Smart lighting brand WiZ is set to grow its Asian presence in 2018, in Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan and China, said the company’s VP Sales & Marketing Jerome Leroy.
Smart lighting brand WiZ is set to grow its Asian presence in 2018, in Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan and China, said the company’s VP Sales & Marketing Jerome Leroy.
WiZ has largely operated in the European market, but the company has expansion plans in Asia. It is working with a partner in Singapore, and there are different expansion plans in Australia and New Zealand for early next year. And there are also test drives in Taiwan. China is still the biggest market in Asia, and WiZ is looking to form closer collaboration with local partners in six months’ time.
In the Western world, USA is the most mature market for smart lighting, from WiZ’s perspective. The country is keen on automation and making everything easier; there are more Internet of Things (IoT) innovations and more advanced voice control development, Leroy said.
In Europe, development of smart lighting in the U.K. is following that in the U.S. very closely. And Germany is also catching up fast, Leroy added.
WiZ features strong software know-how, which allows for energy saving and preventive maintenance, along with advanced data management. On top of the iOS and Android WiZ apps, a web-based interface will be available later in 2018, which will allow a building map upload, floor by floor.
WiZ’s software is being implemented in as many as 25 lighting vendors. This is similar to the Windows being installed in different computer brands like HP, Dell and Lenovo.
Another distinguishing feature of WiZ is that all its lights connect to Wi-Fi, and each of them connects directly to the cloud. Since WiZ utilizes Amazon Web Service, Alexa voice control can be enabled. And Google Home voice control is supported too. Apple HomeKit support is expected to be released in 2018.
Using Wi-Fi has other benefits, like allowing for lighting deployment in a larger scale, to thousands of smart lights. Also, no hub is needed to translate protocols like Zigbee, Z-Wave, etc. With Zigbee, connecting smart lights anywhere beyond 50 units will get very complicated, but with Wi-Fi, you can have as many lights as you want, Leroy said.
Each WiZ light has 2MB of flash memory, with more than enough space to run complex software smoothly, manage secure updates and store as many settings as needed.
This memory also allows the light to be pre-loaded with dynamic light modes such as fireplace, ocean and pastel colors, so that users may create the desired lighting ambiences any time of the day.
Smart lighting expected to grow more popular
Leroy believes smart lighting will grow increasingly popular in the years to come. 10 years ago when Apple launched the first iPhone, only one or two percent of the population is thinking about getting a smartphone. They think it’s just a gadget and 98% of the people think it’s not really working well, Leroy said. It was too expensive, but now everyone is getting a smartphone.
The trend may occur to the smart lighting industry too, where just about one percent of the population is currently using smart lighting.
People first need to understand that light can be much more than white light. Also, currently advanced control like light dimming is not taken for granted in many countries, Leroy pointed out. After showing consumers what lights can do, the next step is making it easier to control for end-users, which is what WiZ is doing, by providing voice control, app control and remote control.