Light and Building 2018, one of the largest trade shows in Europe, gathers over 2,700 exhibitors and their advanced lighting and building automation technologies in Frankfurt. Those technologies reflect the highly dynamic nature of the sector and the rising demand for smart life and efficient energy management around the world. In particular, one of the most exciting things must be to learn what major companies announce and showcase at the fair. Here, LEDinside sees a trend that big lighting companies are now transforming themselves from lamp suppliers to IoT solution and service providers.

Light + Building 2018, the largest trade fair for lighting and building services technology in Europe, officially begins on March 18. For the next six days, 18-23 March, exhibitors at the show will showcase their state-of-the-art products and technologies, whether they are for lighting, communication, building automation, or automotive applications.

Philips Lighting published a new report together with SmartCitiesWorld that highlights the drivers and hurdles faced by local authorities considering implementing a smart city program. 

Eric Rondolat, CEO of Philips Lighting, talked briefly about the lighting market in the US during an interview with CNBC.

The London School of Economics Configuring Light research group and LUCI, the international network of cities on urban lighting, along with Osram, have launched the joint research project "Pathways to Municipal Smart Lighting". It aims to show how municipalities worldwide understand intelligent lighting, how the topic fits into visions and plans for the urban future of towns and cities and how smart lighting can be realised within the framework of specific public policies.

Technology company Continental is committed to address accidents with its advanced driver assistance, Vehicle-to-X communications, and sensor technologies to turn today's dangerous intersections into safer, more intelligent intersections. The technology detects road users within a 360° perimeter of intersections and communicates the position and movement of these objects to all approaching vehicles, which are equipped with V2X technology.

The town of Nenzing in Vorarlberg has taken a big step towards the future with renewed street lighting and the intelligent InCity lighting management system. Zumtobel Group Services consulted and supported the complete development and implementation of the smart control system for the 6000 inhabitants city. 

Thorn Lighting has launched two new outdoor luminaires ready for smart cities of today and tomorrow.

Philips Lighting has installed 12,000 Philips LED connected street lights, managed by its Philips CityTouch street lighting management software, as part of a renovation of Guadalajara’s public lighting. The project was completed with energy services provider Ferrovial Services.

Guangdong Rongwen Energy Technology Group (Rongwen) and Silver Spring Networks announced their selection to connect smart LED street lights in Guangzhou, China at Smart City Expo World Congress. 

KORE, Remoticom and LIGHTRONICS today announced a partnership to offer IoT-enabled global streetlights and outdoor lighting solutions as a key component of the increasingly “smart” city

The Smart Cities Council ‒ the world's largest smart cities network ‒ has expanded eligibility for its 2018 Readiness Challenge Grants to include government jurisdictions across the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Cities, counties, states, provinces and regional authorities (transit, ports, etc.) are invited to apply. Grant applications are available online starting today at //www.smartcitiescouncil.com/scc-2018-readiness-challenge-info. The deadline for submitting an application is Nov. 10, 2017.

Silver Spring Networks announced that it will deploy its Starfish™ platform-as-a-service (PaaS) across the City of London and the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. This adds to the previously announced London deployment in the City of Westminster. 

Ridgeland, widely known as one of Mississippi's most tech-savvy cities, will partner with C Spire in a smart city technology trial this fall involving smart lighting and vehicle traffic analytics applications.

Philips Lighting announced that 11 municipalities in southern Rogaland in Western Norway will be transformed into smart municipalities over the next two years. Over 18,000 connected Philips LED street lights will be installed and controlled remotely using the Philips CityTouch lighting management system. The combination of LED luminaires and remote monitoring and control will transform the management of lighting across the municipalities, enabling energy and operational savings.

Tata Consultancy Services, a global IT services, consulting and business solutions organization, unveiled intelligent software that allows cities to derive greater value from costly LED lighting by reducing the typical four to five year payback period almost in half – to just two to three years. This allows cities to invest in other smart city projects sooner, cuts energy consumption using self-learning algorithms and improves public safety by responding to real-time changes in traffic, weather and people movement.

