Smart Lighting Was Supposed to Be About Control. He Made It About People. We sat down with Gerhard Rieser, Managing Director of Exceedation and a trusted Casambi Value Added Reseller across Central Europe, to talk about three decades in lighting, the future of intelligent controls, and why business is built on people as much as technology.
If you ever play golf with Gerhard Rieser, there is a chance you may hear a story about a Casambi golf ball. Around ten years ago, Casambi produced a small batch of branded golf balls as a light-hearted promotional gesture for customers and partners at industry events. Gerhard received a few of them back then and kept them.
He laughs when he tells it. Most golfers try not to lose their balls. Gerhard once joked that, in his case, losing one somewhere on a course might actually be a simple way for Casambi to find its way into more conversations along the course, which, from a branding perspective, would be excellent visibility.
It is a playful story, but it reveals something real. Business, for Gerhard, has always been serious in purpose, but never without personality. That combination of drive, humour, curiosity, and warmth has shaped a career spanning more than 30 years in the lighting industry.
Three Decades in a Market That Never Stands Still
Gerhard entered lighting almost by coincidence, joining the industry in the era of fluorescent lamps and magnetic ballasts. What kept him there was not chance, but fascination.
Even in those early years, he saw that lighting never stands still. Electronic ballasts replaced older systems. LED technology accelerated faster than many expected. Controls evolved from basic functionality into intelligent systems. Wireless technology opened entirely new possibilities.
“I love innovation,” he says. “I love products that make life easier. In lighting, something new is always happening.”
That mindset guided him through international leadership roles in sales, business development, and market growth. But more than titles or positions, one quality kept reappearing: curiosity.
At one stage in his career, he became fascinated by a different question altogether, why some companies moved faster than others. Why certain markets embraced innovation earlier. Why some organisations created momentum while others hesitated.
That curiosity eventually helped shape the next chapter of his career.
The Future of Lighting Is Bigger Than Lighting
For Gerhard, lighting is no longer a standalone category. It is becoming part of a much wider ecosystem of connected buildings, data-driven spaces, and intelligent environments. Where luminaires were once the centrepiece, he now sees the fixture increasingly becoming a commodity: a defined box that delivers light. The real value is shifting toward what the system can do. But for him, “control” is no longer about pressing a switch, turning a dimmer, or manually selecting scenes. Those functions are only the first step.
“Lighting should become a no-brainer.”
He believes the future lies in systems that quietly respond to daylight, occupancy, activity, and personal preference, without demanding attention from the user. He imagines spaces where blinds lower automatically as sunlight increases, lighting adjusts in real time, and workplaces support concentration or relaxation depending on the task at hand. But he also believes the next leap will come through artificial intelligence.
In his view, future lighting systems should be able to understand context, not just commands. They could recognise that someone is beginning focused desk work, entering a meeting, winding down after a long day, or needing a more energising environment on a grey morning.
He even jokes that lighting may one day know if you have had three coffees and need sharper, cooler light, or if you need something warmer and calmer to regain focus.
That same intelligence could connect with calendars, occupancy data, weather conditions, and building systems to create environments that adapt automatically throughout the day. Instead of users constantly adjusting settings, spaces would quietly optimise themselves around the people inside them.
For offices, that could mean better focus and productivity. For hospitality, more intuitive atmosphere creation. For buildings, smarter energy use without constant manual intervention.
In his view, the future belongs to automation, AI-driven intelligence, seamless integration, and intuitive user experience, not technology for technology’s sake, but technology that quietly improves everyday life.
Exceedation: Built to Exceed Expectations
In 2015, after years inside global organisations, Gerhard founded Exceedation. The name itself tells the story: a blend of exceed and expectation. He wanted to create more than a sales agency. He wanted to build a business development partner that could bridge the gap between manufacturers with strong technology and customers searching for practical, scalable solutions.
“Many suppliers had strong products but no path to market. Many customers had needs but no partner who truly understood them.”
