Since Edison’s first light bulb, product designers have worked to find new ways to remotely control illumination. From simple on/off wall switches to dimmers and automated approaches based on ambient light levels, devices have evolved to make increasingly fine-tuned adjustments to light brightness and color. Products also have become less dependent on wired connections to lamps, fixtures and the sensors defining the parameters of luminaire operations. But these approaches aren’t in opposition to each other. Lighting professionals today are more likely to see the wired or wireless conversation as “yes, and“ rather than “either/or.“

Now, in their latest iteration, wireless and wired commercial lighting sensors and controls are becoming more closely tied to building management systems. It might not be long before fixture-­mounted equipment is controlling thermostat operations and lighting.

Lighting controls history 101

Physical light switches were first commercialized in the United States in the early 1890s, and that basic on/off technology remained the standard for decades. Dimmer switches didn’t hit the mass market until the 1960s. While rheostat-based controls were marketed earlier, these were bulky and inefficient. It took solid state electronics to make the devices popular with a broad audience.

Applications for these dimmers were limited to incandescent and halogen lamps, as they weren’t compatible with the ballast-based designs of fluorescent lighting systems. As a result, commercial office spaces were stuck with traditional on/off controls until electronic dimmable ballasts were commercialized in the early 1990s. Later that same decade, occupancy sensors began appearing in commercial spaces, and, by 2007, ASHRAE’s energy code had begun mandating automatic shutoff controls, with occupancy sensors as an option.

The proliferation of LED lamps and fixtures in the early 2010s helped drive sensor and control adoption even faster because these light sources don’t need ballasts, and their native digital technology makes output much more adjustable.

Look Ma, no wires 

Wireless building control options began taking off in residential applications not long after the 2007 introduction of the iPhone. With smartphones came apps. And with apps, homeowners could create their own lighting designs with Phillips’ Hue lamps, or turn up the heat on the drive home if they had a smart thermostat like the Nest, for example. With a Wi-Fi connection and a home hub, users could access their devices from any location.

Commercial settings are often much more complicated than your typical condo or suburban ranch house, however. As a result, the wireless market has taken a bit more time to grow in offices, schools and other nonresidential settings.

Steve Roe, vice president, controls, for Acuity Inc., Atlanta, sees several factors playing into the expanding commercial presence of wireless sensors and controls. The first is improvements in the networking technologies required to ensure secure, reliable communications. This has been spurred by manufacturers, along with organizations behind standards and protocols such as Zigbee and Bluetooth that define how devices “talk” to each other.

“Many organizations have continued to build robust networks that can better handle the wide variety of building applications and construction materials that are present in commercial settings,” Roe said. “This includes networks that can expand to thousands of devices and can support battery-powered devices and must adapt to changing radio-frequency (RF) environments.”

Additionally, he said, LED drivers have evolved to better support wireless implementations. For example, these products now often provide auxiliary DC power to wireless sensors, making the sensors and their installation less complicated and expensive. And, Roe added, with their ability to connect digitally to the drivers, control devices can provide simpler wiring, higher precision luminaire control and dimming, and greater availability of operating data.

For Christian Groom, director of product marketing for Legrand’s Wattstopper unit, making the installer’s job easier has been an additional contributor to wireless adoption. 

“I would say the hurdle in the early days of wireless controls was the reliability of the mobile applications and configuration,” Groom said. “It’s gotten easier for manufacturers to develop apps that are so easy to use that the rate of adoption, from the contractor standpoint, has significantly increased.”

These technical improvements are helping wireless product manufacturers expand their application base. According to Roe, interest in Acuity was first piqued in exterior and warehouse settings, where running communication wires is challenging. 

“But as confidence has increased, adoption has also picked up in a majority of verticals,” he said, noting education, healthcare, commercial offices and infrastructure projects such as airports and roadways.

Groom said Wattstopper is seeing similarly broad support for its wireless offerings. 

“From our standpoint, it’s gotten to the point where wireless is on the cusp of overtaking wired for all the right reasons—the benefits that come with in return on investment and time savings are recognized pretty quickly,” he said.

