New San Jose project opens door for smart streetlights

San Jose wants to upgrade a third of its 70,000 streetlights to LEDs and is seeking outside funding, providing what EE Times sees as an opportunity to start turning the California city into a “connected” smart city. The move makes sense to the EE Times because San Jose is at the south end of Silicon Valley and companies can propose any number of projects to meet the city’s funding goals for the lighting upgrade. This could even include IoT technology embedded in streetlight poles “as long as they comply with electric requirements of the local utility,” according to EE Times.

How likely is this to happen? Part of it clearly relies on the willingness of Silicon Valley companies to get involved in a project like this. There might not be much incentive for companies to get involved outside their home city. Google provides free Wi-Fi only in Mountain View, for example, although its Google Fiber project has rolled out to a few select cities across the US. Still, smart cities are expected to be a significant market. A September report from Deutsche Bank projects the smart city market value to be $1.2 trillion to $1.6 trillion by 2020. It makes sense that governments would want new infrastructure investment to take advantage of IoT technology.

Lighting is a relatively simple IoT technology to implement. It was one of the earliest uses of IoT technology and has become one of the most popular. Earlier this year, IHS highlighted smart lighting with LEDs as a key trend for 2015. Countless Chinese suppliers now offer various smart lights with all kinds of functions, including some that serve as a Bluetooth speaker. Don’t expect those to be installed across San Jose, but China manufacturers are clearly ready for the rise of smart LED lighting.