Smart and Wireless Industrial Lighting Control with Bluetooth Mesh

Most people are familiar with Bluetooth. For example, you can connect your wireless headphones to your phone through Bluetooth, and then you can enjoy the music without annoying cables or wires. Similarly, Bluetooth technology enables the wireless control of lighting. It also allows an easier and simpler way to control the lighting fixture. Just connect the fixture with your smartphone, and then you can switch or dim the fixture. But the problem is that you can only control one fixture at a time.

With the advanced technology, Bluetooth technology has gradually developed from ‘point-to-point’ to ‘mesh’. Bluetooth mesh eliminates the single lighting control system and makes the interoperable industrial environment possible.

Of course, Bluetooth mesh technology is beneficial for lighting control in industrial applications. From adopting Bluetooth mesh to lighting systems, fixtures, sensors, and smartphones are integrated. You can group the fixtures in the same zone together, controlling multiple fixtures at the same time. Except for the flexible control of lighting, the most attractive benefit is the cost saved by wireless Bluetooth mesh networking. You may be wondering what is Bluetooth mesh and how it works with smart lighting control in industrial applications. Read the post and find the answer.

What is Bluetooth mesh

Bluetooth is a short-range and low-power wireless communication technology. The Bluetooth devices communicate with each other at the 2.4GHz frequency band. Previous Bluetooth technology connects the devices with point-to-point connectivity or broadcasting topology (one to many). Bluetooth mesh is a new and advanced standard for wireless interconnection between electronic devices. It extends the network and allows the many-to-many communication in a mesh topology. In other words, there are tremendous nodes in a Bluetooth network. All nodes can transfer and receive the data.

When a device connects to another, it will go through a process called pairing. Once they are paired, they can communicate and share data mutually. The connected devices will use frequency hopping for stable and continuous connection. So far, you may be concerned about the security of Bluetooth mesh. In fact, Bluetooth mesh is one of the securest wireless protocols in industry. The paired devices have special security keys which make them connectable with each other. Furthermore, the connection of the devices in the Bluetooth mesh network will not be interfered with by others. This is owed to the special ‘address’ made by the manufacturer and the frequency hopping.

Thanks to the capability of connecting up to thousands of devices in a mesh network, Bluetooth mesh enables industrial operators to switch or dim the fixtures in their hands. Moreover, Bluetooth mesh drives efficient and energy-saving smart lighting control as integration of Bluetooth mesh and sensors.

What are the benefits of Bluetooth mesh on lighting

Wireless and two-way communication

Bluetooth mesh is a wireless communication technology. Utilizing Bluetooth mesh, industrial operators can control the lighting fixtures in hand. Nowadays, wireless control is common in our daily lives. WiFi is one of the usual wireless communications, which can also realize wireless control of lighting fixtures. But the main difference between Bluetooth mesh and WiFi is that Bluetooth mesh is a two-way communication technology. Each node of the Bluetooth mesh network can share the data. Therefore, if one node fails, it is easy to replace without influencing the data transmission.

Create group control

As mentioned before, devices are connected in a mesh network through Bluetooth mesh technology. All devices can communicate mutually. Therefore, you can bond some fixtures in a group, and control them at once. This is a significant benefit of Bluetooth mesh as it provides a more convenient way to manage the fixtures and the sensors. Take the warehouse as an example. You can set the fixtures near the windows as a group and add a daylight harvest sensor on them. Similarly, fixtures hung on the same aisle can be set as a group and installed with an occupancy sensor. By grouping the fixtures in different zones, lighting control is more efficient and convenient.

Low energy consumption

Unlike WiFi, devices in a Bluetooth mesh communicate directly. Lower energy is needed for sharing data through a Bluetooth mesh network. With the addition of Bluetooth mesh to the lighting system, energy consumption is reduced. Fixtures are only turned on when needed. Industrial operators are able to schedule lighting systems on hand. They can provide the right brightness, color temperature, and lighting time in different zones. Since fixtures are only on when needed, less energy is consumed. If the fixtures are added with motion sensors, fixtures will light on when they detect the movement of workers. The reduced working times of fixtures contribute to energy saving as well. Thus, the electricity bill is cut down.  

Save wiring, installation, and labor cost

It is simple and easy to achieve smart lighting control with Bluetooth mesh. Instead of controlling the fixtures separately, multiple fixtures can be controlled at once. No wires and complex installations are needed to achieve smart control. Sometimes, the wired lighting control is not feasible for lighting retrofit. The wireless Bluetooth mesh network helps to save the wired, installation, and labor costs. Just power the fixtures on and pair them with your smartphone. Then you can adjust them on your smartphone app. The amount of light and CCT are adjustable to meet your specific needs.

How Bluetooth mesh works with smart lighting control

Firstly, let us learn about how fixtures and smartphones communicate in a Bluetooth mesh. If two Bluetooth devices would like to communicate with each other, they need to go through a process called ‘pairing’. After pairing, they are bonded together and share their name, address, and other information. When you turn on the ‘Bluetooth’ in your smartphone, it will search the nearby Bluetooth fixtures automatically. When you connect the fixtures to a smartphone, you are actually letting them ‘pair’ with each other. When they are bonding together, you can control the fixture through the smartphone.

Then, we will talk about the group control through Bluetooth mesh. Since Bluetooth mesh supports a ‘many-to-many’ connection, any device can share information with others in a mesh network. The group function is implemented by the publish and subscribe mechanism. Just imagine the smartphone as a publisher, and the fixtures in the same group as subscribers. When the publisher sends news, all subscribers receive the same information. Then they will respond with the same reaction. When the sensors are added to the mesh, we can regard them as the nodes of the Bluetooth mesh. Sensors will send their data back to the lighting control system, achieving the control of fixtures.  

Smart and wireless industrial lighting solution

AGC provides HB44 Tuya Smart control lighting system as a smart and wireless industrial lighting solution.

HB44 Tuya Smart control lighting system is for human-centric lighting. Bluetooth module is directly integrated with a driver. Light can be controlled individually or in groups by the Tuya app on the phone. Simple and quick to realize turn on/off the light, as well as the brightness and color temperature adjustment (from 3000k to 5000k ) of lighting fixtures. What is most important, multiple scenes can be set regularly according to needs. Each scene can be set with different color temperature and brightness. Scenes can be opened and switched regularly to realize human-centered lighting.

So with AGC Tuya Smart lighting system, leading-edge LED technology enables user-friendly lighting design for human health, productivity, and rest.