Feilo Sylvania is upping its smart lighting game, launching a technology integration program designed to mix and match different luminaires, sensors, chipsets, and other components from information technology partners, from smart lighting startups, and from its own lighting portfolio, LEDs Magazine has learned.

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　　With its new SylSmart initiative, Feilo is acknowledging that IT companies are increasingly driving lighting technology and business as LED lamps and luminaires connect more and more to the Internet and to other intelligent networks.

　　“We see the smart lighting industry moving at an incredibly fast rate, with investments coming in at super-high levels, not only from the traditional lighting players, but especially from outside players, more linked to the IT industry, to Silicon Valley, and the London Silicon Roundabout community,” said Bastiaan de Groot, global director of strategy and new business development for London-based, Chinese-owned Feilo. “Standards are no longer set by the lighting industry, they're set by the IT industry. In the smart building, in the smart home environment, we are just one of the industries that play in the new world of the connected building. And we can therefore no longer set the standards within our own known space of the lighting industry.”

　　Feilo will use SylSmart to expand its smart lighting offerings to new customers, and also to serve existing smart lighting sites such as the headquarters building of Holland's NEN standards group. (Photo credit: Zonderland/Wikimedia).

　　Feilo will use SylSmart to expand its smart lighting offerings to new customers, and also to serve existing smart lighting sites such as the headquarters building of Holland's NEN standards group. (Photo credit: Zonderland/Wikimedia).

　　The challenge facing all of the lighting industry is how to cooperate with the dynamic and influential IT industry without becoming subservient to it. As de Groot noted, “We don't want to become the OEM manufacturer of Google.”

　　Feilo's answer is to partner with IT firms while positioning itself as a “solutions provider” via SylSmart. The company will very much continue to develop luminaires, and will help customers choose the right technology for the smart lighting portion of installations. Rather than develop the technology in-house or commit to any one system, it is casting a wider net.

　　“We see ourselves in an advisory role to our clients in the smart lighting space, understanding their needs, understanding their requirements, and helping them select the right smart lighting platforms and solutions that we then can integrate into our luminaires,” de Groot noted.

　　“It's actually about understanding the value and the customer need and then trying to find the right technology for the customer's problem. We will pick and combine and integrate different solution components from different manufacturers and offer those to our clients as a solution, very much as a systems integrator. We will no longer be pushing specific technology solutions, but we will be pushing our knowledge of the understanding of how smart lighting can add value to our customers.”