Does my lighting look good in this?

The launch of the new app, announced at Smart City Expo in Barcelona, is the result of a collaboration between Philips Lighting and enterprise software company SAP. The app merges image analytics developed by Philips Lighting, which identifies architectural lighting photos of landmark installations on social platforms such as Instagram, with SAP’s Cloud Platform which collates data on what is being posted on social media and news sites, about a given piece of architecture. The result is an invaluable set of metrics formed by public opinion, measuring sentiment about architectural lighting for a specific building or monument.

The app illustrates how technology can help to quantify the return on investment for architectural lighting. For example, data from the app will help city authorities to identify the most popular lighting displays and refine lighting strategies to best meet the needs of their local community. This is becoming increasingly important as individuals interact with their environment in new and innovative ways; for example, the lighting of a bridge might be sponsored by a charity which allows donors to vote for their preferred lighting design. Also, in a world where cities strive to find new and innovative ways to be smarter, the social impact analytics app may be used to create new business opportunities for the local economy.

A study conducted by Philips Lighting about the impact of public lighting, revealed that landmarks that have been dynamically lit serve much more than a functional purpose. Cities and public and private organisations are using the installations to beautify or brand cities to boost tourism, promote health and wellbeing, and revitalise areas in decline by turning buildings, bridges and monuments into art.

“When used in a dynamic creative way, light can turn even the plainest structure into a work of art. The new app will contextualise social media posts proving the value of dynamically lit architecture, not just from a social and cultural perspective, but also their potential impact on the local economy. The analysis engine analyses all the data that comes in. It can visualise it, report it and provide alerts to cities. Furthermore, it will identify only the posts that you're interested in, for example: ignoring a traffic jam on a bridge, but capturing sentiment about the lighting,” said Jacques Letzelter, Global Business Leader Public Segment at Philips Lighting.

Media and social media especially reflect the impact lighting installations have on civic pride and the local community. One example of this is The Bay Lights, a light sculpture on the San Francisco Bay Bridge, which has shown to have enormous positive impact on the local community.