Finland-based wireless IoT connectivity provider Wirepas has closed its biggest smart lighting deal to date by selling its Wirepas Mesh connectivity software for inclusion in 100,000 units of Ingy lighting controllers.

Dutch firm Ingy specialises in lighting for smart buildings. Wirepas is providing an easy-to install, scalable wireless alternative for wired networks in such buildings. This covers both simple lighting control and the possibility to use lighting as a backbone network for applications such as asset tracking, indoor navigation, occupancy analytics and climate monitoring. The size of the mesh network has no limit; Wirepas already has networks with tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of devices running.

“This is our biggest single lighting deal to date and, together with our partner Ingy, allows us as to take a great grip on the smart building industry,” said Alan Sillito, head of global key accounts at Wirepas. “Lighting matters as you can create a building-wide network on which any partner of ours can build. Clearly, this is just the beginning for us; there is a huge demand for connecting smart buildings quickly, securely and affordably. The market of industrial IoT is about massive numbers of units. The long-talked about digitalisation of industries is now happening for real as the frontrunner companies are seeing the benefits. The deal sizes are massive and growing.”

Wirepas Mesh is connectivity software that allows devices automatically to form limitless, reliable IoT networks. It is particularly useful in dense environments. Unlike other mesh technologies, it is built ground up for industrial purposes. There is no single point of failure.

Ingy has built a full lighting control stack on top of Wirepas Mesh. Providers of lighting equipment and sensors can either license the Ingy software to create out-of-the-box smart lighting or purchase lighting products and components from Ingy partners. Wirepas partners provide sensors going beyond lighting, which can use the Wirepas Mesh network created by the lighting to connect to the internet.

“We have been working closely with Wirepas over the last couple of years to build a truly scalable and distributed wireless mesh for lighting control which can offer the bandwidth and ecosystem of supported sensors required to deliver the backbone for a smart building,” said Bastiaan de Groot, CEO of Ingy. “Many have dreamt of this but did not have the radio technology nor the range of sensors going beyond lighting to back it up. With Wirepas, we are finally able to deliver on this vision. Our rapid success so far has shown that our customers recognise the difference we can deliver thanks to the Wirepas technology and the vast range of sensors we can access through their ecosystem.”

The IoT Wirepas and Ingy provided to University Medical Center (UMC) Utrecht in the Netherlands is one example of the companies’ past cooperation. Another example is the Zone college project, delivered by Koopman Interlight, one of the lighting companies leading applications of Ingy technology.

Wirepas Mesh fits virtually any network requiring reliability at a massive scale and devices deployed very densely. In addition to smart buildings, it already ensures the connectivity in several smart factories, in asset tracking and smart metering. Wirepas is the main contributor to the recently published Dect-2020 NR for 5G standard, based on the same architecture principles.

Ingy was founded in 2018 and focuses on delivering scalable smart lighting on top of Wirepas network technology. It provides everything required to use lighting as a backbone for smart buildings.

Wirepas serves users across the world with offices in Australia, Germany, Finland, France, India, South Korea and the USA.