Telensa, a specialist in connected street lighting and Smart City applications, announced that it has joined the Smart Cities Council, the world’s premier consortium of smart city practitioners and experts, with more than 120 members who have to date contributed to more than 10,000 projects. Telensa joins the Council as a North America Lead Partner and will work with the industry coalition sharing its experiences and expertise to advance development and innovation.

The 2017 Taiwan International Lighting Show (TILS) and LED Taiwan 2017 were held in Taipei, Taiwan from April 12 to 15. Under the theme “Smart Design and Innovative Applications”, the exhibitions showcased state-of-the-art lighting products that are designed to improve people’s quality of life. Here are some observations that LEDinside wants to share with our readers.

Internet of Things pioneer Echelon Corporation unveiled a patent-pending cognitive vision-based technology that can enable a wide range of smart city and smart campus applications.  Echelon InSight™ utilizes artificial intelligence in vision-enabled edge devices, optimized for Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) applications. 

Telensa, a specialist in connected street lighting and Smart City applications, announced that it is moving its manufacturing back to the UK.  After a strategic review of facilities across the world, the company selected the Sony UK Technology Centre in Pencoed, Wales.

AT&T* Smart Cities momentum continues with the launch of the DIA Smart Cities Living Lab powered by AT&T (Living Lab). The Living Lab is a multi-phased smart cities project in Dallas. The project is spearheaded by the Dallas Innovation Alliance (DIA) in collaboration with AT&T and other technology leaders in the public and private sector. 

AT&T and Current, powered by GE, have announced an exclusive agreement to connect cities across the United States and Mexico to the Internet of Things (IoT). Together, the companies will unlock a realm of possibilities to improve the way cities operate, communicate and meet the needs of citizens.

The trend towards urbanization is continuing and it is projected that by 2050 nearly 70 percent of mankind will reside in urban areas. Such demographic changes will impact on a city’s infrastructure, driving requirements for smarter, more secure and energy-efficient solutions. Infineon Technologies AG and eluminocity GmbH have jointly developed an intelligent streetlight to tackle these requirements. In promoting e-mobility, helping to save energy and enabling a connected infrastructure, the streetlight can serve as the backbone for the city of the future.

Internet of Things pioneer Echelon Corporation is expanding its successful deployment of “white tunable” connected street lighting in White Bear Lake, Minnesota with weather adaptive capabilities powered by its collaboration with IBM Watson Internet of Things (IoT).

At the 2017 Smart City Summit & Expo, held from February 21st to 24th in Taipei, Taiwan, companies from home and abroad showcased their diversified solutions to facilitate smart cities and IoT development. Among them, smart street lighting especially caught LEDinside’s attention.

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.

Korea’s first-ever international conference on urban policy saw a welcome focus on adopting low carbon LED (light-emitting diode) lighting as a means to create smarter, greener cities in Asia.

At the Smart City Expo World Congress, Silver Spring Networks unveiled the next generation of its multi-application, smart city networking platform. Key advancements to Silver Spring’s IPv6-based networking platform include smart city extensions in the Streetlight.Vision Central Management System (CMS) software, integrated GPS, a migration path for those dependent on antiquated GPRS, and successful interoperability testing with multiple smart city CMS solutions in advance of certification for the TALQ outdoor lighting protocol. Silver Spring also announced new partners EnLight and Lumnex, who are integrating their smart lighting technologies with the Silver Spring networking and software platform.

Imagine if you could light up all the dark, shadowy areas in your city, allowing people to move around freely and safely wherever they wanted. Imagine if you could illuminate the city center, parks, and main urban traffic routes flexibly, as lighting needs change over time. You could decide how to switch and dim the lights in selected areas of your city, delivering light exactly when and where it is needed — all by a simple mouse click. 

Petra Solar, a global technology provider for the renewable energy, energy efficiency, and distributed power generation markets, announced that it has changed its name to Petra Systems.