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7 reasons for smart lighting

Lighting that responds to its users, turns on when you are actually there, adopts to the daylight  conditions and even identifies its own maintenance needs? It might once have felt like a luxury, but  the benefits of smart lighting include better health, more efficiency, lower costs and environmental  wins too. 

In fact, it’s not just a nice-to-have – it’s an imperative for any business, real estate company,  municipality or city looking to futureproof their premises, meet sustainability targets and integrate  with other systems to offer new services to tenants and citizens. 

Healthier living

Light has a profound impact on our health and wellbeing – and we spend about 90% of our lives indoors. That’s why the right lighting  environment not only makes the office more attractive – it also contributes to  the wellbeing of employees. And healthy, happy employees do better work. 

In fact, a World Building Council study found that worker productivity  increased 23% with enhanced lighting – as well as highlighting cost savings  through lower staff turnover or absenteeism and improved attitudes towards  employee health and wellbeing.

Human-led design allows lighting to mimic daylight throughout the day,  changing intensity and color temperature. This affects the physical and  emotional health and wellbeing of people working in the building. With the  correct lighting, we are able to control the production of the sleep hormone  melatonin and the stress hormone cortisol.

But every worker is an individual, and personal needs vary depending on the task, their age, and other factors. 

That’s where our truly smart lighting  solution will pay dividends, not only allowing you to control the lighting in the  building to mimic the daylight, but also empowering the people in the building  to adjust the lighting in their workspace to their preferences and needs.  Personal lighting can easily be controlled with an app via your phone or other convenient means like voice control.

It’s not only office lighting that affects health and wellbeing. Getting the lighting
right outdoors – including streets, parking, and walkways – is essential to create a feeling of personal safety and comfort. That doesn’t mean having the  waste and pollution of permanent lighting. Adaptive light-level solutions mean  the light level can be dimmed to a minimum, or to warmer light temperatures,  when it’s not needed – for example when no one is using the area. Not only  does this limit light pollution but also helps with biodiversity in rural areas –  where for example rows of light can be seen as barriers by larger animals,  constricting their habitat.


ROI Takeaway: By improving the health, wellbeing and safety of employees, not  only can productivity be improved but savings can be made on staff recruitment and retention.


ROI Takeaway: LED enabled smart lighting solutions can lower the energy  consumption by up to 90%. This is key to achieve sustainability targets but  also reduces lighting costs all year round.

Waste less energy

Traditionally, lighting systems are designed and deployed, then left to run over time without adapting to the changing environments or requirements. 

With a smart lighting solution, you’re not stuck with the settings you buy. It is possible to improve energy efficiency over time based on actual usage and behaviour data. For example, we can override the default settings to dim the lights when daylight conditions are bright, achieving further energy savings. 

Connected lighting solutions that are energy effective are crucial to reducing energy consumption. Analysis from Fagerhult Group shows that close  to 90% of the emissions from our products comes from them being used, with  just 8% of emissions attributed to materials.

Outdoors, too, it is easy to save energy on streetlights, including LED luminaires. Dimming the light level when streets are empty, and only bringing full  lighting up when a presence has been detected, can result in energy savings of  up to 80% compared to full light levels from dusk to dawn. And LEDs last longer  when operated at low power or for less time. 

For forward-thinking companies that want to achieve sustainable growth and
meet regulatory targets, a smart lighting solution is essential. It allows the
installation owner to dynamically change the parameters, dictating the light
levels and minimising wasted energy. That not only has a significant impact on
energy bills but will contribute to reducing the carbon footprint too.

Become circular

As recycling and sustainable practices become ever more important, smart lighting solutions and luminaires are an important part of the path to a  circular business model.

Incorporating smart technology not only makes a difference right away but facilitates future circular practices too. Why? Because a smart lighting  solution keeps you informed of the need for repairs or replacements, it  reduces the price of your service costs as it allows you to plan maintenance  well ahead. 

And because smart lighting solutions enable luminaire usage to be tracked, warranties can reflect the actual usage of the luminaire based on burn  time, as opposed to fixed time periods. This contributes to a longer  lifetime of the lighting asset as realistic warranties allow for the possibility of  reusing of the luminaire.


ROI Takeaway: By keeping the owner informed of the condition of luminaires,  lighting fixtures can last longer or even be reused, saving money and reducing  waste.


ROI Takeaway:Smart lighting offers the opportunity to reduce complexity and simplify operations creating efficiencies that reduce the workload for facilities, IT  and maintenance. Using standardised APIs, and sharing data with the building’s other applications, smart lighting can drive efficiencies across a whole building  system, not just lighting.

