Wipro Lighting, a part of Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting Group was started in 1992 to manufacture and market lighting products. Over the years, Wipro Lighting has grown up in thought and reliability in the LED lighting industry. The company has a wide range of LED product offerings and profitable presence across application areas including modern workspaces, industries, retail, healthcare, pharmaceutical firms, roads & highways and landscapes.
Recently, Wipro Lighting unveiled its Internet of Lighting (IoL)TM solutions for Smart & Connected indoor & outdoor lighting at the Light Show. The IoL solution will usher in a new revolution in office, institutions and outdoor lighting sectors. Emergence of IoT and Big Data have made smart and connected digital lighting solutions a reality. These solutions bring in both intelligence and functionality into lighting systems.
The company has started a series of Light Show to showcase its range of Smart and Connected lighting solutions for indoor & outdoor applications with a live demonstration of the latest technology benefits using an Interactive Wall. The state-of-the-art indoor lighting solutions include the international RED DOT award winning VergeLED, newly launched OpusLED, downlighters & sensors. The company also demonstrated its best-in-class performance based industrial lighting solutions for enhanced productivity and safety.
We, at LED World, interacted with Anuj Dhir, Vice-President & Business Head, Wipro Lighting to know more on how the company is exploring ways to feed its smart solution and if the market is ready for all this. Here are the excerpts to follow:
How has been the journey so far?
From around two and a half decades,Wipro has been catering to the needs of country’s lighting fraternity. Wipro has always been at the forefront of bringing new things to the market so much so that since we started our business, we have only been focusing on innovation & design.
In 2009, we were one among the first companies to move to LEDs in the office and commercial lighting spaces prior to which LEDs were mostly limited to entertainment & hospitality. In the last couple of years; we have focused on bringing innovative technologies, which can take the solution to the next level beyond the lighting fixture, in turn, bringing some additional values to the customers than simply moving to LED from conventional lighting system.
What are the latest at Wipro in lighting solutions?
Wipro has constantly been focusing on design and innovation to provide customers with best lighting solutions. Internet of Lighting (IoL) is a significant and big step in offering our customers best of breed solutions in Lighting & Beyond.
From office perspective, we are now offering Li-Fi, PoE, wireless solution and inSync (human-centric solution). We offer all this under a package to our customers where we can also cater to the wellness quotient. We have come up with smart home solutions for home applications as how lighting can be wireless. We have versatility of applications for smart buildings and smart outdoors. In short, we have the solution based on IoT.
Today, armed with smart & connected outdoor lighting solutions; we at Wipro Lighting, are ready to provide complete lighting infrastructure for Smart Cities. Further, Wipro’s connected and intelligent outdoor lighting has demonstrated its capabilities of improved public safety, efficiency and comfort. For all this, Wipro Lighting has collaborated with leading global technology companies like Cisco and pureLiFi, Scotland.
What was the collaboration made for?
We have collaborated with Cisco for Power over Ethernet (PoE)-based lighting solutions and is also offering human-centric lighting solutions for new age workspaces. These collaborations enhance user experience and deliver desired outcome for customers – be it energy saving or improving workspace productivity and enhanced employee well-being. As I mentioned, Wipro has tied up with pureLiFi, Scotland to deliver high speed & secure data transmission through LED luminaires.
What is the nature of Tie-up with pureLiFi?
We have tied up with pureLiFi from Scotland. We are partnering with them for India and entire South East Asian region. We manufacture light fixtures in line with what pureLiFi develops along with their solution and then integrate both to offer proper solution that can not only emit light, but also transmit data. It will help our customers to avoid more personalized and safe data transfer at an exemplary speed.
In which area do you see the potential for PoE?
Now we have the complete lighting solution with our own software and hardware wherein we can do away with the conventional wiring system. We can use the same Cat6 cable to power the light fixtures and transmit it. Eventually, we are looking at areas where we can switch over to Power over Ethernet (PoE) solutions, which are more networked than those conventional wiring systems. The PoE would also be a viable solution for smart networking. So, we have tied up with Cisco, which is the leading technology player on the switch front. We are the first lighting company from India to partner with Cisco on PoE solutions.
How is PoE going to be safe?
When we do the installation, we don’t need any wiring for AC, or any conduits, any MCB, DCB, or distribution board. There is only one switch, which can take care of all the appliances along with lighting. This is 100% safe which otherwise has chances of lose connection leading to sparking & fire. Even all the appliances and lighting can be controlled through one computer through networking. It allows easy management for lighting as can be scheduled using the software.
Going ahead, as we know lighting helps employees to become more productive. Keeping in line, we have come up with a concept called inSyncTM which is based on the human centric philosophy of circadian rhythm. Under this, our solution will help user or occupant to control the colour of the light to help employees to be happy and more productive. This solution is available with us with all the technologies – PoE, DALI or Wireless.
Why is Wipro Lighting so late with smart solutions?
We are not late but were waiting for the right time. I would say that there are some technologies about which we were talking to some customers for quite some time, but the market wasn’t ready for the switch over. For instance, the Li-Fi that we have just introduced would still take some time to be commercially viable. What we find now that people are showing interest.
We are offering the dimming solution right from 2002 based on DALI protocol. We did a few metro stations that time. For office building, we have been doing the dimming solution from last 15 years.
What is so unique as far as latest development is concerned?
Lighting tunability in line with circadian rhythm is unique in this development which was not possible earlier with the conventional lighting sources as those were apt only for dimming. It is the advent of LEDs that has made possible all this.
How has been the response for your Light Show?
This is our fifth show in line after one each in Pune, Bangalore, Chennai and Mumbai. We would be taking it to few more cities lined-up in the plan. In this way, we are able to meet our target customers like consultants, architects, lighting designers, project owners, etc.
It is exciting for us as it has evoked a positive response. People are inquisitive about what we have in the offering. This shows that they have developed such tastes and are ready to embrace the technological innovations. Several Architects, Specifiers and Corporates also interacted with the Wipro team.
This is advantage people. For now, everyone is talking about wireless technology and PoE, while we have been showing them with a touch and feel experience. Quite a few have shown their interests on what future holds for them and can get the responses of their queries. People are willing to try new technology.
With all this on the floor, how do you see the development at industry level?
Consolidation will start happening very soon and only those would survive who can offer customised solutions. We are working with most of the specifiers to let them know what would be the future and how we can work together in sync.
