I was smarter today. I checked everything but my camera and wallet into the coat check at the Press Centre and travelled light. This made me slightly more adventurous, even dipping into the glitzy hallows of the Decorative Lighting hall, with its many, many chandeliers.

I did see one interesting stand on my way through this sparkling hall: Industria by Masterlight, a company from the Netherlands successfully re-creating the industrial lamps that are everywhere at the moment.

I discovered the Light+Building Trends exhibition in the foyer to this hall. If I was to pick one thing to see at Light+Building, it would be this exhibition. In it, four ‘style worlds’ have been curated based on lighting and design trends around the globe and just about everything in there is worth mentioning.

In the ‘Ingenious & Significant’ world, which was my favourite, there was a trend towards linear lighting, with tracks extending in a three dimensional way into a room or lining a space along a wall.

I appreciated the simplicity of the Spy spotlights by Delta and also a concrete backed lamp by Studio Achim Manz, which reminded me of the moon.

Some great examples of creative uses of glass blowing were shown in this exhibition too, such as blown glass bulbs by Omer Arbel of Bocci, in which potplants can be grown inside holes in the glass.

In the accompanying lecture to the exhibition, the presenter talked about the advent of 3D printing and how this could affect lighting design. As an example, she showed a chair that had been created entirely from 3D printed material and mentioned that Adidas is looking at bringing out a running shoe that can be formed exactly to your foot, using 3D printing.

Speaking of the future arriving, as promised, I found the E-house (or haus) in a hall dedicated to home automation. This was a mocked-up house completely decked out in every type of automated device possible, from sensor lights to automatic heating and alarm systems, right through to an electric car charger outside.

While I was marvelling at the systems and the underfloor hardware needed to power such a smart house, some very loud music started to play in the hall. A show was starting. A scenario played out in which a woman locked herself out of the house while playing air guitar in her garden, but it was okay because she was able to call her husband, using the phone of a trampolinist (don’t ask), and he could access an app on his phone to let her in. Genius.

While on the automation theme, I visited the Digital Building exhibition, which is situated outside in the square between halls 9 and 11. This is aimed more at a business market, showing simulations of various scenarios and how a networked building can be flexible and react to each one.

The scenario I watched was building access. It ran through the ways in which a networked smart building can allow an employee access to an office building, recognise who that employee is (and for some reason I couldn’t quite fathom, play them an entrance song of their choosing), then light their way to their workspace, providing a comfortable atmosphere depending on the weather, and then dimming all other lights and systems in their wake.

While some of this automation stuff can feel a bit superfluous, I appreciate how it is designed to be energy efficient as well as time-saving.

I didn’t make it to Hall 3, but there is always tomorrow. I will also highlight a couple more of the best of the best at the Trends exhibition. Goodnight!