Redwood's latest intelligent building-performance lighting system leverages Cat 6 infrastructure

Redwood Systems, a CommScope company and specialist in intelligent building-performance lighting, has released its next-generation Gen-3 platform for commercial properties. Designed to deliver dynamic, real-time building intelligence within a cost-effective lighting solution, Redwood says the new platform allows both facilities and data centers to gain immediate energy savings with improved operational efficiency around building performance. LED [light emitting diode] lights powered and controlled by the new Redwood platform are competitively priced with other commercial lighting systems, contends the company.

The Redwood Gen-3 platform includes the new Engine-3, new environmental sensors, and a director function to centrally store available building data. In addition to energy savings from lighting, the new platform provides customers with intelligent data on space utilization and temperature across commercial offices, data centers and schools. Facility managers and property owners may use this data to make more informed, cost-effective decisions for lighting, heating and cooling, as well as strategic real estate portfolio plans, says Redwood. The company adds that a software upgrade to the system's cloud-based data warehouse is in development; this will give facilities managers and data analytics firms the ability to analyze real-time and historic data across multiple campus locations.

See: CommScope acquires Redwood Systems

The new Redwood Engine-3 delivers the optimal amount of power to an LED fixture and simplifies in-field installation. With 70 percent more power per channel than the previous model, one engine can power and control significantly more lighting. New RJ45 input ports on the engine’s front panel enables standard Category cable to be quickly connected and provide power, control and communications with lighting fixtures and sensors. Additionally, the new architecture will be able to support two LED fixtures on a single CommScope Category 6 cable, further reducing installed cost. These optimizations make the Gen-3 solution a superior choice to traditional fluorescent technology, claims Redwood.

“While big data has taken the IT industry by storm, the ability to act on this explosion of information can transform almost any industry,” asserts Kevin St. Cyr, senior vice president of enterprise solutions, CommScope. “This is especially true with commercial properties that use sensors to collect data on energy and operational information. But without a robust analytics function to make sense of the data and turn it into something applicable, it is essentially useless. Redwood can now offer its customers a best-in-class means to both collect and synthesize the data for actionable insights.”

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