I Have Heard Of Many Smart Things,

cars, motorways, electricity meters, you name it, 

photographs Vadim Babenko/Unsplash, but how smart are some of these? take this smart lighting system in Minnechaug Regional High School, the school opted to have a smart lights system installed a decade ago, the goal was to save money and energy, which was great idea, but since mid 2021 all 7,000 lights have been running at full power 24/7, the smart system can not be switched off! 

 5th Light, the company that had installed the system, apparently changed hands several times during the last decade and is now owned by another company called Reflex Lighting, who does not have access to the software previous companies had used on this particular project anymore, 

so the only way to fix the problem was to replace the hardware (server, lighting control boards, etc.), mainly because of supply chain issues in China caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, getting the parts required to finally turn off the 7,000 lights at Minnechaug Regional High School has proven to be very challenging. The repairs were supposed to be carried out in early 2022, but got pushed back all through the year, “We are very much aware this is costing taxpayers a significant amount of money,” Aaron Osborne, assistant superintendent of finance at the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District, told NBC News. “And we have been doing everything we can to get this problem solved.”

now, the lighting company claims that it received all the necessary replacement parts and the lights will finally be turned off next month, “While we are hopeful this will be met, we are of course skeptical,” school officials said. “So, for now, the lights are stuck on.” although the smart lights system uses highly efficient fluorescent and LED bulbs, the 7,000 lights throughout the high school still consume a lot of energy, there is no mention of the cost to the taxpayer to keep them running non-stop for 17 months, or replace the smart system the taxpayers have already paid for, the amazing thing is that this is the smart system, imagine how a dumb system would work, oh yes I remember, it a has an on/off switch for each bank of lights!