From the LED Bubble to the New Intelligence of Light
The evolution of the lighting market will take center stage in the “Smart Lighting” area curated by ASSIL at Smart Building Expo 2025
Over the past decade, Italy has undergone one of the fastest and most far-reaching technological transitions in its recent history: the shift to LED lighting. This transformation has reshaped urban landscapes, drastically reduced energy consumption, and made thousands of public installations more sustainable.
Today, however, what was once a revolution has become the new normal. Nearly all Italian municipalities have completed the transition to LED lighting, and where new fixtures haven’t been installed, retrofits or targeted replacements have taken place. The result is a mature market where industrial margins are narrowing and the benefits of new interventions are increasingly marginal.
As with every technological cycle, LED lighting has experienced its own “peak of inflated expectations,” with promises of endless savings, eternal lifespan, and zero maintenance. Now, the sector has moved beyond that phase and entered a moment of awareness: technical and economic limits exist, but from them a new vision of lighting can emerge—one that is smarter and more integrated.
This is not a crisis, but an evolution. The value no longer lies in the light source itself, but in how light is managed, monitored, and integrated into the building’s and city’s energy and digital systems. In this context, lighting becomes an enabling technological platform: it communicates with sensors, IoT platforms, and advanced control systems, embraces predictive maintenance, and connects with circular economy models.
The most innovative companies are already paving this new path. Interest is growing in stand-alone or hybrid solutions with integrated photovoltaics, in “Light as a Service” models that shift the focus from product to service, and in applications aimed at energy resilience and infrastructure autonomy.
These are precisely the themes that will be at the heart of the “Smart Lighting” area curated by ASSIL at the upcoming Smart Building Expo, scheduled to take place at Fiera Milano Rho from November 19 to 21, 2025. This will be a space for technical and cultural exchange dedicated to the future of connected lighting, where industry, designers, utilities, and public administrations will discuss the role of light within the new smart building ecosystem.
LED has won its battle, but the game of lighting is far from over: it now moves to the fields of intelligence, interoperability, and service. Here, light evolves from a mere technology into an infrastructure — a central element in the digital and sustainable transformation of the spaces we live in.