Silvair X Zumtobel Collaboration in Poland

The innovative and unique Galicia Jewish Museum, located in Poland in Kraków’s Jewish district called Kazimierz, is a Polish registered charity.  Its mission is to commemorate Holocaust victims, promote the Jewish culture of Polish Galicia, and present Jewish history from different angles and new perspectives.   The Museum has overhauled its’ obsolete lighting system that was preventing intricate exhibits from being shown. The curators required full control over the lighting system and turned to leading European manufacturer Zumtobel.  After assessing the museum’s needs, Zumtobel proposed a track system using the Supersystem II lighting modules and bmLINKs – a qualified Bluetooth mesh solution developed in cooperation with Silvair, a leader in qualified Bluetooth mesh technologies for lighting. The intuitive and easy-to-use solution minimised the amount of hardware and control cabling, while delivering a system that is both easy to install and flexible enough to recommission as needs and requirements change.

The first stage of this two-phase project saw Zumtobel install a multifunctional low voltage track system with 34 Supersystem II spotlights controlled via qualified Bluetooth mesh bmLINKs and a LITECOM controller. The system was used to light the Museum’s temporary exhibition hall.  Zumtobel bmLINK is a wireless solution for DALI systems. It consists of senders (transmitters) and receivers, and can be connected to a central DALI controller such as Zumtobel’s LITECOM, or used standalone. The receivers provide numerous advantages, including no need for control cabling, minimal installation effort, and excellent compatibility with new or existing systems.

At the Galicia Jewish Museum, each track is controlled by one bmLINK receiver and one bmLINK sender. Both are connected to the LITECOM controller that controls the whole installation via DALI.  Prior to installation the installer had already set up a new project in the bmLINK Platform by uploading the layout with the lighting design, and created zones for each track. Once everything was installed and powered the set-up was seamless.  Using the bmLINK Tool, a mobile app, added all bmLINK devices to relevant zones.  This was followed by the automatic process of assigning DALI addresses initiated by the installer through the LITECOM app.  Each address added to a single DALI group represented both a single track and a pair of bmLINK sender/receiver devices.

The final stage was to set up a number of scenes that would allow the Museum to modify the lighting settings for each exhibition. This gives the Museum curators the flexibility to control the lighting and recall specific scenes based on their needs.

In less than an hour, the installer had prepared the installation plan, commissioned the lights and bmLINKs, and set up the LITECOM system.  The spotlights can be moved between tracks with no need for the system to be recommissioned.  In addition, the Silvair-based devices are future proof and can be updated over-the-air to add new functionality such as beacons, asset tracking and emergency lighting testing, or even monitoring of energy consumption and system faults.

The Galicia Jewish Museum now has a modern wireless lighting control solution that allows quick and effortless modification of settings and arrangement.  Crucially, staff can perform any modifications on their own when the need arises, without needing system installers or engineers . This is particularly vital to non-profit cultural institutions. The Museum is preparing for the second stage of the project, which will see the retrofit of the permanent exhibition space.

As a major contributor to the development of Bluetooth mesh, (a new communication standard for the Internet of Things (IoT)) Silvair delivers robust software solutions to its clients. Silvair’s advanced technology for wireless lighting control and commercial building automation helps organisations across diversified markets build wireless lighting applications that are easy to use and future-proof. Silvair currently operates out of offices in Poland and the US.

http://www.galiciajewishmuseum.org/en