San Jose, located in the heart of Silicon Valley and home to companies like eBay, Adobe, Cisco, IBM, Hitachi, Xilinx, and Lockheed Martin, is looking to test new smart street lights. San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed hopes to turn San Jose’s street lights into power and internet access points for motorists. The smart street lights will have power jacks for electric and hybrid cars (which will require payment to make the power flow), antennas for Wi-Fi internet access, and built-in web cameras. The web cams will double as traffic and crime monitoring.
This doesn’t sound too green you say. Well, the lights are also set to use the latest LED lighting technology, which will last longer and consume less power than their current counterparts. In addition, the lights will be “intelligent” enough to turn off when it doesn’t sense any cars or people in the area. With thousands of street lights across the city, this could prove to be a real power and money saver.
The test is scheduled to begin this week. If the initial demonstration is successful, there will be a larger test this summer. It would sure be great to have these smart lights as well as “smart traffic lights” too.
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