Bluetooth^® NLC now supports HVAC integration, enabling smarter systems and better energy efficiency

Bluetooth^® Networked Lighting Control (NLC) has established itself as the leading wireless standard for lighting control and sensing in commercial and industrial environments. It is the technology and standard of choice because of its performance, scalability, robustness, and –  last but not least – ease of use. And it is fully interoperable. With more than 1,000 qualified products and millions of units installed, there is no other contender that comes close in this space.

Of course, Bluetooth NLC has been riding the wave of lighting retrofits, often described as ledification. LED light sources offer significant energy savings, which is why we have been replacing old incandescent and fluorescent lights with LEDs. Once installed, lighting fixtures last for a decade or more. This makes it especially worthwhile to enhance energy efficiency and user experience during replacements. By integrating wireless lighting control components into the new fixtures, users can benefit from adaptive daylight response and greater long-term savings.

For real-world context, recently, Sylvania released a new case study that showcases how Atalian’s Brussels headquarters in Belgium achieved an 84 percent energy reduction and enhanced occupant comfort by upgrading its LED lighting system to a Bluetooth NLC solution that supports real-time monitoring and future-proof smart controls without rewiring. Check out the case study.

Bluetooth Mesh Networking and NLC

Wireless Bluetooth NLC-based mesh networks are ideal for lighting retrofit projects because of their excellent performance. Replacing old lights with new ones is straightforward – use the same form factor, remove the old ones, install the new ones, and you’re done. If cables were needed to create a wired control system, it would mostly be a no-go, inflating the retrofit cost above most budgets. With Bluetooth Mesh Networking, no additional labor is involved, and the marginal cost of adding a Bluetooth NLC sensor controller to a luminaire pays for itself in months.

This is how buildings are being retrofitted, step by step. The result is high-quality lighting paired with significantly reduced energy consumption. As a valuable by-product, dense grids of occupancy sensors interconnected through Bluetooth Mesh Networking are now being established.

People have been using information delivered by occupancy sensors in many creative ways. One popular application is occupancy heatmapping – a dashboard that displays occupancy activity on top of a facility floor plan. The data can be sliced and diced in many dimensions and greatly helps facility managers manage their buildings. Imagine a school or university building with classrooms, auditoriums, cafeterias, and other common spaces. Knowing when and how they are occupied brings many insights and helps manage the space efficiently.

Besides advanced applications and use cases based on highly granular sensor data available through Bluetooth NLC systems, there is one obvious use case we should pay attention to.

The heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems (HVAC).

Enhancing energy efficiency for HVAC systems

HVAC systems are energy hogs. They consume way more energy than lighting. And most of the time, they just run on fixed schedules. Cooling (in summer) and heating (in winter), every business day from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. No exceptions. There are, of course, thermostats that control the temperature, but the setpoints for the thermostats are fixed. 72 degrees Fahrenheit or 22 degrees Celsius during occupied hours and off otherwise. Regardless of whether rooms are fully occupied, lightly occupied, or not occupied at all.

Is there potential to make them more responsive to their surroundings?

The idea of providing occupancy information to HVAC systems is not new. Some newer thermostats either detect occupancy on their own or use remote wireless occupancy sensors. However, these solutions typically support only a limited number of sensors per thermostat and rely on proprietary technologies. This is where the Bluetooth HVAC Integration NLC Profile specification becomes relevant.

Integrating HVAC with Bluetooth NLC

The Bluetooth HVAC Integration NLC Profile specification aims to standardize how occupancy data from NLC systems interfaces with HVAC systems. It offers a straightforward yet powerful solution.

With the rapidly growing number of Bluetooth NLC occupancy sensors installed in buildings, standardizing this data exchange increases functionality and adds overall value to the system through the network effect. The Bluetooth HVAC Integration NLC Profile gives the thermostat vendors a prescriptive guide on how to enable thermostats to receive occupancy data from sensors that have already been installed in high numbers.

The Bluetooth HVAC Integration NLC Profile allows thermostats to consume sensor status messages containing specific device properties and let the HVAC system apply temperature setbacks based on those values. We say: hey, here is how to enable your thermostat to consume occupancy reported by the NLC sensors. It is fully standardized and interoperable. So, any sensor qualified for the Bluetooth Occupancy Sensor NLC Profile, from any vendor, will work with your thermostat. The implementation effort on the thermostat side is minimal. The specification is simple – it essentially requires the implementation of a single instance of a sensor client model. And your thermostat can become occupancy aware and work with any Bluetooth NLC-based lighting system.

Even in buildings without a Bluetooth NLC solution, standalone mesh-enabled occupancy sensors can now be deployed and associated with compatible HVAC thermostats.

The benefits for building owners, facility managers, and tenants are instant. Unoccupied spaces may be configured with small temperature setbacks, even one or two degrees. Nothing that would compromise the comfort of occupants. But these small setbacks will result in significant additional energy savings (Even a low percentage of savings translates into big numbers).

The industry is prepared for the launch of the Bluetooth HVAC Integration NLC Profile. The DesignLights Consortium has developed the NLC-HVAC Integration Toolkit to support energy-efficiency programs, while the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance has been running pilot programs for several months. Given the specification’s plug-and-play nature, HVAC manufacturers are expected to adopt it rapidly.