COVID-19 Impact on Smart Lightning in ICT Industry | Data Bridge Market Research

Posted by swarajya on April 28th, 2021

COVID-19 Impact on Smart Lightning in ICT Industry

INTRODUCTION

The concept of smart lightening has emerged in past few years in the market and its connection and operation with wireless charging could unleash a new residential lighting revolution. The light industry has seen major changes over the past two decades. The lights were introduced as the incandescent light by Edison and now the industry has transitioned to LED (light-emitting diode) bulbs beyond the forces of regulations.

The lightening economics changed with the introduction of LED (Light-emitting diode) and CFLs. LED (Light-emitting diode) are 5 times more energy efficient and last 23 times as long as compared to the old lightening devices or bulbs. As per a study conducted in the USA, households spend around USD 24 billion annually on electrical supplies, with over USD1bn expense is only in light bulb purchases made each year. According to a 2010 DOE study, nearly 6bn residential lights are operating across the US. This resulted in 175TWh of electricity being consumed, accounting for ~13% of all residential electricity consumption. If all 6 billion lights were using a Smart LED (Light-emitting diode) it can result in saving of almost USD 34 billion in annual energy cost. As a result, the LED (Light-emitting diode) lights last longer and use much less energy.    

In an interview, David Kavanagh, senior director of consumer products at LIFX, an Australian company known for its line of smart bulbs, said “We’ve always been trying to build the premium light bulb in the market and we have added pieces of tech, such as ambient light sensors, accelerometers, infrared, and additional pieces of technology in our products. The company introduced its infrared-emitting LIFX+ bulbs, which help cameras equipped with night vision see better in the dark, in 2017.” He added “There are interesting things that can happen when you can have sensors in bulbs that traditionally rely on Wi-Fi, cloud, or Bluetooth. If you’ve got things in the bulb that can be running locally, you’ve got the ability to handle some use cases that don’t require those things.”

But the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 globally has somewhere impacted the innovations taking place in the industry. It has impacted both positively and negatively the market. Even after that, it is expected that smart lightening will boom post COVID-19 with a great growth potential.

IMPACT COVID-19 ON SMART LIGHTNING  PAUSE ON ONGOING PROJECTS

Due to the spread of coronavirus, the various ongoing projects have to shut down and put on hold immediately. A decline of around 4% has been noticed in the technological budget which has paced down the innovation speed and investments in the new technology developments. There is an exception to this pause on ongoing projects only in the below mentioned two cases:

• The project must involve high strategic initiatives
• The project involves those technologies that are directly linked with COVID-19

DECLINE IN DEMAND OF NEW DEVICES 

It has been noticed that the sales of new devices based on smart lightning such as smart bulb, lamps etc. has gone down. Many companies are cautious about procuring new services, starting new projects or buying IoT hardware. Not only smart lightening, but almost all enterprises that are based on IoT are experiencing drying sales pipelines. A business development manager at an online marketplace for enterprise consulting projects in Europe has stated in April that “In the last weeks, we have seen a drop in approx. 50% of new projects being advertised on our portal.”

Not only people are avoiding spending on smart lightning, but companies are restricting their investment on such hardware projects.

TECHNOLOGY ROADMAPS GOT DELAYED 

In this industry various technology standards are based on exchange and decision-making of a group of experts that are present in person. COVID-19 made it more difficult for these experts to work together, which is resulting in delays of new technology standards. For instance, the release of important technology such as 5G has been postponed due to coronavirus. This has also impacted the advancements that could take place in smart lightning in terms of connectivity and better user experience.

FREE PRODUCT AND SERVICE TO CUSTOMERS TO IMPROVE RELATIONSHIPS 

Many players in the market are offering customers free upgrades, services or software in response to coronavirus. As customer-vendor relationship has also been affected, players are working to reach their customers at every cost to maintain the relationship that will be the basis of their future growth. Also many companies of smart lightening are offering free installation in various places where electricity was an issue once upon a time. This they have made a part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activity. Many industries that are affected directly due to this pandemic are being offered smart light for installation without any charges to promote the technology and product to increase the market share and knowledge about the product. Read more…