Lagg writes:
"Philips put out a press release detailing their new retail lighting system, which is designed for the purpose of saving power by tracking subjects in a room, then increasing or decreasing light intensity as needed. Philips also advertises a secondary feature for providing location based sale adverts to the customer directly on their smartphone. This will require the user to install an app to actually receive the sale alerts, but it's unclear exactly how this tracking will be done otherwise.
Any home automation types in the comments have a theory as to how this will work on a technical level? My best guess is that there are infrared LEDs paired with the lighting fixtures themselves that can be picked up by phones with IR sensors in them. Further, what advantages does this sort of system have in terms of lighting efficiency that an electric eye setup wouldn't accomplish just as well?"
(Score: 5, Informative) by Dopefish on Wednesday February 19 2014, @12:20PM
Not quite. The reason this post is on SoylentNews is twofold.
This is not a product that is geared towards consumers or can even be purchased by consumers, and this piece was designed to highlight the possibilities of home/office/retail automation, or the possible privacy implications thereof.