DALI Blog: The role of the DALI Alliance in IP-BLiS

November 30, 2021

The DALI Alliance is an active participant in IP-BLiS, the "IP Building & Lighting Standards" market interest group, along with fellow members BACnet International, Connectivity Standards Alliance (formerly Zigbee Alliance), KNX Association, OCF and Thread Group.

Together, these standards organizations support the widespread adoption of a secure, multi-standard, IP-based infrastructure as the backbone in commercial buildings for lighting and building-automation solutions. So how does the DALI Alliance fit into this activity?

As an open, global consortium of lighting companies, the DALI Alliance drives the growth of lighting-control solutions based on the internationally standardized, lighting-specific, DALI protocol. We operate certification programs to increase market confidence in cross-vendor device interoperability.

As lighting continues to evolve and converge with the IoT, we are developing wireless and IP-based connectivity solutions – known as DALI+ – to complement the well-established and widely-deployed version of DALI that connects devices with a pair of wires.

DALI+ uses IP-based and/or wireless carriers to transport the DALI commands, while offering the same DALI lighting-control features as wired DALI options. The first DALI+ over IP certification program will use Thread as the underlying carrier.

DALI+ with Thread will provide the ability to seamlessly connect DALI devices with building automation systems and share analytical data on the building IP network, in line with the vision of IP-BLiS.