From LED Lighting to the IoT:

JEREMY GEELAN: Sensitys main innovation, Light Sensory Networks (LSNs), reportedly take the Internet of Things to the next level can you explain briefly just what the Company means by that?GEOFF ARNOLD: Most examples of the Internet of Things involve single-function edge devices mostly sensors, but some actuators communicating with a cloud-based application. Sensity LSN nodes are multi-function devices with substantial local processing and autonomic behavior. So our sensors dont provide raw video of a parking lot; instead they report that a car just pulled into parking space 47, or a pedestrian stepped into crosswalk 17, and the application can command the nearest lights to brighten up. This is obviously more efficient than schlepping around live video data, by many orders of magnitude.JG: And out of interest just how many lights ARE there in the worldis that a known quantity?GEOFF ARNOLD: The worldwide total is about 4 billion.JG: Does a LSN, then, allow for open networking or is it proprietary, restricted to Sensity customers?GEOFF ARNOLD: Were a startup entering a marketplace dominated by large vendors and established purchasing arrangements, so we are naturally adopting a partner-centric go-to-market strategy. Initially we deployed our sensor nodes with our own LED lighting units; now we partner with major lighting vendors like Acuity, and work with Smart Cities vendors like Cisco. Were working with these and other partners to enable data feeds from many sensors into NetSense, our cloud system. In terms of the technology involved, we use standard IoT technologies like MQTT pub-sub messaging, so open interoperation is straightforward.

JG: So why cant we just use cellular and/or Wi-Fi networks to do the job of connecting Things?GEOFF ARNOLD: We do! Today most of our sensors are connected by WiFi. Often the deployment of Smart City functions takes place in parallel with the roll-out of urban WiFi services, and our partner Cisco has been very successful in this area. In addition, although we focus on analytic computer vision rather than video feeds, some of our customers want access to selected video data related to an event. To support this, we cache the video in the sensor node and allow the customer to back-haul individual video segments to the VMS (video management system) of their choice. That takes Wi-Fi bandwidth. However an increasing number of customers are interested in cellular back-haul, for cost or geographical reasons, and well be supporting this too. Over time we expect Wi-Fi HaLow (and even Bluetooth Smart) will play a significant role.

JG: From a technical standpoint, what exactly is so special about Sensitys NetSense platform?GEOFF ARNOLD: Were very much in the Smart Cities space, focusing on outdoor urban environments and related spaces like shopping malls, stadiums, and airports. In these environments, the most important sensing modality is undoubtedly vision. So machine vision is a core competency for us. Our NetSense cloud is a multi-tenant system; we host many different customers in each of our NetSense deployments. But while we support each partner and customer in a secure fashion, using our RBAC (role-based access control) to maintain data privacy, we can feed all of that data into machine learning algorithms to continually improve our machine vision capabilities. Every so often, we update all our nodes with new firmware that incorporates what weve learned. The more customers we have, the better the system works for all of them.As for other technologies, were pretty much on the bleeding edge. We use a polyglot microservices architecture deployed in multiple AWS regions, but with a relatively light set of AWS dependencies in case we need to deploy into other environments.

JG: Outside developers can develop to the platform. Does Sensity help with empowering them to innovate and produce new applications using the platform? Who the owns the results?GEOFF ARNOLD: The core principle is that the customer (a city, airport operator, mall owner, etc.) owns the data. However rights management can get complicated. There are usually several stakeholders in a deal: Sensity, our go-to-market partner, the city or infrastructure operator, and the application provider. Furthermore, every deal is shaped by local legal and compliance requirements. This is a very new market, and today each deal is individually structured in terms of who pays whom for what and who has what rights to which kinds of data. Weve implemented a fairly sophisticated RBAC (role-based access control) scheme to handle this. As for empowering the developers, the platform APIs are at the heart of any developer contract, and were emphasizing developer support in our 2016 plans.JG: Can sensor-equipped LED lighting networks also be used to run non-lighting applications, or?GEOFF ARNOLD: Absolutely. In fact, most of the applications are non-lighting; the connection with lighting is essentially opportunistic. Everyone is planning to replace their existing outdoor lighting systems with LED lumieres, and each LED light requires a control system. So every new outdoor LED lighting installation represents a prime sensor location, 30 feet up in the air, with power, and a network connection of some kind. The biggest challenge is to capture this one-time opportunityJG: So in a *city* context, what kind of Things can LSNs connect, and with what benefits?GEOFF ARNOLD: Think of the different sensory modalities. With vision, we can observe cars, trucks, bicycles, pedestrians, and buses, supporting traffic and parking applications. (One of our customers is using our computer vision to detect parked cars that are blocking streetcar routes.

) There are also obvious public safety and security applications. Vision also lets you detect garbage and snow, although the latter is really hard. What else? Sound is obviously important, and Im sure youve heard of shot-spotter applications. A number of cities are interested in pollution detection of various kinds. For cities that are liable to flooding, there are ultrasonic remote depth sensors. And so on.JG: You were appointed CTO just 3 months ago. Sensity has been around since 2010. Who, then, created the original vision for Sensity Systems and the Light Sensory Network?GEOFF ARNOLD: Sensity started out as an LED lighting control company called Xeralux. In 2013 the CEO, Hugh Martin, realized the opportunity offered by the LED lighting transition he described it as the Trojan Horse and repositioned and rebranded the company with a focus on sensors. I first got involved with Sensity in an advisory capacity back in 2014; I was working with one of the investors, Almaz Capital, and my employer Cisco had just made a strategic investment in Sensity. I was delighted at the opportunity to join the company in November.JG: You have been a pioneer in distributed engineering for three decades. Do you see 2016 as a breakthrough year, or is it going to be a(nother) long haul till the interconnectivity that sensorization permits in theory becomes a working and monetizable reality?GEOFF ARNOLD: I think that 2016 is when most of the technology for Smart Cities will come together. Thats not the same as making it a monetizable reality, of course. The economic value proposition is undeniable; Id be happy to show you the spreadsheets! The biggest challenge will be orchestrating the multifunction deals that cross multiple purchasing authorities. Some cities, stadiums, and airports are capable of doing this today a few cities actually have CTOs or CDOs, which is often a clue! but it may take a while for the next tier of customers to come around. As with solar energy and electric cars, the unexpectedly low price of oil is probably going to slow adoption

·RELATED QUESTION

Outdoor, in ground, smart lighting solution

What you are looking for does not yet exist as a product. You should expect to pay much more than that if you want a professional system that works with smarthome devices. This system is very close to what you are asking for but it is not smart home compatible. However, that doesn't mean you can't put something together yourself. You could use a waterproof mount with budget smart bulbs, or use colored outdoor lights paired with a smart power switch. (Recommendations for each inline.)