Coolon x Weatherzone Blinky Deployment
Site-wide visual safety alerts through a connected lighting network
How a large-scale lithium operation in WA's Pilbara uses Blinky and Weatherzone to signal severe weather and safety events across the site.
The challenge
Large open-cut and processing operations present a genuine communication problem when conditions change quickly. Sites of this scale cover a wide area, run continuously and expose crews to the elements, and in the Pilbara that includes the sudden onset of lightning and severe weather. Getting a warning to every person at the moment it matters is not straightforward. Audible alarms struggle to carry across a noisy, spread-out site, and radio contact cannot always be guaranteed for personnel working in the field or in hard-to-reach areas.
This operation, one of Western Australia's largest hard rock lithium producers, wanted a way to communicate weather and safety events visually, so that a warning could be seen across the site regardless of noise, distance or radio coverage.
The deployment
The site runs an array of Coolon luminaires across its operation, including DLK and Aelita fittings, all connected to the BCL network. Because these luminaires form a mesh across the entire site, the network reaches into every area they cover, and any visual alert can be propagated through them wherever they are installed.
At the centre of the safety application is one of Coolon's largest single-site deployments of Blinky visual signalling luminaires. The Blinky units were installed around a high mast structure, positioned uniformly to give 360-degree coverage and act as a central beacon point visible across a large portion of the site. Their RGBW output was configured to the operation's own requirements, using blue, red, amber and white to distinguish between different safety signals specific to how the site manages its risks
How it works
The Blinky array is integrated with Weatherzone, one of Coolon's IoT partners, whose lightning detection and severe weather forecasting service connects directly to the BCL network. Weatherzone monitors for lightning strikes and severe weather within a proximity radius configured to the site's risk profile. When an event is detected inside that radius, it sends a trigger to the BCL network, which activates the RGBW indicators across the relevant luminaires. Because the alert is visual and propagates across the connected network, it reaches personnel in the same moment right across the site, including in high-noise areas and locations where audible warnings or radio may not be reliable. The colour and flash behaviour can be set by the type and severity of the event, so the signal shown corresponds to the site's own safety protocols rather than a generic alarm. Alerts can be activated site-wide or limited to a defined zone, depending on what the situation calls for.
Why it matters
This deployment is an example of how well-placed BCL luminaires and a considered network design can extend a site's lighting infrastructure into a visual communication system. By combining Blinky's signalling capability, the reach of the site-wide BCL network and a third-party integration like Weatherzone, the operation added a layer of visual weather and safety alerting to infrastructure it was already installing. It show's how Coolon's Brilliant Connected Lighting can support site safety and situational awareness beyond illumination, and how readily it accommodates third-party data sources chosen to suit a particular site.
Talk to our team about Coolon Brilliant Connected Lighting and visual alerting for your site.