DALI set to unwire with Thread

The folks behind the DALI (Digital Addressable Lighting Interface) wired lighting control protocol are holding true to their intention of improving interoperability with myriad wireless technologies, announcing two steps in that direction — one related to Zigbee and the other to Thread. The Thread initiative is essentially aimed at making a wireless version of DALI, something that Bluetooth backers might also be poised to do.

On the Zigbee front, the Digital Illumination Interface Alliance (DiiA) and the Zigbee Alliance together said they are developing specifications for a “gateway” that will translate Zigbee language into DALI-speak, and vice versa.

DiiA’s members make and market DALI controls products, while the Zigbee Alliance looks after Zigbee, one of many wireless protocols increasingly used by lighting vendors for a number of purposes.

The two organizations have not committed to a date for completing the gateway specification. But once it’s in place, they will then launch a certification program that would verify compliance with the gateway.

The gateway will be hardware consisting of a Zigbee transceiver and DALI wired terminals. It could reside in a luminaire or elsewhere.

The interoperability would allow Zigbee-enabled devices, such as occupancy or climate sensors, to readily talk back and forth. Such on-the-fly language translation might, for example, help in industrial deployments like the one at a Pilkington Automotive glass warehouse in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, which is using a combination of wired DALI controls and Signify lighting outfitted with Zigbee-linked sensors that provide information on warehouse usage. In that case, the sensors are mounted on the trunking system that also houses the luminaires.

It could also improve communications between lighting and Zigbee-outfitted building management systems.

Zigbee-to-DALI gateways today are proprietary. The two groups are now aiming for standardization, with the goal of boosting interoperability. That, in turn, would help drive Internet of Things (IoT) lighting — sometimes called connected or smart lighting — in which the lighting infrastructure doubles as a vital information technology network, gathering, and analyzing data about building operations. IoT lighting has been slower to catch on than the industry had hoped (prompting lighting industry leader Signify to use the current global business slowdown as an opportunity to spread IoT awareness).

“Our liaison agreement with the Zigbee Alliance is part of DiiA’s commitment to address different options for combining wireless communication links with DALI lighting control,” said Paul Drosihn, general manager of DiiA, which is based in Piscataway, NJ.

“The intersection of wired and wireless is where industry can work better together during this IoT transition to benefit those invested in both technology camps as well as consumers as they embrace connected devices,” said Tobin Richardson, CEO of the Davis, CA-based Zigbee Alliance.

DALI-Zigbee interoperability is not aimed at using Zigbee for wireless lighting control. In the DALI-Zigbee context, that function remains wired using DALI protocols.

But that is not the case in the partnership that DiiA announced this week with another wireless outfit, the Thread Group, based in San Ramon, CA.

Thread is a membership organization that backs an IoT wireless mesh scheme based on IP (Internet Protocol). Its president and vice president of technology come from Google’s Google Nest group of smart home products. It has been trying to make lighting inroads for several years.

“The organizations will collaborate to implement the DALI lighting-control application on top of Thread’s low-power, secure, and self-healing wireless mesh network,” DiiA and Thread said in a joint announcement.

That means that Thread will act as a wireless conduit for DALI commands, LEDs Magazine confirmed.

“Running the DALI application layer on top of Thread’s wireless network solution will become a core offering for DiiA and will accelerate the integration of these technologies into the commercial space,” DiiA’s Drosihn said. “We’re excited that Thread is the first IP-based carrier for which DiiA plans to offer certification.”

As a wireless mesh technology, Thread competes against other wireless mesh protocols vying for supremacy in the IoT lighting world, including Zigbee, Bluetooth, and Wirepas, which has worked with Ingy and Fagerhult among others. While there is also a certain amount of cooperation between Thread and some of those groups, to some extent the preponderance of different and not-always-compatible wireless technologies is impeding the take-up of connected lighting.

Thread describes itself as “not a traditional standards body that tries to solve all issues for all industries.” Rather, it says it “is primarily focused on educating product developers while ensuring a great user experience through rigorous, meaningful product certification.” It says it is developing a certification program using UL.

DiiA chair Arnulf Rupp, an Osram standardization executive, threw down a wireless gauntlet last September at the DALI summit, when he emphasized that no one wireless protocol will dominate any time soon, and broadly painted two paths by which DiiA would continue in efforts to work with the wireless world.

He described one of those paths as consisting of “ecosystem partnerships” aimed at interoperability. The new Zigbee partnership fits in that category.

Rupp, who is also a Thread director, described the other path as “DALI Wireless” aimed at “wireless transport for wireless protocol.” The Thread announcement marks the first substantive move there.

DiiA explains on its website that its DALI Wireless subgroup is also looking into implementing DALI over Bluetooth. It is believed that the two groups are getting closer to working out a cooperative agreement similar to what DiiA and Thread have done.

Meanwhile, big questions will begin to percolate regarding the lighting industry’s hopes to sell IoT or any lighting into commercial offices in a global economy that could accommodate continuing home working once the coronavirus pandemic subsides.

“The notion of putting 7000 people in a building may be a thing of the past,” Barclays’ CEO Jes Staley told reporters this week.

While any cutback in office working might seem to threaten lighting and IoT sales, it is also possible that buildings could become more equipped with smart technologies aimed at improving their operations and healthy climate.

MARK HALPER is a contributing editor for LEDs Magazine, and an energy, technology, and business journalist ([email protected]m).

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