Nokia has brought its suite of IoT-powered lighting and electrical control products to the USA in a deal with California-based Smartlabs.

The launch of Nokia Smart Lighting sees products designed to make smart lighting straightforward to buy, easy to install and intuitive to use. They are said to bring consumers and the trade high-end style, precision engineering and wide-ranging capabilities at an affordable price.

“One of our focus areas in brand licensing is smart home connected devices, and we are excited to bring the first Nokia Smart Lighting products to market with Smartlabs, a technology leader in smart lighting control,” said Vipul Mehrotra, vice president at Nokia. “This complete line of innovative, versatile and easy-to-use smart lighting devices reflects Nokia’s commitment to using technology to positively impact people’s everyday experience, including enabling effective energy management.”

The products have a clean, modern aesthetic found in high-end custom offerings, yet resemble familiar wall switch and dial designs that won’t require family or guests to learn how to use them. Soft-touch haptics provide an elegant feel and quiet operation. Designer touches include screwless wall plates and matte finishes.

“We understand that every home is different, so we’ve created the new Nokia Smart Lighting products to complement any style of home and make smart lighting easy for everyone to enjoy,” said Rob Lilleness, CEO of Smartlabs. “The line is designed to work with any fixture, any bulb and wiring configuration, and you can control the system by touch, voice, phone or tablet. These new products enhance one’s home with beautiful lighting whether creating a mood for a dinner party or automatically turning on the staircase lights for the morning; its lighting that improves life.”

Smartlabs’ technology offers consumers versatility and customisation for virtually any home. The switches and outlets work with and from any:

• Lighting fixture – dimmable or on-off, adjusting each for brightness.
• Type of bulb – LED, incandescent, halogen or fluorescent.
• Wiring configuration – one switch or grouped switches.
• Location – at home, in the car or on vacation with Android and iOS apps, using voice assistants, or with a touch of a button or turn of a dial.
• Preference – use as a standard switch or go smart with Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa.

The product line – including paddle and dial switches, a four-button, multi-function keypad, outlet and bridge – provides flexibility to enable a smart way to upgrade any home, regardless of existing fixtures, wiring, bulb type or floorplan.

Combining convenience with technology, the products are said to make it easy for everyone to enjoy reliable smart lighting in any residential or commercial building. And, unlike smart bulbs, these smart devices work even if someone has turned off the switch – a common issue in smart homes today.

Unlike wireless-only systems, the devices stay connected by using the power of a dual-mesh network. The products combine RF and powerline (existing wires in a home) for reliability and responsiveness. This dual-mesh network brings the performance of wired and the convenience of wireless to ensure lights work, even if the home’s wifi is down.

A home is, wirelessly speaking, a battleground full of obstacles, and the products solve this problem by simultaneously using wireless radio frequency communications and the home’s existing electrical wiring to increase reliability.

With Smartlabs’ dual-mesh technology, Nokia Smart Lighting signals travel further without interruption than other commonly used, wireless-only technologies. Using the dual-mesh approach, existing electrical wiring and wireless obstructions rarely impede signals, resulting in a reliability advantage over single-band networks.

Every Nokia Smart Lighting device can repeat messages across the network, eliminating latencies and the bottlenecks that can occur when a single device fails in a routed network. Each device stays in constant contact with every other device and can control and be controlled by the other devices, allowing users to add an almost infinite number of devices to customise their home without the limitations of wireless-only systems.

Founded in 1992 and acquired by Richmond Capital Partners in 2017, Smartlabs has experience developing technology for electrical, lighting, and sensor communication and control, with the company holding more than 50 patents that provide a foundation for innovation in the smart device space.