The Wellbeing Dashboard The Wellbeing Dashboard enables building managers and employers to monitor lighting performance in a similar way they do for energy efficiency and space utilisation through a building management system.

David Eves, CTO & Founder amBX

The quality of light can deeply affect the physiology of the human body. Better lighting can improve your natural daily cycles, your circadian rhythm, and help you feel more healthy and invigorated. Different forms of human-centric lighting, therefore, influence how you work, how you rest and how you relax. We believe people deserve better lighting, and our mission is to improve the ability to easily monitor and understand how lighting is improving the environment for people working within it.

Optimising the benefit of light on human behaviour

The understanding of the impact of light on human behaviour has advanced rapidly. Research has shown that harnessing the positive effects of lighting in new ways can be beneficial in many aspects of our lives. The right type and level of lighting can dramatically improve our performance and productivity. New generation lighting technology means everyone will be able to experience the benefits of bio-adaptive lighting, which can be cost-effectively utilised in offices, homes and sensitive environments such as schools and hospitals.

The principle of bio-adaptive lighting is to provide artificial light controlled to match the needs of human biological cycles, our circadian rhythm. It provides for improved health and wellbeing and supports aspects of human behaviour that benefit from varied and changeable lighting.

It is known that exposure to certain forms of late-evening lighting delays our natural physiological rhythms, resulting in disrupted sleep and wake cycles, early-morning light exposure can energise and activate the bodies systems more quickly.

Certain critical ranges, particularly of blue light are far more prevalent in sunlight than traditional artificial sources, and for many people, the body absorbs more during the summer and much less in the winter. Because of this, researchers have highlighted the importance of providing much more naturalistic quality and wavelengths of artificial light to help boost mood and productivity year-round, especially during winter or for shift working.

While in the interests of energy management much ‘smart’ lighting is centrally automated, it is increasingly recognised that considerable benefit can be achieved in both quality and efficiency by handing some control over lighting to the individual affected by it. A study by the University of Exeter found that welfare and productivity are most likely to be optimised by practices that empower the workforce and that their experiments showed that empowerment was the key differentiating factor in increasing productivity by up to 32%. Today, with amBX, the solution exists to provide simple and effective control over this hugely important aspect of lighting while still maintaining facility management oversight.

amBX Smart Core provides control of lighting in single or multiple spaces according to end-user requirements, while responding to dynamic environmental conditions like daylight levels, time of day, temperature and occupancy as well as maintaining efficient building policies.

Software to drive modern connected lighting systems

Modern intelligent lighting systems are only as effective as the software that controls them. amBX Smart Core software is proven and cost-effective technology that operates at the heart of modern connected lighting systems, providing a sophisticated control that is simple to use as well as delivering the data required for intelligent analysis of modern building use. 

The benefits of better lighting on connected networks are redefining how the world uses light. Building operators, platform providers and suppliers of connected lighting devices that incorporate amBX software will make their own propositions more effective. Building owners and facility managers who use amBX to interface with existing building management systems will also be future-proofing their building’s lighting system.

Because amBX Smart Core software delivers optimum lighting control for different conditions and environments without the need for intricate, time-consuming and expensive programming, initial set-up costs can be cut by up to 80%. Later changes to the lighting installation can be easily configured, improving performance and making further savings over the whole building lifecycle.

What makes amBX different?

amBX take a fundamentally different approach to control, our unique software meets the technical requirements of intelligent lighting, delivers to energy efficiency expectations and, most importantly, provides a true people-centric lighting system in your building.

amBX Smart Core is multi-protocol software that enables you to simply and automatically manage the colour and location of light in any 3D space. Smart Core manages the lighting experience for each space within a building, processing the ever-growing range of sensor and data inputs to calculate the ideal lighting at any moment. The resulting optimised model is then delivered as real-time control commands to the fixtures, translated for different protocols and platforms.

Advanced amBX technology delivers a dynamic, real- time control option without the need for rules-based programming. Intelligent lighting systems need this combination of factors to provide genuine connected lighting in your building.

Creating A Wellbeing Dashboard

Recently we also announced that we had teamed up with lighting consultancy “It Does Lighting” to develop the concept of a Wellbeing Dashboard that can enable building managers and employers to monitor how well the lighting in their spaces is supporting employees and helping them work more effectively.

The Dashboard analyses various aspects of how a lit space is performing including, for example, how well lighting supports the natural circadian cycles of occupants; how the intensity of lighting matches the tasks being carried out in a given space, and how natural and effective the lighting is in creating an optimum working environment. The Wellbeing Dashboard enables building managers and employers to monitor lighting performance in a similar way they do for energy efficiency and space utilisation through a building management system.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]The Wellbeing Dashboard concept takes advantage of the latest smart connected lighting technologies including a much wider range of sensors and data services being integrated with lighting networks in buildings of all types.

In illustrating the quality of the balance of the lighting with your natural circadian rhythm, and how good the intensity of lighting is for the tasks being performed, the Wellbeing Dashboard can help visualise how the lit environment is contributing to an effective working space.

Incorporating in buildings

Designers of contemporary public or commercial buildings that aspire to be intelligent in the way they enable occupants to use and function productively in the space increasingly want to include connected lighting in their schemes. amBX software can help deliver optimum lighting experiences in dynamic conditions and environments without the need for intricate, time consuming and expensive programming.

Facility owners and management companies with an existing building management system can also future-proof their facility by adding amBX Smart Core as the central hub of a connected lighting system. By enabling a fundamentally different approach to connected lighting, one that tackles the enormous challenges that the Internet of Things is bringing to building management systems, the amBX software can transform the way a building delivers its lighting provision. amBX can integrate with both an existing building management system and individual elements of a new lighting system to be the “intelligence” that orchestrates better lighting installations.