The Lighting Controls Academy (LCA), Rosslyn, Va., formerly the Lighting Controls Association, offers a range of educational programs on the topic of networked lighting design. Board member Harold Jepsen, who’s also vice president of standards and industry relations for Legrand, said wireless approaches offer real advantages for projects where existing walls and a probability of future changes can make running new wires expensive. 

“We’re seeing wireless use expand most in retrofits and in harder-­to-wire applications, as well as where a high degree of flexible space use applies,” he said. “Economically speaking, there are savings in wire and some labor costs over wired systems.”

Applications for each

Of course, the choice of wired or wireless isn’t just a matter of personal preference or a particular sensor’s cost. Electrical contractors need to consider the benefits and tradeoffs that each of these technologies comes with for any particular application. Signal interference is one concern that can lead specifiers to opt for old-school wired solutions in some building environments. Wireless devices communicate with each other using radio frequencies, similar to the way Wi-Fi networks operate. 

This means activity between sensors and controllers could interrupt communications in other surrounding networks, especially in spaces with a lot of other electronics. Wired equipment doesn’t pose this risk.

“You’re not often going to see wireless lighting controls specified on a hospital room job or any sort of government project, or even, sometimes, the big tech companies,” Groom said. “They don’t want all of that RF density in the space interfering with other wireless components.”

Building obstructions also can make use of wireless designs problematic. 

“Applications with higher metal content—for example, testing labs with steel walls and heavy, poured concrete with rebar—are often more difficult with wireless signal, especially if the intention is to create a fully connected building network, versus just individual spaces being wirelessly connected,” he said. 

But these caveats still leave a wide window for today’s wireless products. 

“The No. 1 is retrofit and tenant improvement in commercial spaces,” Groom said. “And education is another because, with the education specification process, it’s typically a quicker turnaround," noting the need to fit projects within school break schedules. He added that “you’ve got a strict budget, as well, so anything the contractor can do to stay within budget and meet the tight timelines helps.”

Bringing it all together

The good news is, these varied value propositions can work well together. Using hubs or gateways, wireless devices can be just as connected to overall building operations as their wired counterparts. 

“This approach allows designers the greatest flexibility to utilize the core strengths of each method where it can be best applied,” Jepsen said. “Where it is difficult to run wires, wireless communication can be used. Where superior detection of occupancy or applications with greater sensor power needs exist, a wired approach secures that power.”

Groom offered some real-world examples where hybrid plans make sense: “A good example is a hospital, where you want to use wireless where you can save as much time and running cable as you can, so you’re going to do it in the staff parts of the building [and] the offices,” he said. “You’re typically going to stay away from the patient rooms, the emergency and operating rooms and the nursing corridor,” where concerns about RF interference would push specifiers toward wired products.

Plans such as these work best when devices can communicate with each other, even when they come from different manufacturers. This is where recent advances from the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG)—the organization behind their namesake standards—could prove especially helpful. In September 2023, the group released the Bluetooth Networked Lighting Control (NLC) specification, built on top of the prior mesh and low-energy standards.

This might seem like just another marketing label, but it offers building owners and electrical contractors true flexibility in product specification, so specifiers for future lighting retrofits won’t be locked into existing proprietary limitations.

With Bluetooth NLC:

• Devices are fully visible using any device with a Bluetooth connection.
• Smartphone apps can interrogate all devices on the network, regardless of manufacturer.
• All devices can be assigned to sequences of operation that best meet current needs and can be easily reconfigured as those needs change.
• Remote capabilities allow all these activities to happen off-site.

In July 2025, the Bluetooth SIG expanded this protocol to standardize how Bluetooth NLC compliant sensors communicate with thermostats. This will enable facilities personnel to establish new rules-based functionality to fine-tune HVAC operations to actual space occupancy, in real time. 

Jepsen sees expanding lighting sensor and control capabilities in this way as the next big step in the technology’s development.

“Wireless sensor and control capabilities will need to grow beyond just serving lighting and limited purposes,” he said. ”They will need to process and share broader informant, so independent building systems may operate together in support of improving building efficiency, safety and comfort.”

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