Wirepas partners with UV-C provider for mesh control of disinfection systems

Finnish wireless networking company Wirepas has teamed with a provider of ultraviolet LED air-disinfection systems to allow mesh control of UV-C and UV-A emitters mounted in ventilating ducts and on ceilings across buildings and campuses.

The partnership with Houston-based illumiPure echoes deals that Wirepas has struck with lighting and lighting controls suppliers, in that illumiPure cited Wirepas’ ability to scale up and support a large number of devices. Mesh networks function by using the devices they control — lights, switches, sensor, and other Internet-connected things — as nodes that relay instructions onto other nodes.

Tampere-based Wirepas is gaining a reputation for scaling well, as evidenced by controls and software partners Mount Kelvin and Ingy on lighting-related deals.

A joint press release by Wirepas and illumiPure noted that Wirepas technology will help monitor and control “thousands of locations in a building or set of buildings at the same time, room by room and continuously.”

IllumiPure CEO John Higgins told LEDs Magazine via email that illumiPure plans to use Wirepas’ existing Massive scheme as well as its forthcoming Wirepas Private 5G, which supports distances of up to around 3 km. Wirepas Private 5G is based on cellular LTE silicon, while Massive is built on much shorter-distance Bluetooth chips. Both products use Wirepas’ own mesh protocol rather than cellular in the case of Private 5G or Bluetooth mesh in the case of Massive.

“Thanks to our partnership with Wirepas, we’re able to offer our solution to institutions in a scalable and reliable way like never before,” illumiPure CEO Higgins said in the press release.

IllumiPure offers a UV-LED–equipped chamber called Air Guardian that includes other disinfection technologies, such as titanium oxide (TiO₂) ceramic filter inlets and optional HEPA filters.

Higgins told LEDs that the company has developed a control system called Vertices which it plans to make available in June.

Vertices includes sensors that monitor air status. It will communicate with Air Guardian via Wirepas to maintain specified air quality parameters.

Air Guardian is designed to kill different pathogens, including SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 and which is deactivated by UV-C in certain doses. IllumiPure uses UV-C and UV-A LEDs from Seoul Semiconductors.

The company also offers visible-light disinfection luminaires called CleanWhite, which target surface pathogens including bacteria, fungi, spores, and mold. Higgins told LEDs that the Wirepas technology will work with CleanWhite, and also with a line of circadian lighting products that illumiPure plans to introduce later this quarter.

Higgins said illumiPure and Wirepas have joint customers but did not identify them.

IllumiPure is part of Houston-based CalyxPure.

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

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