Ubicquia intros ‘best value, most advanced’ LTE streetlight controller for smart cities
by James Blackamn | Enterprise iot Insights | April 20, 2020
Ubicquia has released a new IoT router for street lights that it claims is the simplest, cheapest, and most sophisticated way for smart cities to control their various tech sensors.
The Fort Lauderdale firm, which makes smart lighting control platforms, said the new Ubicell 2.0 router brings advancements in technology, connectivity, data management that reduces operational and maintenance expenses for municipalities and utilities.
It claimed the Ubicell 2.0 router offers the “lowest industry total cost of ownership – without the need for gateways or concentrators”, allowing for easy plug-and-play set-up on LTE based networks (“as simple as a traditional photocell”), and support for other smart city sensors and location services, including smart metering and traffic monitoring.
It establishes a single controller for 120V-480V streetlights, supporting all dimming protocols, including recently introduced DALI2. It will work with 360-odd million streetlights globally, it said. Ubicquia claims around 60 smart streetlight installations.
Ian Aaron, chief executive at Ubicquia, said: “We have worked with our utility, municipal and distribution partners to deliver the industry’s most advanced and reliable streetlight controller while greatly reducing installation, operational, maintenance and networks costs. We have done this at a price point of traditional streetlight controllers while integrating critical utility monitoring, location-based services and smart city sensor connectivity.”
Mark Carter, vice president of smart solutions at lighting company RealTerm Energy, said: “We are installing the Ubicell streetlight controller in nearly 20 of our municipal projects. [It] will significantly improve our ability to deploy smart city sensors and services for our customers to monitor critical infrastructure.”
He added: “We’ve deployed mesh systems in the past that require gateways which increase installation time, complexity, and cost. Our experience with LTE connectivity has driven faster deployments with better coverage while decreasing our customer’s operational, maintenance, and network costs.”
