The market for Internet of Things (IoT) lighting solutions is expected to grow from $651.1 million in 2017 to $4.5 billion in 2026, according to Navigant Research.
Lighting controls were originally designed for dimming or daylighting, but they have evolved beyond those original functions to include space utilization, conference room management, increased employee productivity, and improved operational efficiency by removing labor required by facility managers or other building personnel. The evolution from an intelligent lighting control system toward an IoT lighting system has occurred in large part because of the easy use of sensors as a host for IoT applications.
As Energy Manager Today reported back in February, the emergence of IoT as a tool for building control has a tremendous number of positive implications for energy managers. But there is a dark side: The electronic linking of building devices and systems to centralized controls and the cloud raises intense security concerns.
Three major high level challenges are security weaknesses in the transport layer, the vulnerability of accounts and shared, default secrets, which refers to the laziness of users unwilling to automatically change pre-set passwords. Device level problems are whether or not debug services are enabled, missing patches and insecure updates.
The leading drivers of the decision to evaluate and install IoT solutions in the UK are energy efficiency and the desire to reduce costs, according to a survey by Electrical Contractors’ Association (CEA), the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) and SELECT, which is an electrical trade group in Scotland.
Those responses garnered the support of 58% of participants. Most likely technologies for installation, the survey found, were closed circuit television and security (78%), heating (74%), fire systems (69%) and building energy management systems (67%).
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