Are ClearWorld Solar Smart Poles a Game Changer for the Security Industry?
In today’s article, we are featuring a piece of technology that we have worked with on several projects & have been profoundly impressed by its seemingly unending potential. The Clear World Retroflex Solar Smart Poles provide two flavors of technology: multi-tenant, multi carrier Smart Poles & solar-powered light poles. All their solutions include their patented self-cleaning solar panels, self-sustainable solar power production, & a ten-year warranty for all parts & technologies. While their early client base focused on municipalities, they since expanded out to address the needs of various DoT's, utility companies, and private developers.
Their solar LED light poles include a full line of residential post tops, along with commercial parking lot & roadway light options. The lighting retrofit system is designed to seamlessly blend into any environment while providing an overall superior lighting solution. Residential solar poles even include decorative base options that range in style from contemporary to traditional to match each post top aesthetic. To ensure that these poles can seamlessly fit into any environment, the pole color can be customized to fit the theme or environment they will be blending in with. For Mercedes-Benz, they installed white poles with black solar panels to mimic the appearance of the white Mercedes with black rims which proved to have quite a stunning effect for the campus.
In today’s market, it is no longer “cool” to go green. It is a necessity as we combat climate change, while providing sustainable infrastructure & energy resiliency for the future. While a blackout that lasts for a few hours may be acceptable for most homes today, critical infrastructure has become increasingly more dependent than ever on the need for the uninterrupted flow of electricity.
Moving beyond their solar LED poles, the ClearWorld Smart Poles go further than most of the established technology pole solutions on the market to provide safety & resiliency of critical infrastructure. In addition to all the same features included in the solar LED poles, they provide options for security cameras with gunshot detection & traffic monitoring analytics, environmental sensors, wireless communications hubs, and a variety of IoT applications tailored to your exact needs. The communications hub houses a wireless comm package that includes 4G & 5G small cells, along with Wi-Fi access points/repeaters. As autonomous vehicles, drones, & pedestrians all become interconnected through wireless communications, the need for mesh networks with high bandwidth & low latency becomes more critical than ever.
Over the next 8 to 10 years, ClearWorld will be deploying millions of small cells onto light poles across the nation, creating tremendous opportunities for innovation & technological advancement as they focus on digitally transforming cities. The included IoT dashboard as a service was designed to provide real time control over all environmental sensors, electrical production & consumption statistics, GPS location, battery storage data, etc. For security & safety, the most noteworthy features they provide come from their video surveillance dashboard. Through their partnership with Bosch Security, cameras connected to their system can provide video analytics for LPR (license plate recognition), pedestrians tracking/counting, gunshot detection, & gun recognition for parks, trails, & campuses. These features play a critical role in providing a proactive security solution to any campus or municipality, rather than a strictly reactive one.
From our experience designing with ClearWorld, the features listed above are only the beginning of what make these smart technology poles impressive. Their ability to generate all the electricity needed to operate 24/7 already puts these smart poles ahead of the competition in terms of up-front operational cost savings. However, what makes these poles unique are opportunities they provide to generate revenue for their owners through selling electricity back to the grid; cellular/LTE infrastructure leasing; & providing additional internet backhaul infrastructure to local ISPs (which in turn reduces their overhead & maintenance costs). In our opinion, this is a technology that is worth watching closely as our industry continues to move toward a more interconnected, wholistic approach to safety & security.