NJOIT runs PoE lighting across offices, a warehouse and a data center with aida on Cisco switching

The New Jersey Office of Information Technology (NJOIT) partnered with MHT Technologies to modernize its 35,000-square-foot facility with a phased Power over Ethernet (PoE) lighting and environmental-monitoring deployment. Built on Cisco switching infrastructure, the project brings connected lighting, sensors, and centralized building controls to office and mission-critical environments.

The Customer’s Need

NJOIT needed a scalable approach to modernizing building systems across different operational environments. The deployment addressed office spaces in Phase 1 and extended the PoE lighting and monitoring infrastructure to warehouse and data-center areas in Phase 2.

The goal was to bring lighting control and environmental visibility into a more connected infrastructure while supporting the operational needs of a government IT environment.

The Cisco Solution

Cisco switching provides the network infrastructure for the connected lighting system across both phases.

• Cisco-powered PoE infrastructure: Cisco switches supply power and network connectivity to MHT’s PoE lighting nodes.
• Direct device communication: Each node negotiates its power requirements with the Cisco switch port using LLDP.
• Connected building systems: The lighting infrastructure operates over the network alongside the organization’s existing IT environment.

This architecture allows building devices to use the network infrastructure for both power and communication.

The aida™ Solution

Building AI Solutions’ aida™ platform provides centralized monitoring, automation, and control across the deployment, with capabilities tailored to each phase.

Phase 1: Office Spaces — aida Controller 2.0

The office deployment supports centralized management of lighting, shades, and environmental sensors.

• Automatic discovery of connected lighting and shade devices.
• Organization of rooms and zones into manageable clusters.
• Live control of lighting on/off status, dimming, color temperature, and shade position.
• Schedules and automation rules for day-to-day building operations.
• Environmental monitoring through Delta O3 multisensors integrated over BACnet/IP, including temperature, humidity, light, sound, and occupancy data.

These capabilities give facility teams a central place to manage connected devices and monitor conditions across office spaces.

Phase 2: Warehouse and Data Center — aida Controller 1.0

The second phase extends centralized lighting control into additional operational areas.

• Commissioning based on the project pull schedule, with automatic cluster mapping.
• Reusable node-configuration templates.
• Motion-based, scene-based, and scheduled lighting policies.
• Floor-plan-based lighting control.
• Dashboards displaying energy consumption in kWh by cluster, alongside occupancy and motion events.
• Centralized emergency-lighting mode.

Together, these capabilities support organized commissioning, centralized control, and greater visibility into lighting and occupancy activity across the deployment.

The Outcome

The project established a phased PoE lighting and environmental-monitoring infrastructure across office and mission-critical areas of NJOIT’s facility. Cisco switching provides the network foundation, MHT Technologies’ PoE hardware connects the building devices, and aida provides the software layer for lighting control, automation, and operational visibility.

The aida dashboards also provide a way to review energy consumption by cluster and monitor occupancy and motion events. These capabilities can help facility teams understand building operations and identify opportunities for improvement.

The publicly available project information does not provide verified energy-savings percentages, commissioning-time reductions, or exact counts of connected fixtures and rooms, so no numerical performance claims are included here.

Building Intelligence on Existing Network Infrastructure

The NJOIT deployment demonstrates how PoE lighting and environmental monitoring can be integrated with enterprise networking to support connected building operations. By combining Cisco switching, MHT Technologies’ PoE infrastructure, and aida™, the solution provides a foundation for centralized building control and future expansion.

Before publishing: The public MHT page supports the project overview and 35,000-square-foot figure, but I couldn’t find a public source independently verifying all the detailed aida functions listed for each phase. Those technical details came from your draft, so it would be wise to have Ak review them. I also recommend leaving out a customer quote unless NJOIT has supplied and approved one in writing.

Sources:  MHT Technologies — Cisco-Powered Smart Buildings⁠ ·  MHT Technologies — Smart Building Case Studies⁠