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Light Up Your Home Life with a Wi-Fi Device
Green Technology Featured Articles
October 23, 2012

Light Up Your Home Life with a Wi-Fi Device

By Cheryl Kaften
TMCnet Contributor

Soon, you’ll never have to leave your couch again, because the home energy market has gone Wi-Fi. The newest entry is from Irvine, California-based GreenWave Reality, and it’s a total residential lighting solution that can be operated using your ubiquitous smartphone or a remote control.


Forget rewiring your house and take the electrician off your speed dial The GreenWave Reality Connected Lighting Solution—incorporating JenNet-IP network layer software from NXP Semiconductors (News - Alert) in Eindhoven, the Netherlands—can be used right out of the box. 

You just screw in some LED (light-emitting diode) bulbs, plug GreenWave's miraculous little box into your existing wireless router, and do a quick setup on your Apple (News - Alert) iOS or Android device. It’s that simple, according to techies who have tried it at Gizmodo. The LED bulbs fit in most standard sockets, and can all be operated (individually or in groups) by a remote control or by any iOS or Android (News - Alert) device.

The starter kit, which includes the Wi-Fi device and four LED bulbs, is expected to cost around $200. Extra bulbs will be priced at about $20 apiece. The solution comes pre-configured with “home,” “away” and “night” smart controls. For example, before bed, simply press the “night” smart control to turn off all lights—eliminating the need to go from room to room. Consumers also can create customized smart controls to fit their own lifestyles. Outdoor lights can be programmed to come on at dusk and turn off at dawn, and can even be integrated with motion sensors to automatically turn lights on or off when the occupants enter or exit a room.

And if you feel the need to hit a switch, you can do that, too. For added convenience and safety, the solution is “light-switch friendly,” meaning that existing wall switches will still turn the lights on or off in all circumstances.

GreenWave Reality’s solution combines Energy Star-certified LED bulbs with Internet connectivity to provide consumers with fully controllable, rich, warm light throughout their homes. Leveraging these highly efficient, controllable LED bulbs, consumers will use only 20 percent of the energy needed by a traditional incandescent bulb.

Additional savings come from being able to easily control and dim home lighting. For instance, by replacing only ten incandescent bulbs, homeowners can immediately begin saving up to $150 a year on their utility bills.

“According to [Dallas-based] Parks Associates (News - Alert), the most desired consumer feature of a smart home is lighting control,” said Greg Memo, CEO of GreenWave Reality. “With our Connected Lighting Solution, we are providing consumers with a powerful, personal way to reduce energy consumption, while enhancing the comfort in their home.”

The Connected Lighting Solution can be used on its own, or in conjunction with the existing GreenWave Reality Smart Home Platform. Currently deployed by leading utility and service provider partners, the Smart Home Platform enables consumers to easily monitor and control their appliances, as well as the heating/cooling systems in the home.

Advanced features— including interactive coaching, energy budgeting, smart controls, and usage alerts— all help homeowners to reduce energy usage. The GreenWave Reality end-to-end solution is built on a highly-scalable, secure IP (Internet protocol)-based network platform that connects all of these devices into an IP ecosystem.

“The GreenWave Reality Connected Lighting Solution, in conjunction with the JenNet-IP technology, has reached a great milestone in delivering on the promise of the ‘Internet of Things,’” said Geoff Mulligan, the chairman of the IPSO Alliance, an organization that advocates for IP-networked devices for use in energy, consumer, healthcare and industrial applications. “Their solution is based on IPv6 for low-power devices (6LoWPAN), which is a foundation of the IPSO Alliance.”

Energy companies see the benefit of the Connected Lighting Solution for their customers. A number of leading European-based utilities, including Seas-NVE (Denmark), Nuon (Netherlands), and Fortum (Sweden) also plan to offer the Connected Lighting Solution to customers.

Now shipping to utilities in Europe, the Connected Lighting Solution also is certified for the U.S. market, from GreenWave Reality or partners that have licensed the platform. The GreenWave Reality solution works with bulbs from any JenNet-IP Certified lighting manufacturer, many of which plan to introduce certified lights and fixtures for the residential, hospitality, commercial and industrial markets.




Edited by Brooke Neuman


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