Syracuse, N.Y. — A new Syracuse company is preparing to sell sports lighting they say will double as a coronavirus killer at high school athletic fields.

Ephesus founder Joe Casper and Chris Nolan, former director of product development for Ephesus, formed M3 Innovations in October, providing direct competition with Ephesus just days after a four-year non-compete agreement with their former company expired.

M3 Innovations plans to begin selling LED lights for municipal and high school football, soccer and baseball fields in the first quarter of 2021.

But in addition to illuminating ball fields, Casper and Nolan said, their fixtures can kill the novel coronavirus and other germs on bleachers and refreshment stands by shining ultraviolet light on them.

The disinfecting service will be one of several add-on features made possible by attaching modules to the company’s standard lighting fixtures, they said.

The other add-ons will include cameras to live-stream and upload to the cloud video of games so parents and fans can watch on their mobile devices.

They also include sensors to track the movement of individual players wearing inexpensive radio-frequency bracelets, similar to fitness watches, to measure performance like speed and acceleration.

The sensors can also monitor social distancing of fans who are also wearing the bracelets, which cost just a few dollars. When a fan gets within 6 feet of another fan, the bracelets will vibrate as a warning. They also can be used to trace fans who may have come into contact with someone diagnosed with Covid-19.

“M3 is much more than just sports lighting,” said Nolan. “Instead of just designing a light, we have developed a whole system.”

M3 has hired five other former Ephesus engineers. Casper said the company plans to license other companies to manufacture the systems and will charge a royalty on each sale.

Ephesus declined through a representative to comment on the new competitor.

Casper and Nolan met while both worked as engineers designing radars and sonars at Lockheed Martin Corp. in Salina. When Casper and his wife, Amy, founded Ephesus in 2010, Nolan joined them as the company’s lead mechanical engineer and later director of product development.

Syracuse-based Ephesus became a leading seller of LED lighting for professional sports facilities, including NFL stadiums. Its lights were the first LEDs to illuminate an NFL championship game — Super Bowl XLIX between New England and Seattle in 2015 at University of Phoenix Stadium.

The Caspers sold Ephesus to Eaton Corp., the owner of industrial lighting manufacturer Crouse-Hinds, in October 2015. At the time, Ephesus had annual sales of $22 million and employed more than 20 people in downtown Syracuse.

Signify, a Dutch company formerly named Philips Lighting, acquired Ephesus in 2019 when it bought Eaton’s Cooper Lighting, but Ephesus remains headquartered in Syracuse.

M3 (the name was chosen because the names of Nolan’s three children all start with “M”) will focus on the high school and municipal field market, while Ephesus sells to professional and college stadiums in addition to the municipal and K-12 schools markets.

Outdoor high school sports facilities in North America represent a potential $4.5 billion market, according to Casper and Nolan.

The two men said they have designed the company’s LED lights to be lightweight and easy and quick to install on existing light poles. They said their lights are brighter than traditional LED lights, so it takes much fewer of them to light a field.

The lights can also be focused precisely on the athletic field below them without shining on nearby residential neighborhoods, they said. That’s an important feature for high school fields, which are often located near residential areas.

The add-on services look to be a major part of M3′s business model, offering a source of recurring revenue. The company will charge service fees when customers choose to activate the additional features, they said.

“We’re not focused on making just a cheaper light to install,” said Nolan. “We’re focused on adding all these other disruptive technologies.”

Casper and Nolan said they designed the video camera and player-tracking features from the start. When the coronavirus pandemic struck the country in the spring, they added an ultraviolet lighting module as an option to make it easy for schools to disinfect seating areas and refreshment stands, they said.

M3 has opened an office in the Syracuse Center of Excellence in Environmental Energy Systems, a research and development hub operated by Syracuse University on East Washington Street. That’s the same building where Casper started Ephesus 10 years ago.

“This is like home for us,” said Casper.

Rick Moriarty covers business news and consumer issues. Got a tip, comment or story idea? Contact him anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-470-3148