Smart Lights, Smart Cities, Smart Societies.
Smart-Lights, Smart-Cities, Smart-Societies.
Do you want to take a look at the future? How will our cities’ lighting systems look like? How will we save energy in the coming years? Then this is your post
We want to provide you an upfront sight (lightwise) of the coming future for our cities and societies’ evolution. Because the cities' behaviour is nothing but a reflexion of the people which live within the place and its technical, innovative and social evolution; we can assume some upcoming changes for the years to come for the most advanced societies. These changes, again lightwise related ones, will bring a responsive consumption of energy, public funds’ savings and more security. Let’s see how all this will happen by the series of questions written above.
How will our cities’ lighting systems look like?
Well, as a matter of fact, we want to make clear we are not talking about a far away future but a pretty close one since the technology we will be talking about is already here and waiting for the right implementations. What we want to say with this is that, probably, our cities will look pretty much the same way so you can throw away the Star Wars kind of picture from your head because that’s still a bit further away.
Now, what you will be most probably seeing in the coming years are street lights turning on and off (progressively in accordance to the real time natural light available), not just by the moment of the day it is (day/night) but also by the people walking close to them or the traffic passing by the streets within the coming seconds (since lights will be aware in advance of everything happening around). Some of these advance system may actually be already implemented in your current city, depending on where you live, but we will certainly see them more and more often implemented everywhere.
How will we save energy in the coming years?
As a matter of fact, energy saving depends on two main factors: the energy we need and the efficiency in consumption. Both factors are directly related with technology and how we implement this one.
The energy that we need: Lightwise we have seen a huge increment in the amount of artificial light needed by our societies within the last 100 years. Luckily for us, the amount of energy that we need to provide a certain amount of light has been also reduced with the implementation of some technologies such as LED. The idea solution when it comes to lightwise energy saving would be the imminent implementation of the latest LED technology all over the world which would hugely reduce the energy consumption to a level we could not imagine.
The efficiency in need/not need: Other kinds of technologies will allow us to take the previous point to an absolutely different level. When our roads and street, by the implementation of sensors get to know in advance when there will be traffic coming down the road as well as people walking around, they will become immediately able to turn on/off all lights which will be needed in the right moment. This will be possible by a supercomputer which will sense and organize in real time all potential changes needed in the streetlights, semaphores and others.
With these two points we can see how our energy savings (in relation with cities’ light systems) will go along the technology implemented and the way of making use of it. Allowing huge Smart cities to need the same amount of energy (or even less) in order to keep an efficient lighting system for its citizens as for an old small town up to 100 times smaller would need.
A last question: Will lights and lights’ systems have anything to do with how we feel?
The quick answer would be: Yes!
The future lights systems of our cities will have a lot to do with the way we feel in many ways such as:
Secure: The light systems of the future will be so smart that they will be able to provide an extra feeling of security by applying more light around somebody who walks alone at certain hours through certain streets. It could also provide more light around a car which the light-system has detected a broken road light problem on.
Interactive: We interact in different ways among each other and so will be understand by our light systems which will adapt to it. For instance, the regular lights within a park pointing on a table of it, will be different when the sensors around the table detect noone, one person alone or a group of people interacting. In this manner, the systems will turn on/off lights, change intensity or even the color of it.
Productive: Another interesting feature about light systems within smart cities. Imagine a main road needs some maintenance work which can only be done during the night in order to avoid traffic jam issues. The light systems will be able to provide extra day-light colored light there where the works would be taking place so the workers would be way more efficient and productive.
This is the way most certainly we’ll be able to see our cities working in the coming few years. Smart Light within Smart Cities for Smart Societies. Welcome to the future smart people!