Page 64 - Lighting Magazine March 2019

SMARTER HOMES BIGGER SALES
EYE ON IoT
While in theory, mesh network products can avoid central hubs/hardware, Witzgall believes such a gateway will likely be needed for Bluetooth Mesh as it gains popularity in smart home systems over the next three to ve years. She also sees WiFi mesh as having bandwidth and security issues.
Another stumbling block are the smart control companies that o er closed systems that don’t play well with others. Meanwhile there are other smart control companies out there with more open sys- tems. For example, Witzgall notes that Lutron shut down the API’s for interoperability a er acquiring Ketra, while Leviton is adding Zigbee to enable open collaboration with Philips Hue and others.
“Philips Hue’s Friends of Hue luminaire products are available for the showroom channel. Our partners include Access Lighting, Cra made, Elk Lighting, and ET2.”—Jeroen Schultemaker, Signify
These Philips Hue bulbs can be retro ed into standard incandescent sockets to instantly create “smart” lamps that easily connect to a hub.
shoWroom Channel sUppliers
In addition to all of the IoT product manufacturers already mentioned in this article, there are many other well-known suppliers to the showroom in- dustry o ering smart products today.
Modern Forms by WAC o ers smart ceiling fans that can be controlled by an app, as does Hunter/ Casablanca. For years Fanimation has had a Blue- tooth app that permits users to remote-control their ceiling fans.
According to Jeroen Schultemaker, Head of Consumer Sales, at Signify (formerly Philips Lighting), “Philips Hue’s Friends of Hue luminaire products are available for the showroom channel. Our partners include Access Lighting, Cra made, Elk Lighting, and ET2.”
He adds, “Our Friends of Hue partners o er a combination of products: xtures that include Hue’s smart light bulbs or xtures integrated with our smart lighting technology. They also o er our Hue bridge, which is the heart of our smart light- ing system; it allows you to control your lights from anywhere to create immersive entertainment ex- periences and more.”
Aurora Chun, Marketing Coordinator at the smart control company Noon Home, extols the easy operability of the line. “The Noon Smart Lighting System transforms spaces with profes- sional-quality layered lighting with one-touch control,” she says. “Working with the existing lights and xtures, Noon creates lighting scenes that are unique to each mood and activity experiences in the home.”
form a strateGy
If your showroom has a technical-oriented person on sta , this could be the right time to introduce IoT lighting and smart home products by expand- ing their responsibilities to include purchasing and training the sales sta and potentially partnering with a local IoT integrator.
Then again, a er much contemplation, you may decide that your showroom is not ready to take this next step. Not every business will be the right t, but it should be a conscious decision a er con- sidering all of the opportunities and challenges.
An absence of IoT in your showroom shouldn’t be the result of inertia or the reliance on how things have been done in the past. The smart home device market is growing quickly and here to stay. 
60 enLIGHTenment Magazine | March 2019
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