IoT smart city smart lighting

Urbana is Leading the Change in Smart Lighting with RAKwireless Advanced IoT

Urbana | October 17, 2025

Cities nowadays want more from their streetlights than simple illumination. They expect them to last for years by saving energy and even act as part of wider smart city services. However, the reality often looks different when large projects roll out. Thousands of controllers need to work together and still face problems with reliability, compatibility across different lighting systems, and network congestion. This is because so many devices cannot connect in the same area.

Maintenance teams also struggle because replacing or fixing devices is expensive and takes up too much time. These issues make it difficult for cities to achieve their smart goals. The industry clearly sees the promise of smart lighting, but what it needs is a solution that finally makes it simple and dependable at scale.

Adaptive IoT Lighting Breakthrough

Cities are still moving forward with the vision of smart lighting despite these complications. They are looking toward IoT-driven solutions and open standards like Zhaga and LoRaWAN to bring compatibility and scalability into one system. This change in the market has introduced a new variety of solutions that can finally meet the long-term needs of urban lighting.

The practical difficulties become even more visible as more cities adopt smart lighting. The problems that emerge in real-world deployments range from device reliability to network congestion and highlight how complex large-scale smart lighting can be. Next, we will explore the key challenges that the industry faces and why solving them is critical for being successful.

Urbana’s Smart Lighting Controllers

Cities needed a solution that worked reliably at scale. Urbana creates solutions that help cities manage connected infrastructure with ease. Existing controllers often failed in reliability or could not adapt to different setups. Therefore, Urbana stepped into the market with its smart controller solution and developed its own hardware.

Urbana’s innovation combines hardware and platform into a full-stack solution. A smart lighting controller decides when and how lights turn on or off and adjusts brightness accordingly. This is how the new solution ensures energy is used efficiently. It acts like the brain of the streetlight that connects to other lights and systems and coordinates actions across a city.

Urbana’s controller goes beyond basic light control in the following ways:

It is engineered to survive extreme temperatures for over a decade, handle complex lighting logics, and connect with many types of LED drivers
It uses the Zhaga standard to fit most streetlights and integrates LoRaWAN for long-range and low-power communication.
Unlike ordinary controllers, Urbana’s solution can manage thousands of devices in a city efficiently, avoid network congestion, and allow remote monitoring and control through a platform.
It offers point-to-point control for precise energy savings and performance optimization. Point-to-point means each streetlight can be controlled on its own rather than in a group.
It connects with the Urbana IoT platform, which supports easy installation through the Urbana Toolkit mobile app.
It includes a lighting management module that lets city teams set scenarios, track energy use, and check service levels.
The controllers also allow quick response to failures, which helps reduce maintenance costs.

This makes it a complete and dependable smart lighting solution rather than just a single device.

Live Analytics for Improved Oversight

Urbana controllers give city teams a clear view of how every streetlight performs. They show which devices are online or offline, any errors, and the current lighting intensity. They also track temperature, power usage, and dimming patterns over time.

The dashboards also record and visualize energy consumption to help teams understand usage trends and spot inefficiencies. These insights help city managers make smart decisions and allow maintenance teams to act quickly when issues arise.

These insights let city managers see how every light and device performs. They can act quickly when a problem appears and keep the network functioning consistently. This helps save energy and guarantee reliable lighting for everyone.

Key Market Gaps Behind This Innovation

Deploying smart lighting at the city scale is not as simple as it seems. Cities want smart lighting that lasts for years and works efficiently. Standard controllers often fail to meet these demands. Urbana set out to solve several real problems to make urban projects reliable and practical. The points below show the challenges and market gaps that led to the creation of this new lighting solution.

1. Lack of reliable suppliers
There are very few trusted providers who can deliver this type of lighting controller, especially one that works in both stand-alone mode and as part of a fully connected platform.

2. Need for long product life
Streetlights typically last around 10 years, so the controller must match that lifespan. Many existing options fail to meet this durability requirement.

3. Complex control requirements
Modern streetlights require advanced lighting logics to adjust brightness and performance efficiently. Creating a controller that can handle this complexity was a real challenge, and Urbana found a way to address it.

4. Compatibility with many LED drivers
Even though DALI 2.0 is the standard, each LED driver brand implements it differently. There is a need for controllers in the market that can work across many variations without running into problems.

5. Large-scale deployments
Cities often deploy thousands of devices in the same area. This creates a need for controllers that manage the network efficiently and prevent bandwidth overload.

6. Need for broad industry compatibility
Cities need controllers that follow the Zhaga Book 18 standard. Many streetlight products cannot connect properly without such devices. This leaves a gap in the market for compatible lighting controllers.

7. Lack of integrated solutions
There is a need for controllers that combine reliable hardware with a simple and user-friendly IoT platform. Most existing options fail to offer both in one system.

These challenges show why cities cannot rely on standard controllers. Urbana had to create a controller that combines durability, smart logic, and wide compatibility. This ensures smart lighting works reliably on a large scale and makes life easier for cities and maintenance teams.

Performance at Scale with RAKwireless

Streetlight controllers are deployed in dense clusters, where thousands of nodes must communicate through only a few gateways over distances of 6-7 km. Any weakness in the antenna or module would compromise the entire system. For the smart lighting hardware to succeed, connectivity had to be flawless.

Hence, Urbana opted to collaborate with the RAK3172-SIP LoRaWAN module and used RAKwireless’ antenna design services.

The result was a device that:

Delivers strong RF performance even in crowded city environments.
Connects thousands of devices reliably without network failures.
Works consistently under extreme temperatures from cold winters to hot summers. (60-65 °C and -10-15 °C for months).

With the latest RAKwireless IoT at its core, Urbana controllers became a consistent and proven solution that supports city-scale deployments.

Global Opportunities & Partnerships

Although Europe remains the most mature market for Zhaga and LoRaWAN smart lighting solutions, Urbana sees global demand in the US, GCC, APAC, India, and Brazil.

To bring this solution to more cities worldwide, Urbana is actively looking for local partners and distributors. Urbana is ready to expand its solution on the global smart city ecosystem with RAKwireless as a trusted technology ally. This joint vision sets the stage for smarter and more connected cities across the world.

📩 Email: info@urbanasmart.com
🌐 Website: urbanasmart.com