Why Lighting Professionals Prefer
Bluetooth Commercial Connected
Lighting Over Wired Alternatives

Bluetooth^® Mesh continues to prove itself as the most effective and user-friendly technology for commercial connected lighting. This is largely due to its ability to provide a fully decentralized lighting architecture that enables professionals, such as designers, specifiers, or architects, to deploy lighting environments with minimal disruption to their design or the building. These systems also establish a platform that enables advanced building services, including indoor navigation and asset tracking.

Taiwan’s Delta Electronics, a developer of smart building technology, has developed a lighting control system based on Bluetooth Mesh that helps professionals easily deploy commercial connected lighting systems. I recently had the chance to speak with Sog Yang, Software & Platform Manager at Delta Electronics, about how Bluetooth Mesh has helped Delta achieve this. 

Q&A with Sog Yang

Could you please provide an overview of the Delta Bluetooth^® Intelligent Control system?

In the construction and lighting industry, designers and architects do not like to see their work occupied with drilling holes for wiring. Bluetooth^® Mesh uses wireless technology to minimize the need for control wires or a central controller.

Using the Bluetooth Mesh profile, Delta developed a decentralized control system, the Delta Bluetooth Intelligent Control, that provides group control, scene recall, schedule settings, and sensor triggers all without the need for a central controller. The system offers greater convenience for architects, interior designers, and building automation solution providers for lighting environment design and deployment. The data acquisition feature provides a fundamental technology for asset and people management, and real-time-based services-related applications that establish a next-generation building backbone for device control and sensor networking.

What are the key challenges an enterprise encounters when installing smart lighting?

For buildings that plan to install a smart lighting system, the cost and the possibility of circuit wiring in existing buildings is usually a big concern. However, our Bluetooth^® lighting system solves this problem perfectly with its wireless control mechanism. Our solution is implemented mainly by luminaires with embedded Bluetooth drivers which construct a matrix network in the building that allows signals to transfer smoothly without physical wiring. A lighting control system in a building is no longer a high-cost task. The wireless technology allows expanding the lighting control system to include asset tracking, navigation, hot-spot analysis, and more. All these functions can be achieved using the network of connected Bluetooth Mesh luminaires. The security mechanism in Bluetooth Mesh technology also reduces concerns about communication security.

Bluetooth^® panel light PA1 has become the first smart lighting product globally to achieve a UL IoT Security Rating. What role does Bluetooth technology play in that achievement?

The Bluetooth^® Mesh profile standard provides an IoT security rating for a secure networking environment. This is a fundamental technology for mobile apps which can be used in device provision configuration, such as device grouping, scene setup, schedule setup, and more. After that, the devices can communicate with each other.

What other benefits can a Bluetooth^® commercial connected lighting system offer?

For designers, Bluetooth^® Mesh uses decentralized, wireless technology to minimize the need for control wires or a central controller. This helps maintain the original design concept and aesthetics. In addition, compatibility with the Bluetooth Mesh profile lets us use third-party parts, such as wall switches and occupancy sensors, to produce lighting solutions quickly. For information technology providers, the commercial connected lighting system could be an IoT backbone for a building’s control and sensing applications. Bluetooth Mesh lighting control systems provides greater convenience to designers and users and can be flexibly used in various sectors, such as offices, hospitals, retail, and industry.