A new suite of smart building services from Cisco includes SmartCast, a system designed to deliver LED lighting in more cost-effective ways and in multiple shades, from Cree. Cree says SmartCast brings the Internet of Things to building lighting systems with “Power over Ethernet,” or PoE.

Cisco (Nasdq: CSCO) unveiled its PoE Digital Ceiling offerings at a conference Wednesday in Berlin. The suite enables the connection of various networks into one, providing what Cisco says will be a more secure and smart building.

[More coverage: What’s the Digital Ceiling? A primer ]

Durham-based Cree (Nasdaq: CREE) is rolling out SmartCast now with initial installations underway. The SmartCast-PoE offerings are expected to be available in the second quarter.

Rather than just LED lighting, the Cree system incorporates the ability to link lights, light switches and dimmers. The result, Cree says, is by-the-room control, up to 70 percent in energy savings, and the ability to gather data about usage.

“Lighting sensors and intelligence are built into every SmartCast Technology fixture,” Cree says.

“Exacting user-driven design and engineering allow ‘one-button’ commissioning to enable a network of up to 250 lights at a time.

“SmartCast Technology fixtures communicate wirelessly with each other to automatically create a lighting network and intelligently group lights together, eliminating the painstaking and error-prone process of manually commissioning each light.

“SmartCast Technology provides greatly simplified daylight harvesting, motion sensing, adaptive lighting and dimming without third-party devices, additional wires or manual commissioning, for about 50% of the installed cost of other solutions.”

According to Norbert Hiller, executive vice president of lighting at Cree, the latest evolution of SmartCast (first announced in 2014) greatly expands the system’s reach and capabilities.

“The new connected lighting technologies we’re pioneering with Cisco leverage Cree’s SmartCast Technology and the communications power of the internet to deliver better light and up to 70 percent more savings than standard LED lighting,” he said in Wednesday’s announcement.

“With Cisco, Cree is taking Intelligent Light far beyond what’s possible with traditional lighting solutions.”

For more information see:

http://www.cree.com/smartcast