The Carrefour hypermarket in Lille, France has replaced its fluorescent lighting with 2.5km of LED lighting from Philips that can also transmit location signals to a shopper's smartphone, triggering an app to provide location based services.The Carrefour hypermarket in Lille, France has replaced its fluorescent lighting with 2.5km of LED lighting from Philips that can also transmit location signals to a shopper's smartphone, triggering an app to provide location based services.
The system in operation at the hypermarket comprises 800 linear LED fixtures that use Visible Light Communication technology to transmit a unique code that can be detected by a smartphone's camera. The Philips system enables Carrefour to help shoppers to navigate their way around the 7800m² store and to find promotions. The positioning technology is said to be accurate to within 1m, while the LED lighting will reduce the total lighting-based electricity consumption of the hypermarket by 50%.
"We are always on the lookout for innovations to facilitate customers' navigation in our stores and meet consumers' expectations," Céline Martin, director of Commercial Models and Innovation for Carrefour hypermarkets, said: "Thanks to this application, we are now able to provide our customers with a new service, enabling them to quickly search and locate their preferred promotions or detect all the promotions around them when in-store."
* For more on VLC, see http://www.newelectronics.co.uk/electronics-technology/can-leds-help-to-solve-the-looming-spectrum-congestion-problem/59424/
Author
Tom Austin-Morgan
Source: www.newelectronics.co.uk