A system of network-connected lighting devices also offers a distributed processing function that utilizes processor and/or memory resources if/when available in some or all of the lighting devices. In the examples, a resource manager receives a job for distributed processing using shared available resources. The resource manager identifies lighting devices having resources of the processors and/or the memories available for the distributed processing function. The resource manager distributes tasks and/or data of the received job through a communications network to identified lighting devices, for distributed processing. The resource manager also receives results of distributed processing for the received job, from the identified lighting devices through the communications network. The received results are processed to produce a composite result for a response to the received job.