Customer Background
Our customer is a leading American manufacturer of connectivity solutions offering a comprehensive range of products across the electric, thermal, lighting, and fibre optics sectors. Leveraging its powerful in-class technology expertise, the organisation has been delivering engineering excellence and enhanced energy efficiency to its end-users spread across 40+ countries.
Customer Need
The customer wanted to expand their business to the enterprise segment by launching a unique smart modular lighting solution for interconnected commercial spaces (modern workplaces, data centers, educational institutions, and healthcare facilities). They also needed a solution to lower the energy consumption of their existing IT infrastructure thereby reducing operational costs. The customer engaged with Softdel to develop a comprehensive smart lighting solution with faster connectivity, interoperability, and high energy efficiency.
Softdel’s Solution
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Softdel developed a comprehensive power over Ethernet (PoE) enabled intelligent lighting solution that comprised:
- Sensor integration and gateway firmware development
- A lighting control application with embedded intelligence
- Operating System (OS) independent API module development for third party integrations, with support for load balancing
- A cloud-based (Azure) platform that provided in-depth analytics and a user-friendly dashboard
- An application for system configuration and commissioning
- Integration with Cisco EnergyWise
- A mobile application to control the smart lighting solution. - Softdel integrated the highly secure PoE standard with BACnet protocol for effortless interoperability with building management systems (BMS).
- A network engine module was developed to provide the customer with better network health status.
- The solution was further enhanced by adding automation controls, mode controls, and task-oriented controls, along with advanced lighting functionalities (dimming, daylight calibration, grouping of fixtures) for a more personalised experience.
Standards and Technology
ASHRAE Standard 135-2016: BACnet (PR-19/PR-14)
Device: PoE, MQTT, CoAP
Cloud: Azure IoT Edge, Azure Cosmos DB
DevOps: Kubernetes
Application: Xamarin
Frontend: Angular JS, HTML5
Platform: Cisco EnergyWise
Framework: .Net MVC
Interface: REST API
Script: jQuery
Benefits
- Increased operational efficiency: The integrated solution equipped the customer's lighting system with predictive and preventive maintenance capabilities, fostering better real-time reporting and optimising costs.
- Secured architecture: The solution combines the latest industry standards with embedded intelligence to create a secure infrastructure for the customer’s smart lighting solution.
- Energy-efficient solution: Powered by BACnet and PoE-reliant technology, the solution effectively provides solutions for monitoring daylight, humidity, air quality, energy consumption, etc., thus enabling better energy cost savings for the customer.
- Building healthier environment: Softdel’s smart lighting environment ensures that the customer has access to controlled and comfortable natural light, which consequently enhances overall wellbeing, promotes learning, and sharpens concentration.
