Trends in Lighting | Flashnet | Mar 01, 2026

Retrofitting Smart Street Lighting: A Challenge for Cities

Cities everywhere are racing toward smarter, greener, more efficient public services - and street lighting is often the first major step. But upgrading traditional lighting infrastructure can be complex. For many cities, the thought of major civil works, visible add-ons, or changing the historical or architectural look of their streets is a major concern.

And when older LED streetlamps are already in place, there’s a common question: can we still adopt smart lighting without replacing everything? Retrofitting becomes essential here - upgrading existing infrastructure to make it smart, without unnecessary costs or disruption.

The retrofitting challenge: balancing innovation and urban aesthetics

Unlike new developments, retrofitting demands a balance between innovation and preservation, a task often underestimated during early project planning.

Upgrading legacy street lighting presents several challenges:

Infrastructure limitations, such as non-standard luminaires without NEMA or Zhaga interfaces
Architectural preservation requirements in historic city centers
Budget constraints, demanding cost-effective and low-disruption installations
Varied lighting types across different areas of the city.

inteliLIGHT pole-mounted controllers – a practical approach

Upgrading legacy street lighting often stalls due to aesthetic concerns or non-standard infrastructure. inteliLIGHT® pole-mounted controllers solve this by offering a flexible alternative to standardized external nodes (NEMA/Zhaga).

Designed for maximum installation flexibility, these compact controllers fit inside the body of most traditional lighting poles, making upgrades possible even for decades-old or highly customized infrastructure. Alternatively, they can be embedded directly into luminaires during manufacturing, allowing lighting manufacturers to deliver fully smart-ready fixtures without altering their external appearance.

This approach delivers a smart upgrade with several key advantages:

Preserved aesthetics: By eliminating external attachments, the solution maintains the architectural integrity of the street, critical for historic centers.
Non-intrusive modernization: Upgrades are completed without replacing poles or requiring major civil works, dramatically lowering deployment costs and disruption.
Rugged reliability: With an IP66 rating, the controllers are built to withstand dust, heavy rain and harsh outdoor conditions for long-term operation.
Advanced connectivity: The controllers support multiple LPWAN technologies (LoRaWAN™, NB-IoT, LTE-M) and feature edge computing capabilities, allowing schedules and commands to execute locally even during network outages.

By integrating intelligence directly into the existing infrastructure, cities can achieve full grid awareness and control without the barriers of cost, regulatory approval, or visual clutter associated with traditional retrofits.

Who benefits the most from pole-mounted smart controllers?

Pole-mounted smart controllers are an ideal fit for:

Historic urban centers aiming to protect their architectural aesthetics
Cities with diverse lighting infrastructures requiring a versatile retrofit solution
Municipalities with budget-conscious projects, seeking to minimize civil works and installation disruptions
Lighting manufacturers, integrating controllers directly into luminaires to offer smart-ready products.

Real-world examples: cities adopting pole-mounted smart lighting

Several smart city projects have already demonstrated the real-world value of Flashnet’s discreet, pole-mounted controller approach:

Cyprus: smart lighting as part of a national infrastructure strategy

In a nationwide project led by CYTA and the Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC), over 32,000 inteliLIGHT® pole-mounted controllers are being deployed across the island.

The controllers, connected via NB-IoT and 2G networks, are managed through the inteliLIGHT CMS and hosted locally in EAC’s datacenters. What makes this project stand out is the system’s ability to enable real-time control of photovoltaic panels, storage heating, water pumps and other loads. This positions street lighting infrastructure as the backbone of a broader smart grid strategy.

Greece: Smart highway lighting upgrade with inteliLIGHT® pole-mounted controllers

Together with partner Sirecled, we brought smart lighting to one of Greece’s most important infrastructures: the Athens–Thessaloniki Highway.

Over 4,300 LED street lighting fixtures, equipped with inteliLIGHT® pole-mounted LoRaWAN controllers, were deployed along more than 300 km of roadway. Managed through the inteliLIGHT® Streetlight Control Software, the project provides remote monitoring, segment-level control and real-time failure alerts.

This large-scale deployment shows how pole-mounted controllers and private LoRaWAN® networks can deliver reliable, energy-efficient and cost-effective smart lighting even across challenging environments.

inteliLIGHT® Pole-mounted Controllers