Status lights

Owned by Julie Isebaert
Last updated: Oct 12, 2023 by Sergio Karijodinomo
5 min read

Difficulty: expert

Learning Objectives

After reading this article, you’ll be able to:

  • Decide which kind of indication the status light should give

  • Install Status lights

  • Verify correct installation of Status lights

The Plenom Status light is gives a visual cue to the end user, for example on reservations, occupancy, or CO2 levels.

It's a device small enough to be installed at workplaces, and can also be used as a cheaper alternative for room displays (just showing if reserved at this time or not).

The light can be used for visually representing the status of a parameter (e.g. reservation, temperature, comfort) for a location. The light can be added to Workplace back-end Studio as a new device like all other sensor devices (see below)

Because this light behaves like a read-only touch-point and does not capture any data, only adding the device and linking it to a location in the Workplace Platform is not enough. The light has to be configured with a so called brain rule, so that the color can be steered by Workplace.

Brain rule

The steering happens via a Brain rule, which can be requested with your Spacewell Account Manager.

A sample brain rule will be of the format: "If a workplace on floor X is occupied, then set light color to red. If the workplace is not occupied, color should be green".

There is only 1 scenario/brain rule per light possible.

Following scenarios are possible. The colors are standard as mentioned here:

  • occupancy yes/no

  • reservation

    • green = no reservation

    • green blinking = no reservation, but occupied

    • red = reservation

    • orange = reservation, but not occupied

  • comfort data (eg CO2 levels "excellent/fair/bad" as configured for that location in Workplace back-end Studio > Settings > Plan)

Prerequisites

Make sure to discuss the following before installation:

 

Prerequisites on site:

  • Clean tables (rooms should be clean after refurbishment)

  • Working electricity

Prerequisite: Gateway

Make sure you install your LoRa hub before installing the sensors (check out LoRa Gateways, Hubs installation guides for more information).

What's in the box?

  • the Status light, with a wire ending in a USB. On this wire, a sticker entails the sensor ID (barcode and in numbers, format "20202041 1E1C0502")

  • a USB-to-power adapter

  • round double side tape

Sensor Installation

  1. Depending on the installation location:

    1. plug the USB cable in the power adapter to plug in a power socket,

    2. or leave the USB cable to plug this into a USB splitter or other device (eg Workplace QBIC displays have USB plugs at the back).

  2. Use the double side tape as adhesive to tape the light stuck to the table or wall where it should be used.

Configuration

If you want to request multiple scenarios for your environment (for example the status lights at the workplaces should visualize the reservation status, but the lights in the meeting rooms should serve as a CO2 level indicator; or per floor or specific locations), it's best to take an export of the devices in your environment and fill in the information in the excel in order to deliver a structured instruction to the Workplace Development team that will implement your request.

Deploy sensors in Workplace Platform

Add New Device in Workplace back-end Studio

  1. Go to your tenant (https://studio.cobundu.com ) and log in

  2. Select the location, where you can manually add a sensor via "Add New Device"

 

Manually add device through location > devices > new: location is filled in.

‪Select Device Type "Plenom Lights". This will automatically link the device channel.

Enter Device ID as serial-number with all capitals and including the dashes (format 20-20-20-41-1E-XX-XX-XX).

Enter a meaningful Device Name (eg customer_floor number_area).

Select a Location from the location tree if this is already known (automatically filled in if location was selected before adding new device).

Linked Locations is not relevant for this kind of sensor.

Selecting the correct Device Type "Plenom Lights" should automatically set the Channel to "Light Color" and Type to "light-color" (see Advanced).

For more information on how to add multiple new devices to Studio, check out Sensor Management .

Quality Assurance

Next step is the Quality Assurance to make sure that the whole installation and configuration of your status lights was a success.

Status lights take the sensor values from the sensor that is linked to the same location, so to do Quality Assurance on the sensor installation, please see the chapter on Quality Assurance for the relevant sensor.

To do Quality Assurance on the configured Brain rules repository for the Status light, you'll need to be on site to check if the shown the colors of the light are correct based on the detected values.

You need to make sure that the brain rule gets activated correctly, bearing in mind that reservations are loaded every 5min: if for the test the location is reserved from 11:00-11:30 at 11:25, then the brain rule has no time to get activated.

We suggest to book the location at least 5min before reservation start, where reservation duration is more than 30minutes. This way the brain rule has the time to be triggered. Depending on the selected brain rule, following result should be visible

  • Reservation Brain Rule

    • green = no reservation

    • green blinking = no reservation, but occupied

    • red = reservation

    • orange = reservation, but not occupied

  • Comfort data Brain Rule (eg CO2 levels "excellent/fair/bad" as configured for that location in Studio > Settings > Plan)

Example

  • red = reservation, space is occupied

  • orange = reservation, but not occupied

 

 

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