Philips Connected Lighting - shining a light on the internet of things

Currently almost 70% of the world’s energy supply is now used by cities, and as population density increases it is becoming more difficult to provide lighting efficiently.

In certain parts of the UK, such as Essex, street lights are turned off between 12am and 5am to reduce lighting costs. But there are better ways of saving energy.

Philips found that 75% of urban lighting is energy inefficient, and although 10% of urban lighting is now LED only 1% is connected.

CityTouch by Philips is designed to provide a web-based street lighting system that uses mobile connectivity built in to light fixtures. This allows remote access to each connected light to provide updates such as faults in specific street lamps or the usage for each geographical location. Changes can then be made to individual lights or groups of lights.

The system can also be used in spaces such as carparks, where lighting can respond to the presence of a person as opposed to be either on or off for prolonged periods of time.