The lighting industry is now the backbone of the emerging Internet of things (IOT), but it still faces some arduous challenges, including a problem: Although the LEDs inside lamps can last for decades, equipment operators may have to frequently replace chips and sensors embedded in the same lamps.

It’s not that the chip will be destroyed, but because the chip has a more advanced version update every 18 months. This means that commercial enterprises that install IOT lamps will have to use old technology or make expensive modifications.

Now, a new standards initiative hopes to avoid this problem in commercial buildings. The IOT ready alliance wants to ensure that there is a consistent, simple and cheap way to keep indoor intelligent lighting updated.

The organization announced at the international lamp exhibition in Philadelphia this week: “the alliance is developing industry standards to make LED lamps’ IOT ready ‘, so as to facilitate the installation of advanced IOT sensors.”

The IOT ready alliance claims that since IOT technology has been developing faster than LED lamps, by making the replacement of sensors “as simple as changing bulbs”, it will “enable building managers to easily upgrade sensors” and ultimately benefit their buildings.

The lighting industry hopes to convince commercial and outdoor lighting operators that lamps are a perfect off the shelf framework, which can accommodate chips and sensors for collecting data for the Internet of things, because lamps are ubiquitous, and the power lines that can power lamps can also power these devices, so there is no need for battery components.

The so-called “networked lighting” will observe everything from room occupancy, human movement, air quality and so on. The collected data can trigger other actions, such as resetting the temperature, reminding device managers how to reallocate space, or helping retail stores attract passengers and sales.

In the outdoor environment, it can help manage traffic, find parking spaces, remind police and firefighters to the location of emergencies, etc. IOT lighting usually needs to bind the data to the cloud computing system for analysis and sharing.

IOT ready Alliance said: “lighting fixtures are an ideal carrier of IOT technology in intelligent buildings, providing a ubiquitous location for granularity data acquisition of the whole building, and also supplying power to sensors. “But today, only a small number of LED lamps have intelligent sensors. After the initial installation of LED lamps, the cost of installing sensors is high, which makes it impossible to add sensors later.”