How BLE Phone Chips Became Power Tools for Light💡—The story of Casambi’s Global Rise
Imagine walking into a dim church hall, tapping your smartphone—and watching the ancient stone vaults glow on cue. That’s exactly what struck Timo Pakkala and Elena Lehtimäki back in 2011 at Nokia’s R&D lab.
They saw the latent power of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) long before it was in every phone and wearable. Casambi Technologies was born when these two former Nokia engineers asked, “Why can’t anyone ‘program’ light from a handset instead of a hardwired panel?” Their early prototypes ran on emerging BLE modules—and by founding Casambi, they leapfrogged centralized, proprietary control systems in favor of a fully distributed, app-driven network.
Elena Lehtimäki and Timo Pakkala, co-founders of Casambi Technologies.
“We asked ourselves, ‘Why can’t lighting be as intuitive as music playlists?’”
Over a decade later, Casambi’s global footprint exceeds 250,000 projects—from the BBC World Headquarters in London to boutique retail stores on the Champs‑Élysées, the Colosseum in Rome, Helsinki Airport terminals, Dubai’s skyline, and many other iconic venues. Those projects run millions of nodes, all orchestrated by the same intuitive mobile app and backed by a cloud‑connected management layer.
Lesson #1
🟡 Repurpose existing tech → Turning BLE chips—originally designed for phones and wearables—into a universal lighting control layer unlocked Casambi’s first breakthrough.
The Casambi Ecosystem: Open, Modular, Future‑Proof
→ Why open platforms win—and how Casambi built one
What makes Casambi more than “just another lighting control” is its open, hybrid ecosystem:
Wireless + Wired (DALI) integration: Casambi meshes Bluetooth mesh networks with existing DALI backbones, so projects don’t need to remove old drivers or rewire.
300+ hardware partners: From luminaires to sensors, drivers to switches, Casambi’s OEM community ensures controls work across virtually any brand, giving designers complete freedom.
Embedded intelligence: Modules calculate local sunrise/sunset schedules and support calendar‑based scenes. Colour‑tunable fixtures save custom palettes; grouping mimics the phone’s “drag‑and‑drop” UX—all with zero-code configuration.
The company published a blog showcasing how its under‑the‑hood OEM network scales R&D across continents, ensuring firmware updates, new feature rollouts, and QA cover hundreds of module designs without slowing down innovation.
Lesson #2
🟡 Open your platform → An ecosystem of 300+ hardware partners accelerates R&D, spreads risk, and scales reach faster than any in-house team could alone.
Breaking into North America: Mark McClear’s Mission
→ What it takes to import a European success story to the U.S.
A decade after founding that open network, while Europe raced ahead with smart lighting over 80 000 installed networks and 4 million+ nodes, Casambi’s next chapter needed an equally visionary steward in North America—someone who could rally local partners around the same team-first ethos.
Enter Mark McClear, a semiconductor veteran who in 2020 began as a solo rep for both the U.S. and Canada—and by 2022 had built a dedicated North America team that tripled sales and anchored regional support across both countries.
Mark McClear, CEO, Casambi Technologies
The first thing you’ll hear from Mark McClear is, “It’s not about me—it’s all about the team and our partners. Any results are always a team effort.”
Mark McClear—From Semiconductors to Smart Lighting
Over a 35‑year career, Mark McClear has built his expertise on three foundational pillars—deep technical know‑how, hands‑on market development, and people‑first leadership. Below are the milestones that have prepared him to steer Casambi’s North American—and now global—expansion.
35 years in LEDs & semiconductors: Turned P&L leadership at Cree and Seoul Semiconductor into a playbook for scale.
Pioneering LED Patents (~2006):
As leader of Cree’s Applications Engineering team during the early LED revolution, Mark co-invented several foundational patents on thermal management and light distribution—technologies that transformed LEDs from niche products into the default choice for bulbs and fixtures worldwide.“I am inventor or co-inventor on more than 20 patents. The biggest body of work was when I led the Applications Engineering team at Cree in the very early days of the LEDs disruption… I am proud to have led that effort and put my name to at least a few of them.”