Open granular infrastructure

Lighting doesn’t exist in a silo, and with a smart lighting solution you can think
more holistically about the services in a building.

With smart lighting you can build a granular network of sensors throughout
the building, and with an open architecture it can be utilised by other buildings’
applications. For example, the system’s information and data on presence can
support indoor navigation or trigger activation of the heating, ventilation and
air conditioning (HVAC) systems at the right time. The result is a lower carbon
footprint, less energy waste, and less maintenance.

Smart lighting offers the opportunity for an open and collaborative approach to building services. Solutions are being developed and data models invented to ensure seamless interaction between systems, with Independent Data Layers (Middleware) used to incorporate data from multiple proprietary  systems. The use of APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) enables  flexibility as connections can be formed remotely without access to the site  and deployed at any stage as needs and services develop over time.

Value added services

Smart lighting solutions provide opportunities to add on services enhancing the user experience and creating valuable insights. Employees and residents  can be served with more innovative and attractive built environments, whether  it’s an office building or outdoor city space.

For example, through a smartphone app, employees in a building are able to  easily find and book a free workplace or meeting room or control the light over  their workplace according to their own preferences. 

Time and money can be saved by monitoring which spaces have been used, for example by mapping the areas that need cleaning or even closing down  spaces that are used less during certain business hours. 

On a grander scale, in  an outdoor environment the city can engage with trusted external  stakeholders to support events and incidents using the lighting  infrastructure. For example, a ‘leading light’ can be created to guide a crowd to  or from a venue or away from an emergency area. And light temperature and  intensity can be adjusted in an area to create the right atmosphere for a  special event such as a concert or a fair. 

Through standardised APIs and structured data models, this will also allow
independent companies to simply and securely deploy off-the-shelf applications or alternatively to design the specific applications an installation  owner may require.


ROI Takeaway: A survey conducted by Commercial Real Estate Services showed that EMEA occupiers are prepared to pay a rental premium of  over 20% for tech-enabled smart buildings as it helps them attract and retain the  best staff.


ROI Takeaway: Using remote connections, smart lighting can be controlled  faster, more efficiently, and more effectively, without the need to be on site. For  example, The Mitie building in London uses automated alarms, remote  equipment management, machine learning, and data analytics to achieve a  95% accuracy rate for predictive maintenance calls and a 3% improvement in energy use by clients.

Securely managed

Smart lighting solutions can be accessed remotely through the IP network, allowing configuration, optimisation and status monitoring to be  managed with no need to attend the site. 

The owner can, at any time, oversee the entire installation and receive fault or error information to plan the system’s maintenance efficiently. The  automation of previously manual building management tasks also extends to  mandated tests such as monthly or annual emergency light testing.

The lighting solution can be reconfigured remotely without any physical intervention at the building site, reducing the time and cost relating to  upgrading a site, minising downtime and ensuring the latest software is always  running. But being connected is about more than remote  configuration and monitoring. A wellarchitected, connected solution enables  critical infrastructure to be located in the cloud without jeopardising system  performance. Among its many benefits, cloudbased infrastructure enables a  centralised approach to security where the latest technology can be constantly applied with the support of enterprise partners.

Flexible future

The needs of building tenants are constantly evolving with organisational changes and new user patterns. Most recently, companies  have found they need to offer a work environment with more choices for their  employees, following the post-pandemic move to working more from home.  Getting the office environment right is proving to be an important retention and  recruitment factor. 

Smart lighting simply works ‘out of the box’, with little or no adjustment needed. Through the flexibility of a wireless solution, it’s possible to change  configurations according to new floor plans without having to do any costly  rewiring. 

In an outdoor environment, the lighting needs may change according to road
conditions or weather conditions. For example, the light can be turned on earlier in the afternoon or turned off later in the morning if weather conditions  demand it. Events such as thunderstorms with very dark clouds and heavy  rain could trigger the light to stay on. 

Smart lighting give users and real estate owners greater flexibility to adapt the system to changing needs. The secure open network and ease of remote  access minimises the cost and complexity to make adjustments in future such  as adding on new innovative services as they become available. The  flexibility that comes with a smart lighting solution will support building  strategies now and in the future.


ROI Takeaway: Smart lighting allows for greater flexibility in the future. With the  ability to adapt the system simply and easily to a building’s evolving needs, reducing the time and cost of future fitting and upgrades.

Get started on smart lighting

Questions to ask about smart lighting:

1. Who do you turn to for smart lighting advise?
2. How can smart lighting support your sustainability agenda?
3. What value could smart lighting bring your business?
4. How can your building asset take advantage of smart lighting information?

Download our full guide here (PDF)