Connected public light points for IoT benefit is live in Malaysia

Philips Lighting has launched the Philips Professional Lighting Experience Centre (PLEC) along with a Philips Home Lighting Lounge, in Kuala Lumpur.

Philips Malaysia Director for Lighting, Alok Ghose said, “As the global leader for lighting, we want to unlock new values of digital lighting here in Malaysia. Understanding how lighting affects people, it is our desire that the connected and intelligent lighting systems showcased will inspire more ideas, interactivity and novel experiences, and further improve the lives and well-being of all Malaysians.”

The PLEC was a showcase of how the right lighting at the right moment can help redefine commercial and urban spaces.

The PLEC is located on the 8^th floor of Menara Axis in Petaling Jaya, and serves to showcase breakthrough smart, connected LED lighting solutions across commercial industries and urban spaces, all in the name of enhancing productivity, navigation, efficiency, safety and system management.

The bigger picture

Philips Lighting ASEAN Pacific, Market Leader Patricia Yim who was also present at the launch event, added about the role lighting in public areas can play with regards to the Internet of Things (IoT). She opined that IoT has two elements, namely connectivity and data.

As a result of connectivity, data can be collected and analysed to provide better insight and drive better decision-making.

There is a real-life example of this in one of the states in Malaysia as well. A total of 1200 lamp posts spanning a considerable distance within the city area, has been deployed with Philips CityTouch lighting system. Telekom Malaysia was also involved in the connectivity portion of the project and provided 2G SIM cards for each of the 1200 lamp posts.

The CityTouch system allows easy remote management of all connected street lights, while also enabling asset monitoring, asset maintenance and measurements of usage.  Besides the potential 70-percent energy savings from this more efficient lighting system, there is also labour cost savings when there is no more need for manpower to physically go to each location to switch on or switch off street lights.

To support the planning and layout of streetlights aka sensors in public spaces, is a systems centre that is based in Singapore.

Connected lighting in public spaces, can be viewed as an Internet of Things application, and a core component towards the building of a smart connected city.

Ghose shared that Philips Lighting is in discussions about several more similar projects with project owners from the public as well as private sector.

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