Our week-long trip to the Netherlands brought us to the homeland of Philips and showed us the roots of Dutch technology and innovation.
In what used to be a small town of Eindhoven, the place has been transformed into a huge and beautiful industrial city many of which (actually in the thousands) are long-time employees of Philips.
The Evoluon is a conference centre and former science museum erected by the electronics and electrical company Philips in Eindhoven, Netherlands in 1966.
Philips CEO Frans van Houten, in his keynote speech here at the Evoluon Center, talked about the many innovations of Philips since it was founded here in Eindhoven in 1891.
Philips is taking bold steps to meet these needs. Last week, we made the historic announcement that Philips is going to transform into two strong and focused companies: one focused on the HealthTech opportunity, the other on Lighting solutions. This is the next logical step on our journey. It will position both companies for long-term market leadership, enabling them to innovate and address customer needs even better and faster. – Frans van Houten, CEO, Philips
Today, Philips is very strong in various areas such as lighting, health care, and consumer lifestyle (although it has been announced earlier that they will independently run the lighting division soon).
Perhaps the most visible Philips products is the consumer electronics and lighting category, while some of it were already sold to various companies (like the TV which is no longer operated by Philips but still uses the Philips brand).
Aside from the Philips Hue which we’ve been interested in getting since last year, various lighting systems and technologies have been developed by Philips were showcased here.
Philips has demonstrated that there’s a unique opportunity to use lights in providing data and location based services. In the demo (photo above), they create a small grocery store where the lights are used to transmit location data to the smartphone (via the front-facing camera) in order for an app to accurately locate the customer within the store. This allows the store to provide in-store promos and deals to a specific costumer when they are near a certain stall or aisle.
This home lighting setup uses LED bulbs (Philips Hue) that is configured to change colors depending on designated signals for the hearing-impaired. The lamps would turn green if there’s an SMS notification or a red if there’s a phone call. That’s just some of the basic visual setup that can be done with the lights.
At the same time, this Philips Smart Air Purifier (first shown in IFA 2013 in Berlin) can remove contaminants (including second-hand smoke residue) from the air that can affect allergy sufferers and asthmatics. It has a built-in WiFi so you can control it remotely with an app.
Who could have though that Blue light can help ease body pain? Philips has several of them that uses a specific blue light to help relieve pain. The light has been studied to help in blood flow and circulation allowing for better pain management.
These are some of the many new technologies and innovations that the Dutch company introduced. Gave us a better appreciation of technology and how it is used to save lives and make it better.
Here’s the complete keynote speech of Frans van Houten.
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