Smart Indoor Lighting for Sustainable Buildings: A Systematic Bibliometric Review of Human-Centric Control, IoT Platforms, and Automation-Related Optimization

Abstract

Indoor lighting systems are a significant contributor to building energy consumption while also directly affecting occupant comfort and circadian regulation. Recent advances in smart lighting have introduced adaptive and human-centric approaches; however, the integration of optimization-oriented control strategies with interoperable automation frameworks remains only partially articulated in the literature. This study presents a systematic bibliometric review of smart indoor lighting research, with particular attention to the roles of hyper-heuristics (HH), Internet of Things (IoT) platforms, and IFTTT/Event–Condition–Action (ECA) automation. A PRISMA-based methodology was applied across Scopus, Web of Science, and IEEE Xplore for the period 2010–2025. A total of 5529 records were identified, with 5229 screened after duplicate removal, and 27 core studies included following eligibility assessment. To reduce the risk of over-interpreting null intersections, the review also incorporated a search-sensitivity analysis based on expanded query formulations and title–abstract screening. Bibliometric analysis was conducted using MATLAB and VOSviewer to identify publication trends, technological clusters, and patterns of fragmentation across the literature. The results indicate rapid growth in IoT-based and energy-aware lighting systems, alongside mature research in circadian and comfort-driven lighting. However, explicit indexed evidence connecting hyper-heuristics with IoT platforms and IFTTT/ECA frameworks remains sparse and fragmented in the available literature. Co-occurrence analysis further reveals weak metadata-level connections between optimization techniques and IoT protocols, while the sensitivity analysis confirms that broadened retrieval improves recall but still yields only limited directly relevant evidence. Overall, the review identifies a gap in the explicit convergence of optimization, interoperable IoT infrastructure, and event-driven automation for human-centric indoor lighting. On this basis, it outlines a conceptual integration framework combining hyper-heuristics, IoT middleware, and event-driven control. The findings provide a structured roadmap for future research and implementation-oriented studies aimed at improving both energy efficiency and human-centric comfort in smart indoor environments.