How far can we see in the future? Articles are showing up everyday about smart everything and anything. But is it really that far in the future?

The articles I am reading are beginning to be redundant, but every now and then, there is a good one that stands out because it has something new to say or explains how things used to be done. The one that I am referring to is from Fast Company … How the Internet Of Things Is Turning Cities Into Living Organisms. It goes into detail about how the infrastructure was designed and built. It then elaborates on how, with the “Internet of things”, it will be built and how it will function.

The infrastructure and buildings will use information such as the weather to control the infrastructure.

As part of the infrastructure industry, we know that lighting will be subject to all these controls sooner or later but how far will the idea of controls go? My colleague and fellow blogger, Martin Mercier, has written about Philips Lumec’s control offerings in previous posts and they are part of our answer to the buzz that is out there.

It is interesting to see what is being done in other domains and projects because it could be representative of our future.

Could it be that the lights will know from the Internet, how dark it will be and adjust the lights intensity accordingly? If there is a full moon, the need for lights may be reduced or eliminated.

Another example may be to dim the intensity of the lights on the highways. They do not need to be as high depending on the quantity of traffic. The traffic levels can already be given to us by the internet. Well, could the net also tell the lights and thus the controls, the intensity that is more appropriate at any given time?

The future is bright…or dimmable.