be overemphasized. Philips Lighting, the Dutch lighting giant, presented an integrated smart lighting solution to showcase its resolution to compete in this market.
Due to urbanization, it is estimated that by 2050, 70% of the world's population will be living in cities, which could bring about many challenges in city management. The need for smart cities arise accordingly.
Philips Lighting presented connected lighting for offices at the 2017 Smart City Summit & Expo. (LEDinside)
The Netherlands is a successful example in terms of developing smart cities. According to Mr. René van Hell, Director of International Enterprise at the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the key is public-private partnership.
But success did not come easily. “With the government’s blueprints, we have made quite a lot of mistakes,” Mr. René van Hell said. The Dutch government decided to do things the other way around by inviting ten of the country’s largest cities, major universities and companies including Philips Lighting to jointly come up with a plan.
The Dutch government chose Philips Lighting as a partner because the company embraces an “open innovation policy,” said René van Hell. Only by opening up can the Netherlands continue to optimize the use of energy and achieve the ultimate goal of sustainable development.
During the presentation, Selwyn Jonker, Vice President & General Manager for the Greater China region at Philips Lighting, showcased examples of connected lighting from street lighting, office lighting to lighting for infrastructures across the Netherlands and in LA, Denmark, Sweden, and China.
Selwyn Jonker, Vice President & GM Professional Lighting, Greater China at Philips Lighting. (LEDinside)
“Smart lighting is very nearby,” Jonker commented. By leveraging mobile and cloud-based technologies as well as comprehensive partnership, Philips Lighting is able to provide a full-range life cycle services from installation, illumination to maintenance and even recycling.
“We owns the entire value chain and will seamlessly interact with IoT to bring better experiences to end users through products, systems, and services,” Jonker added.
Apart from availability, the company also values the emotional aspect of lighting. Simply put, lighting affects the atmosphere of a city and how people feel about their surroundings. “Public lighting bridges the emotional and technical realms,” Dr. Peter Zink, Philips Lighting’s Road & Street Segment Manager, said.
However, public lighting is everywhere but connectivity is not, as Dr. Zink noted. That is why Philips Lighting has been eagerly promoting its CityTouch, an end-to-end software platform for outdoor lighting.
Dr. Peter Zink, Road & Street Segment Manager at Philips Lighting. (LEDinside)
More than 800 customers from municipalities to mega cities in 36 countries already manage their streets lighting with CityTouch, the company estimated. This management system goes beyond illumination and consists of software applications, lighting assets, platform and services that makes handling public lighting infrastructure less problematic.
The company highlighted that CityTouch can work in combination with existing street lights from any manufacturer simply by using connector nodes. In addition, with APIs, customers can integrate CityTouch into their existing systems, which can help extend its global reach. The platform also features the highest level of security to ensure data transmission and storage is protected.
Lastly, the hardware CityTouch uses is tested to withstand harsh environment or weather conditions, which is a plus in disaster-prone places such as Taiwan.
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