Craig DiLouie, LC, CLCP recently had the opportunity to interview Damon Barnes, Director of Technical Marketing, Bluetooth SIG, Inc. for an article about Bluetooth NLC for an upcoming issue of ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR. Transcript follows.
DiLouie: Please describe the new Bluetooth NLC standard and what it means for lighting control.
Barnes: Bluetooth® Networked Lighting Control (NLC) is the only full-stack standard for wireless lighting control. Bluetooth NLC offers standardization from the radio through the device layer, enabling true multi-vendor interoperability and mass adoption of wireless lighting control.
DiLouie: What problems does it solve? How is it expected to affect adoption of networked lighting controls?
Barnes: The Bluetooth® NLC full-stack standard enables multi-vendor interoperable devices, software, and end products that are used to create wireless lighting control systems. Prior to Bluetooth® NLC, a full-stack standard for wireless lighting control did not exist, limiting global mainstream adoption and preventing the market from reaching its full potential. We anticipate that Bluetooth® NLC will help accelerate commercial wireless lighting control adoption in the coming years.
DiLouie: Why is it so important for a wireless networked lighting control system to operate on the same protocol as a full-stack solution? What are the actual benefits of aligning all three layers to Bluetooth?
Barnes: Ensuring multi-vendor interoperability requires standardization at all three layers of a wireless lighting control solution – the radio layer, communication layer, and device layer. The radio lies at the base layer and defines how switches, luminaires, and other lighting control devices transmit data over radio frequencies. Sitting in the middle is the communication layer that determines how those same devices communicate with each other over the radio. At the top is the device layer. It defines the roles and responsibilities of devices in a lighting control network. Without a wireless standard that defines functionality at all three layers, true multi-vendor interoperability is not possible.
With standardization comes interoperability, and with interoperability comes trust – trust that products from different manufacturers can work together seamlessly, making it easier to combine products from multiple manufacturers to create fit-for-purpose, value-added systems. Standardization also helps reduce the costs of development, expand the overall size of the market, and encourage innovation by allowing manufacturers to focus their engineering efforts on higher-level, valued-added capabilities.
DiLouie: The Bluetooth NLC standard specifically features profiles for common devices in the device layer, which defines the role and responsibilities of devices in the control system. What is the significance of this? What devices are covered, and what do these profiles typically include?
Barnes: At the Communications layer, The Bluetooth® Mesh technology provides a rich set of features and options to implement many lighting and sensing applications. This has helped Bluetooth Mesh establish itself as the preferred technology for scalable commercial and industrial applications. However, the optional nature of Bluetooth Mesh features can cause challenges for implementers when they must decide which options to select for their chosen product segments.
For example, if vendors operating in the same product segments select a different set of options that do not work well with other peer products (i.e., mesh features chosen for light bulbs are not compatible with features selected for light switches), a situation can arise where product ecosystems do not interoperate, which degrades the user experience.
To address issues like the one mentioned above, the Bluetooth SIG has come with the concept of Bluetooth Mesh Device Profiles. These profiles are new class of mesh specifications. Device Profiles define which options and features of the mesh specifications are mandatory for a certain kind of end product.
The first suite of mesh device profiles, collectively referred to as NLC profiles, build on Bluetooth Mesh to enable the world’s first full-stack, multi-vendor interoperable wireless standard for wireless lighting control, Bluetooth® NLC. The NLC profiles are defined as follows:
1. Ambient Light Sensor NLC Profile (ALS) 1.0 – represents an ambient light level sensor.
2. Basic Lightness Controller NLC Profile (BLC) 1.0 – represents a luminaire with an integrated controller.
3. Basic Scene Selector NLC Profile (BSS) 1.0 – represents a wall switch or a wall station to select lighting scenes or turn the lights on/off.
4. Dimming Control NLC Profile (DIC) 1.0 – represents a wall slider, a dial, or a long-press switch function to dim lights up/down.
5. Energy Monitor NLC Profile (ENM) 1.0 – represents a sensor reporting energy consumption.
6. Occupancy Sensor NLC Profile (OCS) 1.0 – represents an occupancy sensor.
DiLouie: Looking at occupancy sensors as an example, what does the profile stipulate for these devices, and what does this provide for the specifier, installer, and ultimately the user? What is the potential for combining device roles in a single hardware device?
Barnes: The Occupancy Sensor NLC Profile standardizes the use cases and implementation patterns of occupancy sensors to help improve interoperability and performance of NLC systems. A common use case for the Occupancy Sensor NLC Profile is a sensor reporting occupancy in a given space. The Occupancy Sensor NLC Profile supports three methods of occupancy detection and reporting:
• Sensing motion. This is the most common method, usually based on passive infrared (PIR) sensing, in which the sensor detects the motion of an object (such as a human body). Example: When motion is detected, the sensor(s) monitoring a room or space wirelessly communicate to the lighting control system that the space is occupied, and the room is then illuminated without any end user intervention until the space is no longer occupied.
