A video produced by the West Baden Springs Hotel (embedded below) briefly overviews how the historic resort transformed its elaborate lighting system by installing intelligent, Power over Ethernet-enabled LED lighting. The story behind the cabling/PoE lighting installation project will be told in detail in the August issue of Cabling Installation & Maintenance magazine.
Matt Laherty is chief executive officer of Platformatics, the company that carried out the PoE lighting-overhaul project. While the project was in progress, he explained, “Moving away from very high-energy-consumption incandescent bulbs, that are primarily putting out heat and some light, and we’re converting those over to LEDs. But while we convert them we’re also transforming the color show. We’re going to add color along the edges and redo the color show in the middle, so it gives you a lot of vibrant, richer colors.”
The video’s narrator explains, “The new system runs on Ethernet cable—30,000 feet of it. There are more than 500 new LED lighting fixtures. And here’s the most remarkable part: The new system is 98.5 percent more efficient than the old system.”
Carl Cook, chief executive officer of hotel owner Cook Group, explained the lights operate for six to eight hours each night. “When we did the math,” he recalled, “it was a four- or five-year payback.”
As will be described in Cabling Installation & Maintenance, the approximately 30,000 feet of cable was Superior Essex’s PowerWise 1 Gigabit 4-Pair Power over Ethernet cable.
You can watch the full video below.
UPDATE JULY 7, 2017: Superior Essex also has produced a video detailing the West Baden Springs Hotel project. The eight-minute video includes commentary from several of the principals involved, and also shows the hotel atrium's light show. In the video, Platformatics' Laherty goes into further detail about the accomplishment achieved at, and capabilities built into, West Baden Springs. Watch the Superior Essex video immediately below.