TALQ Consortium Expands Scope to Smart Cities

The organization was set up to establish standards for interfaces to control outdoor lighting networks and now will expand its scope to develop standards for smart city applications of all kinds.
Nov. 22, 2017
2 min read
Image courtesy of TALQ Consortium
TALQ Consortium smart city network image

The TALQ Consortium, an organization based in Piscataway, NJ, that was set up to establish standards for interfaces to control outdoor lighting networks, announced a move to expand its scope to develop smart city applications beyond smart outdoor lighting. Its new objective is to extend its standardized software protocol for use between central management systems and generic outdoor device networks to enable compatibility between systems from different verticals.

“The proven TALQ Framework represents the perfect backbone to foster interoperability between different applications, such as parking, e-mobility and waste management,” the group said in a release.

The TALQ group said its goal has always been to support cities and municipalities on their way to becoming smart cities by protecting them from vendor lock-in and accelerating the adoption of energy- and cost-saving systems. The group expects outdoor lighting to be the most widely adopted smart city technology over the next five years and sees a role to play in promoting smart cities more generally.

Separately the consortium also announced its first four TALQ-compliant lighting products after a recent “plug fest” where they passed the certification process. The first products on the TALQ list are three central management systems and one bridge component: Muse, a software platform from Citégestion; StreetLight.Vision a central streetlight management system from Silver Spring Networks; and Smart FireFly, a central lighting management system, and the CA-13 TALQ bridge, both from UVAX.