General Manager, North America (Feb 2022): Tripled sales by building a 12-person team, localizing go-to-market and hands-on training.
CEO (Nov 2023): Stepping into the top role, he’s charged with driving Casambi’s next global wave—balancing technical rigor with human-centered rollout.
Under Mark’s leadership, North America is now set to follow Europe’s lead, with a robust support network, hands‑on training, and a values‑driven culture that ensures every installation not only functions flawlessly, but feels distinctly Casambi.
Mark’s role goes far beyond traditional sales leadership. Beyond these milestones, Mark brings a people-first philosophy to every interaction by:
Training “old-school” contractors to speak Bluetooth Low Energy, bridging the gap between legacy wiring and Casambi’s wireless vision.
Empowering designers to “tell lighting stories over time,” leveraging the intuitive app and modular ecosystem to craft dynamic, time-based scenes.
Mentoring a 17-member leadership cohort through interactive values workshops—using a spinning-wheel to randomly select presenters so every leader both owns and teaches Casambi’s core principles.
“You never really know something unless you have to teach it. By having each person prepare and present our values, they internalize them—and now can speak about them fluently.”
—Mark McClear
Leading with radical authenticity: Sharing candid “off-moment” insights about both work and life, so every team member “knows my mind, knows how I think, what’s flexible, and what’s non-negotiable.”
Lesson #3
🟡 Teach to learn → Having every leader teach Casambi’s values (via that spinning-wheel workshop) means they don’t just know the principles—they live them.
Under-the-Radar Impact: Prestonwood Christian Academy
One of the best proof points of this team-first, values-driven approach is Prestonwood Christian Academy in Plano, TX. There, Casambi’s local North America squad worked hand-in-hand with Facilities Director Chris Schoby to transform every light, space, and schedule.
“I am really big on personal disclosure. I am an open book with my team and try to be authentic with them about both work and non-work issues... By spending time on these points in off-moments, I equip my team with a framework to make decisions themselves with no involvement from me at all. I hope this also seeds trust in me when I have to make a tough call that they may not agree with.”
—Mark McClear
Lesson #4
🟡 Lead with authenticity → Radical transparency—sharing candid off-moment insights—seeds trust and empowers autonomous decision-making at every level.
This human‑centered rollout mirrors Casambi’s own philosophy—designed to be Smart (dynamic scenes, decentralized control), Clean (no extra hardware or Wi‑Fi dependencies), Easy (commissionable in minutes), and Everywhere (proven in over 250 000 projects).
“It’s an honor to lead Casambi. This is an exciting juncture in the lighting industry as luminaires become increasingly smarter… Our open ecosystem architecture represents a pioneering leap, surpassing the proprietary legacy systems prevalent in today’s market.”
—Mark McClear, CEO, Casambi Technologies
Casambi’s growth shows that deep tech succeeds not by pushing complexity, but by hiding it behind exceptional UX. From a handful of patents to an app that any facility manager can master in minutes, the company balances:
Technical Rigor: A mesh protocol robust enough for large‑scale industrial sites yet lightweight for boutique galleries.
Design‑Driven Mindset: Prioritizing the “feel” of light—moods, drama, daily rhythms—over cold automation.
Ecosystem Leverage: Crowdsourcing hardware innovation through hundreds of OEMs, fueling rapid iteration without R&D bloat.
Values‑First Culture: Quiet Finnish persistence meets Singaporean efficiency and American go‑get‑’em spirit—woven together through Mark’s mentoring and global travel.
Ready for Your Own Lightbulb Moment?
Casambi’s journey—from a Nokia lab spark to a 250,000-strong app-driven ecosystem—shows that the greatest breakthroughs come when you repurpose existing tech in unexpected ways, open your platform to a community of partners, and empower every team member to live your values in action.
💡 Your turn: What legacy technology in your field could be reimagined to ignite its next revolution?
