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The week that was…19-23rd February 2018

Singapore
Weekend 24-25th February 2018

A busy week it was! I have so many pots cooking on the kitchen stove that it was quite a juggling act this week to make sure everything cooked along nicely. RFP’s keep coming in with another few new projects confirmed this week, keeping the flying start to the new year well alive! Is this a sign of a great year to come? Fingers crossed…

PLDC update
PLDC work picked up again after the CNY holidays with further searches for a large size gala dinner venue able to accommodate 500 to 1000 people a challenging task (suggestions anybody?) and approaches to the government to explore cooperation in the preconvention program. The Via team worked on some introduction brochures to go with our approaches and further progress was made in regards to the potential excursion program.

LDoT
One of my prime missions now is to develop LDoT (Lighting Design of Things). There is no doubt that the industry is changing rapidly and I am reaching out to potential IoT partners to make sure proper lighting design is not shoved aside by IT engineers ignorant of the importance of lighting, blinded by their strive to implement IoT. Where lighting is used as host for data/ IoT functions a lighting designer needs to remain involved at all times, hence my relentless efforts in this matter. and implement IoT. I immediately jumped in to question their responsibility when there was talk about LiFi and using light as a host. I have now been invited to do a presentation to the team about what we can offer in the LDoT…thank you! I am more than ever convinced that we as a profession need to quickly wake up and jump into action before the IoT train has left the station! I certainly will be on it!

IoT Pole
For the lighting manufacturers the same holds…you need to embrace the IoT or be prepared to be left behind. It will be our key focus during the upcoming Light & Build in Frankfurt, to look for the latest in IoT lighting developments. One company who is taking the lead in Singapore is the Passionate Lighting group, who’s founder and principal, Michael Chia was recently awarded Entrepreneur of the Year 2017. Michael and his team are developing an IoT pole, named I-Core, and I was privileged to have a sneak preview this week. While still in full development, I am excited about the concept and predict it will be a winner in the near future. As the name suggest it is built around an IoT core to which modular elements (lighting and non-lighting elements) can be added simply…to be continued!

Fast evolving smart technologies
During the week reading through some LikedIn posts I happened to read about a number of new innovations and smart developments including lighting drones. I mentioned the 1200+ lighting drones used in the Olympic Games opening ceremony 2 weeks ago, this week I saw a report about the Bellaggio Casino in Las Vegas (the one with the fountain) that had added a permanent (250) drone light show above its building every night! Click here

Then there was the LED drive over road crossing tested in London with road embedded LEDs creating a LED zebra crossing activated by approaching pedestrians changing back in a normal road after the pedestrian crossed the road…is that the future? Click here

Finally two stories about charging. One where light is used to charge devices and one where roads have been designed with embedded charges, allowing motorists to charge their car while driving over that stretch of charge road…clever! The other one using light to charge devices like mobile phones and tablets. Click here

We live in an ever-changing world where AI and IoT are gradually taking over. We definitely have to become experts in the LDoT if we want to survive as lighting designers in this world!

Have a great weekend!

 

 

 

 

23. February 2018 by Martin Klaasen
Categories: light watch, lighting design practice, lighting of the future | Leave a comment

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