.
It can also be used for room management, i.e. to determine how well meeting rooms, offices or communal areas are used. Building operators can use this data to optimize the usage of the building and make considerable savings in costs.
If there are presence sensors in a large number of luminaires then the data can be evaluated in much finer detail, for example to optimize the lighting and air conditioning for each individual desk in an office. This principle also applies outside the office environment of course. For example, presence sensors in car park lights or street lights can indicate where there is a free parking space, pass this information on the a satnav and ensure that the free space is indicated by some visual means, such as green light.
Indoor navigation will also be possible by using “beacons”, small Bluetooth transmitters, in the luminaires. With the aid of these radio transmitters anyone with an appropriate smartphone app will be able pinpoint their location to within a few meters – ideal for finding your way round shopping centres, hospitals or airports, or even just for finding a particular product in a large DIY store. Unlike with previous systems the beacons would no longer have to be installed separately or set up individually because of a lack of a network, nor would batteries have to be regularly replaced.
Future-proof Tridonic platform
These few examples provide a good indication of the enormous potential if the Internet of Things is organised via an Internet of Light. Tridonic recognised this potential at an early stage and has applied its expertise in electronics, sensor technology, software and LED luminaire control to develop a future-proof hardware and software platform, the net4more toolbox, which consists of LED Drivers, communication modules, sensors, routers, software and applications and which will be unveiled at Light+Building 2016 in Frankfurt.
In the autumn of 2016 a technological introduction phase will start in which the net4more system will be used in pilot projects – for example in office buildings. For this purpose a partner network will be set up and partners will be able to link their own hardware, such as sensors and communication elements, and their own application software with net4more. From spring 2017 net4more will then be available to everyone.
The crucial benefits that distinguish the net4more system from competitor products is its open platform, flexibility and scalability. net4more was designed right from the start for interoperability and open hardware and software interfaces. For example, the software architecture is based on the open standard of the IPv6 Internet Protocol, wireless communication uses a low-power version with IPv6 which operates like a low-energy version of wifi with networking capability, and the application and communication layers also use the usual open standards. What's more, net4more is the first system that enables both wired and wireless communication – and it is also scalable for any size of building or area.
All this makes net4more particularly future-proof, which is extremely important for areas of application which have to operate reliably for many years – for example in office buildings and factories. It also offers customers the option of integrating their own solutions, whether hardware elements or apps for data analysis or control, in net4more, or using net4more for those solutions. Basic solutions such as a Cloud platform, and apps for configuration and operation are already included in net4more, but customers and partners can add their own solutions and services.
net4more hereby opens up the straightest, most efficient path to the Internet of Light with a large number of services that go beyond light. Tridonic is therefore focusing strongly on the convergence of new technologies, smaller and smaller communication modules and sensors, LED luminaires, apps and mobile internet. This reduces complexity and costs and enables an enormous variety of additional services to be provided in the coming Internet of Things.