One of the customers of LEDMyPlace -- the leading online seller of LED pole lights -- wrote to us in the month of April this year:
“I chose this fixture to upgrade a single metal halide fixture on a pole in the rear of my establishment due to previous bulb issues & the latest bulb worked fine but just didn't seem to project the most light where I needed it. This also affected the camera in the rear; even with Night Vision, the picture was marginal at best. The picture shows the same area at 3 am & as you can tell, the Night Vision is not even used by the camera. I was a bit skeptical when I saw the size of the LED board but as you can see that quickly went away the first night I used it. I pay the local power company $100 a month for 4 Sodium Vapor fixtures that I am now looking to replace with my own for further savings. This is definitely a buy again product!!.”
And, this is just one example. We have many more telltales. It is therefore not surprising for us to come across customers who are still using the conventional lights for pole or street lighting and when our lighting experts try to advise in the best way possible. To be more appropriate, customized pole lighting solution for each of our customers. That said, our goal is to make every city in the United States smarter than ever before.
The Trend That Defines A Smart City
As we notice, the current trend is towards exploiting IoT (Internet of Things) for an intelligent gathering of data through the street lights aka LED pole lights to be finally relayed by the local and the state governments. The anonymized data made available in such a way can help the municipal leaders to convert an ordinary city into a smart city which would mean better infrastructure for the masses in transit on a daily basis. It is therefore interesting to note, how smart street lights (LED pole lights) can do more than just providing lighting and bring savings in energy. In essence, a smart city would mean having better traffic management, better parking facility for the drivers, healthy air levels in the environment, detection of gun shooting if any, and charging facility for electric vehicles.
How LED Pole Lights Can Help In Public Data Gathering
Through the Internet of Things (IoT), the municipalities can have LED pole lights connected with light controllers and other devices for these to interact with each other over the Internet and then have these controlled and monitored remotely. The light controllers or sensors mounted on LED pole lights can actively collect all public data and provide the city traffic controllers with real-time information. They will know when to replace the lamp or fixture or when it needs to be inspected and maintained. Besides, when to divert the traffic, when to control the parking space or what is the latest count of pedestrians. These LED pole lights in order to reduce on city’s power consumption can also be dimmed when there is a low volume of traffic on the streets and brighten to 100 percent when there is a sudden increase in the number of vehicles. These pole lights can be installed along with CCTV, speakers and Wi-Fi hotspots for ensuring better public facility.
How LED Pole Lights Can Be A Cost-effective Entry Plan
Once these LED pole lights are mounted on poles (round, square or tapered), the savings in energy will not be any less than 75%. Adding a light controller later to the light fixtures is never a problem and wouldn’t have you incur too much of costs anyway, though LED pole lights come with in-built sensors such as motion sensors and photocell. The photocell sensors can detect the ambient light and allow for automatic turning On and Off of these lights to save additional energy. At the same time, occupancy sensors if installed as separate devices but connected with these pole lights through a wireless network can detect the occupancy in a particular street and allow for the lamps to dim down when there’s low occupancy.
The Bottom Line
As a city planner, builder, electrical contractor or a municipal leader you can think of several options to develop a city but there can be no idea better than utilizing the IoT when the complicated can seem to be too simple and if things move in the right direction. So, while few cities like San Diego or the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan are putting every bit of their effort into building the right apps and partnering with technology companies to build an IoT ecosystem, it’s time to get your conventional light sources replaced with LED pole lights for better street lighting.
For information on different choices under LED pole lights, visit LEDMyPlace.