Acuity Brands has acquired
ByteLight, a Boston-based company that provide indoor location software for LED lighting. According to the Acuity press statement, the deal involves a cash transaction “for certain assets, including the patent portfolio and all other intellectual property rights.”
The move will allow Acuity Brands to incorporate ByteLight’s Visible Light Communication (VLC) software with Acuity’s VLC-enabled LED drivers and LED lighting solutions geared toward retail applications. The delivery of digital content to shoppers while in a real-time retail setting is one of the new frontiers in lighting. ByteLight has been a pioneer when it comes to VLC and Bluetooth low energy (BLE) technologies, which allows retailers to provide customers with a customized shopping experience via their mobile devices.
The acquisition would seem to halt any partnership already underway between
ByteLight and GE Lighting, who only just last year at Lightfair debuted the incorporation of the indoor positioning software in some of its luminaires.
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Elizabeth Donoff is Editor-at-Large of Architectural Lighting (AL). She served as Editor-in-Chief from 2006 to 2017. She joined the editorial team in 2003 and is a leading voice in the lighting community speaking at industry events such as Lightfair and the International Association of Lighting Designers Annual Enlighten Conference, and has twice served as a judge for the Illuminating Engineering Society New York City Section’s (IESNYC) Lumen Award program. In 2009, she received the Brilliance Award from the IESNYC for dedicated service and contribution to the New York City lighting community.
Over the past 11 years, under her editorial direction, Architectural Lighting has received a number of prestigious B2B journalism awards. In 2017, Architectural Lighting was a Top Ten Finalist for Magazine of the Year from the American Society of Business Publication Editors' AZBEE Awards. In 2016, Donoff received the Jesse H. Neal Award for her Editor’s Comments in the category of Best Commentary/Blog, and in 2015, AL received a Jesse H. Neal Award for Best Media Brand (Overall Editorial Excellence).
Prior to her entry into design journalism, Donoff worked in New York City architectural offices including FXFowle where she was part of the project teams for the Reuters Building at Three Times Square and the New York Times Headquarters. She is a graduate of Bates College in Lewiston, Me., and she earned her Master of Architecture degree from the School of Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis.