What’s New in Ubicquia’s UbiCell^® Utility-Grade Universal (UGU) Product

By Keith Chinchar
General Manager, Smart Street Lighting

Ubicquia’s latest innovation, the UbiCell^® Utility-Grade Universal (UGU) product, is revolutionizing the way we manage and control streetlights—whether they’re cobra head or decorative fixtures. Designed with versatility and advanced technology, the UbiCell UGU brings enhanced features in a low-profile design, making it easy to install in any fixture type. Ubicquia’s UbiCell UGU is a single solution that simplifies asset management across a portfolio of streetlights.

The UbiCell UGU Advantage: One Node to Control Them All

With the UbiCell UGU, Ubicquia streamlines the control of diverse streetlight fixtures, offering a singular wireless lighting controller that adapts seamlessly across different setups. This one node to control them all approach brings efficiency, flexibility, and enhanced control, making it simpler than ever to manage a wide range of fixtures with one solution.

What’s New in the UbiCell UGU: Enhanced Features for Ultimate Flexibility

Ubicquia’s UbiCell UGU product stands out with features that cater specifically to the needs of both functional and decorative lighting solutions:

• Low-Profile, Universal Design: The UbiCell UGU’s compact structure allows it to integrate effortlessly with decorative fixtures, blending aesthetics with functionality.
• Enhanced GPS Capabilities: With advanced GPS technology, the UbiCell UGU offers precise location tracking for improved asset management and monitoring.
• Dual Light Pipes: These ensure accurate sensing and data collection, improving the accuracy of light-level adjustments and performance tracking.
• High-Powered Antenna: The robust antenna design enhances connectivity, ensuring reliable communication even in dense urban environments.

What the UbiCell UGU Means for You

The innovative new features of the UbiCell UGU create cost-saving benefits for cities and utilities.

• Inventory Management: The UbiCell UGU allows you to stock a single lighting controller for every fixture in your lighting network.
• Truck Roll Avoidance: Reduce the number of truck rolls required to maintain streetlight networks with our advanced clustering algorithm that creates groupings of decorative and cobra head fixtures in a single area to make routes more efficient.
• Faster Outage Resolution: More advanced technical capabilities on the UbiCell UGU paired with AI-powered UbiVu^® allows for unique outage fingerprints that identify the cause and how to resolve outages.

Use Cases That Carry Over From the UG

Building on the proven capabilities of the original UbiCell UG, the UbiCell UGU continues to offer these benefits to cities.

1. Full Asset Management at Your Fingertips Gain comprehensive oversight of your streetlight network with real-time data. The UbiCell UGU enables real-time monitoring of luminaire performance, power status, and energy use, identifying any issues before they escalate.

2. Copper Theft Detection and Prevention Copper theft is common – and costly. The waveform of voltage loss for copper theft has a unique fingerprint from other voltage losses. Cities and utilities receive real-time alerts when the distinct conditions of copper wire theft are detected, allowing for swift intervention to mitigate the impact.

3. Predictive AI for Proactive Management The UbiCell UGU provides even more advanced technical hardware to enhance the predictive analytics that allow you to understand which fixtures are performing best, assess life expectancies, and pinpoint weak spots within your grid. With this data, you can plan maintenance proactively, reducing costs and extending the lifespan of your assets.

4. Reduce Truck Rolls and Maintenance Costs Efficient streetlight management is not just about knowing when there’s an issue—it’s about resolving it quickly and with minimal resources. The UbiCell UGU’s remote monitoring and diagnostic capabilities reduce the need for truck rolls, lowering operational costs and carbon emissions associated with maintenance tasks. Our unique clustering algorithm creates groupings of lights that need repairs or maintenance to focus truck rolls. Being able to see both decorative and cobra head fixtures in a single cluster, as made possible by the UbiCell UGU, creates even more efficiencies.

Experience the UbiCell UGU Advantage Today

Take the next step in streetlight management with Ubicquia’s UbiCell UGU product—a smarter, more efficient way to manage and control your lighting network. Embrace the future of smart cities with a solution that adapts to your needs, providing security, control, and flexibility all in one.

For more information on how Ubicquia can help make your city smarter and more efficient, visit Ubicquia’s website or reach out to their team at info@ubicquia.com.

Keith Chinchar, General Manager, Smart Street Lighting, Ubicquia
As General Manager of Ubicquia’s Smart Streetlighting business, Keith Chinchar is responsible for its solution development, go-to-market strategy and profit and loss. He comes to Ubicquia with over 25 years of experience in engineering, business development, sales, operations, and marketing for IoT devices, control systems, and smart city applications. Keith has overseen hundreds of outdoor lighting projects including some of the largest and most complex in the country. His previous positions include business development at CIMCON, electrical engineering of EV design at Tesla, business development at Encelium, along with various solution engineering roles at Lutron.