Exceedation was built to solve exactly that. What began as a one-man operation has grown into a specialist team supporting lighting manufacturers, controls providers, and project partners across Europe. Today, the company is especially active in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, with continued expansion into wider Central and Eastern Europe.
Its strength lies in combining technical understanding, market access, and practical execution. Rather than only discussing opportunities, Exceedation helps create them. And above all, the company remains people-led.
“Exceedation is people,” Gerhard says.
A Strong Casambi Partner in the Market
Within the Casambi ecosystem, Exceedation has become an important Value Added Reseller and growth partner.
Gerhard first encountered Casambi in the early days, when wireless control in professional lighting was still a developing concept. Yet he recognised the potential immediately.
“It clicked very quickly,” he recalls. “I knew this could become something big.”
What stood out was not only the wireless technology itself, but the simplicity of the concept and the opportunity to make advanced control more accessible to the market. For Exceedation, Casambi combines three qualities rarely found together in one platform: simplicity for installers, flexibility for designers, and scalability for demanding commercial projects.
Since then, Exceedation has supported projects ranging from smaller installations to technically complex commercial environments requiring sensors, integration, data access, and large-scale networks.
Project Example: ECE Shopping Mall DEZ, Innsbruck
One project Gerhard is particularly proud of is the ECE-managed shopping mall DEZ in Innsbruck.
The project covered the entire public shopping area as well as selected sections of the parking facilities and required a highly flexible yet robust lighting control concept.
The key challenge was the scale and system architecture. Approximately 400 nodes were deployed, structured across three separate Casambi networks. At the same time, the system needed to integrate seamlessly into a higher-level building control strategy.
All luminaires were designed as tunable white, following a fully automated daylight curve to ensure optimal lighting quality throughout the day. This dynamic behaviour was hierarchically embedded into a DALI-based control structure, where on/off commands were managed centrally via the building management system.
To ensure operational safety and flexibility, additional manual control layers were implemented directly within the Casambi system. These allow local overrides at any time, independent of the building management system.
For day-to-day operations and special events, a dedicated tablet interface was introduced for the facility team. This enables staff to easily create and activate custom lighting scenes, for example for seasonal campaigns or promotional activities.
Exceedation was involved throughout the entire lifecycle of the project.
This included the initial concept development, selection of the appropriate Casambi components, detailed network design, and full commissioning on site. Today, the company continues to support the installation through ongoing service and aftersales activities.
The project clearly demonstrates that wireless lighting control is not limited to small-scale applications. When properly designed and commissioned, it can deliver highly scalable, integrated, and future-proof solutions for large commercial environments.
Challenging Old Perceptions
Gerhard is also candid about one of the market’s biggest blind spots.
Too often, wireless control is still perceived as a solution for small or simple installations rather than serious building infrastructure. He disagrees strongly.
He has seen firsthand how scalable Casambi can be when designed and commissioned with the right expertise, including projects involving thousands of nodes, integrations, and advanced functionality.
“There is still enormous growth potential,” he says. “Wireless control should not be five percent of the market. It should be far more.”
That is where experienced partners matter: translating technical possibilities into reliable outcomes for customers.
Technology Needs People
Despite all the talk of AI, controls, and connected buildings, Gerhard always returns to one central truth:
Business is about people.
Markets can be entered. Products can be launched. Systems can be integrated. But none of it works without trust, relationships, and people who care enough to do things properly. That human perspective also explains another side of him.
Outside business, Gerhard is passionate about archaeology and history. Whenever he travels, he tries to visit at least one historical site. Pompeii is among the places that left a lasting impression.
He smiles at the thought that Casambi would be the ideal control system there; wireless, elegant, and respectful of historic architecture. Ancient cities and smart buildings may seem worlds apart, but perhaps they are not. Both are about how people shape the spaces around them.
And if you ever happen to find a Casambi golf ball somewhere unexpected, there is a fair chance Gerhard Rieser was there first.
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