March 21, 2016 – Take a quick trip with us back to Deutschland where just last week we hopped across the pond to explore the expansive 11 exhibition halls of the international Light+Building Show in Frankfurt. A special danke to host Messe Frankfurt for the invite!

Hailed as the world’s biggest event for lighting, electrical technology and home and building automation, the 2016 show boasted 248,000 square metres and its largest amount of exhibitors (2589) yet. A total of 216,000 visitors from 160 countries toured the event from March 13-18, 2016, all on the hunt to discover innovations, solutions and new products. This represents a growth of 2.3%, according to organizers.

Light+Building had the spotlight on digitalisation this year and the motto of the fair was, ‘Where modern spaces come to life: digital – individual – networked’. The industry showed intelligent solutions and future-oriented technologies revolving around digitalisation and networking, honing in on safety and security, intelligent home and building automation and efficient energy management, just to name a few.

We made sure to stop by and see some familiar names—such as Legrand, Fluke, Ideal Networks, Delta Controls, Schneider Electric, Siemens—as well a new companies, to see what’s hot in the European market, potentially headed our way in some cases.

We also checked out the Ehaus or Ehouse, created by the Central Association of the German Electrical and Information Technology Industry (ZVEH), to get the full details on what intelligent energy management looks like from the end consumer’s point of view. Similarily, we took a stroll through the Digital Building outside on the fair grounds to test out the connected systems and the latest in energy-efficient security, heating & cooling, etc.

The next Light+Building takes places March 18-23, 2018.

• See yourself in this gallery? Want a copy? Email rfrancoeur@annexweb.com •

A group shares a laugh at the Soraa booth at Light+Building in Germany on March 15, 2016.