A number of Scanian telecom veterans have joined together in a new startup – BrainLit, provider of biocentric lighting. “The more data we collect, the better the individual lighting provided by our system becomes” says telecom guru Tord Wingren.
The people behind BrainLit, the Lund based company that provides system solutions which include sensors and AI-technology, are well known. BrainLit was founded by Tord Wingren who takes an active role in the company as a scientific advisor and innovator. In addition to contributing in the development of Bluetooth, he was the former CEO of Ericsson Mobile Platforms, President of Samsung in Europe and President of Huawei in Lund. Other people who are active within BrainLit include former Sony Ericsson director Bert Nordberg who is now chairman of the company, IT-profile Dan Olofsson and former director of Vestas, Anders Runevad who is an investor. The CEO of BrainLit is Niclas Olsson.
Mimicking daylight
Tord Wingren explains that the company has developed a system for biocentric lighting. It mimicks natural daylight which can be beneficial for the users’ health and wellbeing, improve sleep and thus strengthen the immune system.
– This is especially relevant in these times, when a large number of people are quarantined due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The system is meant to compensate for us spending less time in daylight than humans of previous generations. The technology is patented in scalable plug and play-solutions which helps the lighting mimic daylight. The solution consists of a feedback-driven system of sensors and algorithms that generate dynamic lighting based on an individual or group’s lighting needs.
– It is partially an AI-system, says Tord Wingren. We collect data and teach it to individually adjust the system. The more data we collect, the better the individual lighting provided by our system becomes. For the user this means that the more data you share, the higher the accuracy in lighting recipes.
Aims to achieve a global standard
– The sensors in the room are customized according to each installation. Our system controls specially designed luminaires, but the idea is not for us to become a lamp manufacturer, but for us to set a global standard and have other manufacturers produce luminaires according to that standard.
Tord Wingren further explains that there are a few lamp manufacturers that already are developing products for this system but, because the company is aiming to expand globally, more are needed.
How did you come up with the idea of BrainLit?
– It actually happened by chance. A long time ago I was building a circuit for a client for a completely different purpose. Then I ran in to him again some time later and we started discussing healthy lighting, I immediately became interested and started doing some research on the topic and came up with my idea and I patented it. In the bottom of it all I am passionate about technology that can improve our health and quality of life.
Today, BrainLit has customers in different segments such as offices, hospitals and elderly care facilities, but they have also done larger installations at companies such as SOS Alarm and Swedbank. An international expansion is the next step. An important milestone in this is their Finnish affiliate closing a deal with their first Finnish customer, Innovation House, a company that offers office and co-working spaces in Finland, Singapore and Los Angeles.
The technology behind BrainLit
Infrastructure:
- Azure IoT Hub
- Azure Storage
- Azure Database
- Azure Edge
- Azure Batch
Development:
- NET Core och python as main languages
- Test/Deploy pipeline in DevOps Services and Jenkins
- Visual Studio/Visual Studio Code
- sklearn machine learning-library
- Docker containers
Read the article in Swedish here.