• Sensing presence. This method assumes the sensor can detect both presence (occupancy) and absence (vacancy). Example: This added functionality enables room lights to turn off when a room is no longer occupied, which may allow for energy (cost) savings.
• People-counting. This method assumes the sensor can count (and report) the number of occupants in the space monitored by the sensor. Example: This functionality allows a building operator to potentially leverage the wireless lighting control network for building space planning and utilization.
Multiple NLC profiles can indeed be run on a device. A lighting dimmer switch, for example, would likely benefit from support of both the Basic Scene Selector and Dimming Control profiles.
DiLouie: What are the benefits of Bluetooth NLC for lighting specifiers provisioning networked lighting control solutions for clients?
Barnes: There are three main benefits to lighting specifiers include:
• True, Multi-vendor Interoperability: Bluetooth® NLC is the only full-stack wireless lighting control solution that defines operations at all three layers – the radio, communication, and device layers. Bluetooth NLC establishes a true, global wireless standard that frees buyers and installers from vendor lock-in and gives them confidence that lighting components from different vendors will work seamlessly with each other.
• Ease of Deployment: With Bluetooth® technology native in 100 percent of smartphones and tablets, installers can use simple, user-friendly commissioning apps that communicate directly with nodes on the network, eliminating the need for specialized engineering expertise or internet and cloud platforms to support installation and operation of the system. In addition, a remote provisioning feature makes adding new devices or maintaining or changing existing devices even easier.
• Greater Scalability: The ideal lighting control system is often one that can start small and then scale, in both functionality and size, as spaces and layouts inevitably change and evolve. Bluetooth® NLC features a decentralized architecture that distributes control to all end devices, removing the need for centralized controllers and allowing Bluetooth NLC lighting systems to be more easily reconfigurable and far more extensible than other wireless lighting control options. This decentralized control architecture enables systems to easily expand or contract to meet changing business needs and occupant requirements.
DiLouie: What are the benefits for Bluetooth NLC for electrical contractors working on projects with networked lighting controls? What specific problems are solved?
Barnes: For electrical contractors, the topline benefit is “ease of deployment.”
With Bluetooth® technology native in 100 percent of smartphones and tablets, installers can use simple, user-friendly commissioning apps that communicate directly with nodes on the network, eliminating the need for specialized engineering expertise or internet and cloud platforms to support installation and operation of the system.
In addition, a remote provisioning feature makes adding new devices or maintaining or changing existing devices even easier. For example, the remote provisioning feature adds the ability for provisioning to be carried out over the mesh network, with provisioning messages taking one or more hops to reach the remote, unprovisioned device. This makes adding, changing, or removing devices from an NLC system easier for electrical contractors.
DiLouie: For specifiers and electrical contractors, what would selecting and installing a system look like compared to other wireless lighting control solutions?
Barnes: Bluetooth technology is the most widely deployed wireless standard. With more than 5 billion Bluetooth® enabled devices forecasted to ship in 2023 alone, Bluetooth® NLC specifiers and electrical contractors can expect to benefit from the economies of scale that only Bluetooth technology can afford.
Lighting specifiers and electrical control selecting and installing Bluetooth® NLC can rest assured the product that make up the wireless lighting control system will work together as expected. Those same devices will also be easy to deploy using a smartphone or tablet with a mobile app. Once deployed, if moves, additions, or changes to the system are needed, contractors can be confident that there are features available to simplify or even automate the required system updates with their smartphone or tablet using a mobile app.
DiLouie: If you could tell the entire electrical contracting community just one thing about Bluetooth NLC, what would it be?
Barnes: Bluetooth® networked lighting control (NLC) was designed to meet the strict requirements of commercial and industrial environments where ease of deployment, performance, scalability, and security are of the utmost importance. In addition, wireless control systems based on Bluetooth NLC deliver significant energy savings, enhance the occupant experience, and can improve building operations.
DiLouie: Is there anything else you’d like to add about this topic?
Barnes: Over a decade ago, the lighting industry began a journey towards standardization of wireless lighting control using Bluetooth® technology. Since then, numerous projects have been completed, making buildings all over the world smarter and more energy efficient. Developers, manufacturers, integrators, installers, maintenance teams, and building operators have gained valuable experience and have all contributed to the Bluetooth® NLC wireless lighting control standard.
Bluetooth® NLC achieves something unusual; the standard combines high security with ease of use and low cost of ownership. The business and technical case for deploying Bluetooth® NLC could not be stronger.
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