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My curiosity was recently piqued by IOTpodcast.com. They mention in the description of the podcast that one of the things to discuss is how smart lighting is saving sea turtles. I then found this article from smartledconcepts.com which states that the lights are tuned to specific frequencies to encourage the sea turtles to go in the right direction. I also found an article here on scientificamerica.com which gives a detailed scientific explanation for how the specific wavelengths direct the turtles.

However, I'm more interested in the "Smart" part. Are these lights actually "Smart" in that they turn on and off at times sea turtles are likely to need them on or off, or in their connections one to another, or are they just called "Smart" because they were made by the SmartLED company?

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    Very interesting, but no mention of the internet, so technically off topic. Not sure where else you could ask it, though, so +1 for the interesting article :-)
    – Mawg says reinstate Monica
    Jun 2, 2017 at 6:39
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    @Mawg very good point, and thanks for pointing out. The reason I did ask was simply that there were a few places I found that indicated that it had to do with the internet of things. I was interested in just how the lights' "smartness" would help save the turtles. However, as I have since learned this does not appear to be the case.
    – anonymous2 ♦
    Jun 2, 2017 at 12:05

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Smart thing here is not swithing lights on or off nor trying to 'communicate' with the turtles in a smart way. The articles you linked reveal that the point is to hide the human generated light from them.

The most Smart thing is to select light colors that are visible to human but at least less visible to a turtle. People can have lights on while turtles see darkness.

Other ways are pointing and shadowing lights. From the blog:

"There are several rules of turtle lighting," [turtle specialist Karen] Shudes says. "Keep the light as low to the ground as possible, keep the lumens as low as possible, keep the light shielded and keep the wavelength long."

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As far as I can tell, there's no IoT-related 'smartness' despite the name. As mico points out, the lights work by producing frequencies of light that humans can see, but that will not affect the turtle breeding cycle.

On their website, they promote the energy saving benefits, but don't mention any networking features, as you'd expect from a 'smart bulb' like the Philips Hue, for example.

Note that they also say:

ILLUMINATE INTELLIGENTLY

Reduce your energy consumption, maintenance and servicing costs.

That seems like a clear signal to me that their definition of "intelligence" is that it uses less energy, and requires less maintenance.

So, no, the bulbs aren't IoT connected, as far as I can see; the "smart" description is just part of the branding/sales pitch.

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