Illuminating the Future

Illuminating the Future – Lighting Trade Fair in Frankfurt

The idea of visiting the world’s leading trade fair for lighting technology, The Light + Building expo, was born during the development process on a new application using LED-based Indoor Positioning technology. NaviDesk recognizes coded light to navigate a user indoor and is powered by Philips Lighting. Then, inevitably our main focus during the expo was on the presentations exposed in the Philips Lighting zone. Coincidentally, at the same time Philips Lighting announced re-branding to Signify which received broad media coverage, also with our participation:

picture 1
Backdrop Banner prepared to spread the word about Philips re-branding to Signify

Among many fascinating Philips LED luminaries applications, there were: luminous textile panels enabling to play with colour, movement, texture and light, luminous flooring, OneSpace luminous ceiling, efficient lighting for product exposition in retail stores, as well as examples of worldwide deployments of new lighting infrastructure allowing to reduce energy consumption up to 80%. Some of the buildings, like “The Edge” in Amsterdam has been fitted with as many as 6.500 connected LED fixtures and 3.000 sensors to deliver a smart connected lighting system. This allows to enhance workspace experience by personalizing the lighting and temperature with the use of a mobile application, as well as to collect anonymous data about occupancy to track energy consumption and optimize workplace design.

dav

Philips LED Lighting in Retail

The proper lighting carefully chosen for a given purpose (like making the room more cozy or modern) can be decisive for attracting customers. Premium white color of LEDs will make white clothes even whiter by interacting with phosphorus particles remained in the cloth from the washing powder. Psychological impact which lighting has on a human is the domain of environmental psychology, but what is worth mentioning is that buildings can be awarded a specific “certificate of well-being” if their design supports wellness and performance of inhabitants.

sdr

Standard White versus Premium White Color to modify the shop atmosphere

Generally, the Light + Building exhibition at The Messe Frankfurt showcased innovative technology and extraordinary products – from decorative lighting, technical lighting for special applications, lighting management, LED chips, smart lighting to electrical installations at intelligent home. Digital lighting, interconnected lighting and human centric lighting contribute to “smart living” concept – not only because of sophisticated technical aspects, but also from the angle of user-centered design and comfort. Lighting was positioned as a part of digitalisation in building services management through integration with other services, thus making it possible to create energy-efficient solutions.

sdr

Philips Luminous Surfaces

Directly from Light + Building expo we embarked on a trip to Eindhoven, famous for its open innovation and the former Philips industrial complex. Eindhoven is one of the leading cities in Europe implementing smart city innovations like smart lighting, city-wide sensor network, Citybeacons, smart building, traffic management etc. Acceleration of innovations is facilitated by Brainport Eindhoven ecosystem and partnerships like between Philips Lighting, Heijmans and Technische Universiteit Einhoven which resulted in creating a Smart City Continuous Innovation Process (SCCIP). One of the domains of this programme is focused on urban data platform and urban mobility – to which we devoted our next journey (coverage from Intertraffic – to be published soon).

Iwona Skowronek