6 Reasons for SMART Lighting integration

In cities all across the nation, leaders of public institutions have “seen the light”: they’ve converted their outdated and expensive lighting systems to smarter, IoT-based LED lighting and control systems. By doing so, they have reduced their utility bills by up to 75% upon install, and they’re saving tremendous amounts of money every single year on both energy and maintenance costs throughout the system’s lifetime (i.e. 10-15 years).

Although most hospital, school, university, and city leaders make the switch to smart LED systems for financial reasons (and those certainly shouldn’t be understated!), there are many additional health and safety benefits that emanate from having LED lighting, too. Here are five reasons why smarter LED lighting is a wise choice for your institution.

1) LED Lighting Mimics Sunlight

It’s common knowledge that the healthiest light for our bodies is natural sunlight. It’s why we generally tend to be in the best moods and are most alert and productive when the sun is shining. But what happens if there are no windows in a third-grade classroom, or the university gymnasium, or the council office in the basement of city hall? What if the sky is gray or rainy, or it’s 11:30 p.m. in the hospital operating room?

That’s where LED lighting comes in as the closest replica of natural light. Without getting too technical, our bodies respond best to high color temperatures. (Color temperature, measured in kelvin, is how light appears when the human eye looks directly at the source.). Natural sunlight has a color temperature of 5000-7000 kelvin, and with smart LED lighting, we can reach those exact color temperatures, which isn’t possible with fluorescent or incandescent lighting technology.

2) LED Lighting Reduces Eye Issues, Headaches, and Distraction

Dim lighting marks the beginning of a slippery slope that ends in wasted resources. Subpar lighting causes glare, which leads to eyestrain…and headaches … work-related mistakes and errors…and general unproductivity. This is true for people of all ages across all walks of life, from the kindergartener to the clerk in the mayor’s office to the nurses overseeing the babies in the NICU. If you were to improve the lighting, you would be addressing these problems at their source and eliminating these adverse symptoms before they even start.

3) LEDs Promote Environmental Wellness

Because LEDs use less energy than fluorescents, high-intensity discharges (HIDs), and incandescent lighting, their carbon footprint is very small. Additionally, they aren’t made of glass and they don’t contain any mercury. Not only does this mean that LEDs pose a negligible safety threat for your building visitors and workers, but they are also safe for the environment because they are 100% recyclable. (Fluorescents and other light sources end up in landfills and contain hazardous materials.)

4) LEDs Expose Tripping Hazards

Millions of people are hurt in the workplace every year, with an average injury rate of one person every seven seconds. These outside-of-the-home incidents often end up costing taxpayers time, energy, and money. Many of those accidents—data suggest that perhaps up to 50%–could be avoided with better lighting.

If you want to eliminate slips, trips, and falls (which account for about 25% of workplace accidents), look to LED lighting to expose those hazards on the ground. LEDs will shine a light on those stray cords in the library or office or rogue liquids on the hospital or hallway floor, thereby allowing citizens to stay on their feet—and out of danger.

5) LEDs Prevent “Crimes of Opportunity” Inside and Outside of the Building

As much as we might want to convince ourselves otherwise, the world is not a safe place. Theft, vandalism, assault, and much worse happen regularly in and around public institutions. A dark, shadowy environment—in a stairwell, in a parking lot, in a quiet part of a college campus—poses a threat. LED lighting helps prevent “crimes of opportunity” by eliminating shadows and providing everyone with a heightened sense of comfort and safety.

6) LED Lighting: The Healthy, Safe, and Smart Choice

LED lighting is not just about saving money. It’s about protecting the most important “asset” we have: people. When you combine these health and safety benefits to the list of financial ones, you can see that the institutional leaders who have converted their buildings to smart, IoT-based LED systems have not only made a “smart” choice, but a wise one, too.

Note: The specific workplace-injury statistics were sourced from the National Safety Council:

https://www.nsc.org/work-safety/tools-resources/infographics/workplace-injuries