Robert Sonneman
June 10, 2011 Guangzhou,China

The LED tsunami has overwhelmed nineteen of the enormous halls of the 2011 Guangzhou edition of the Messe Frankfurt, Guangzhou lighting fair.

Like many of the projects in China, the scale of the Guangzhou show is gigantic. Big, bold, overwhelming and imposing in scale and scope. It is ambiguous, forward looking and seems to embrace the future with the enthusiasm and the confidence that characterizes the promise of a new age.

The crowds move through acre after acre, Isle after isle, stand after stand, of blindingly bright luminous displays. Twenty five hundred exhibitors present countless iterations of LED bulbs, showers of multi-colored ropes, hundreds of aluminum clad lamps, dozens of down lights, framed luminous panels and walls of fluorescent tubes glowing with the radiance of electronic diodes set in precision arrays.

I struggled to reconcile the phenomenon of the shear size and vastness of the displays of hundreds of companies selling so much of, what appeared at first glance, to be seemingly endless repetition of the products and technology.

The big name brands like Phillips, Cree, Seoul Semiconductor, Nichia, Edison and others continue to break the barriers of LED technology with developments of outstanding performance in intensity, color, and quality. Their displays featured demonstrations of advancements previewed in Milan’s, Euroluce and Philadelphia’s Lightfair this spring. These companies are the cornerstone of the technological revolution that is driving the electronic illumination juggernaut. We were very excited by the revolutionary advancements and the potential of the technical achievements that these innovators presented.

There are many serious smaller companies driven by the passion and prowess of innovation and the desire to execute superbly made well performing products. These companies include a range of technical and architectural lighting firms producing high quality performance integrated lighting systems to sophisticated world class landscape lighting and controls firms capable of managing huge, high profile projects of the scale of the Beijing Olympics.

To many others however, the wave is simply an opportunity to bundle available resources without having to confront the challenge of innovation or design. I realized that because so many components from heat sinks, to chips, from optics to controls are readily available from numerous suppliers. The market has made it easy for assemblers of generic parts to masquerade as primary developers of LED technology. With some experience, identifying the innovators from the packagers becomes a relatively easy task since so many of the commonly used components are recognizable in dozens of products and offered for sale by the component suppliers. If you are seeking to find the components of LED technology from chip on boards (COB) to Surface Mounted Devices (SMD), and Constant Current to Constant Voltage power drivers then you’ve came to the right place in the GZ lighting show.

In my search to discover unique points of view in ways to use and live with this new electronic luminance, there were a few firms demonstrating the application of LED technology in decorative or architectural lighting products with design excellence and originality.

It became apparent to me that this show was about presenting the latest technologically to challenge product and project designers with the sensibilities, insight and creativity to develop this electronic medium into new forms of an applied art.

Robert Sonneman 05/31/2011
Residential Lighting has until now been driven by housing sales. With the latest numbers about U.S. home sales, products will have to find new drivers and new incentives for consumers to step up. I think that driver will be Innovation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/business/31housing.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&src=ig

Lighting, like home furnishings and accessories, wont find business as usual a sustainable direction. Fewer home sales means fewer customers in the market to buy and price alone will not pry that credit card from customer wallets. Makers and sellers alike will be challenged to attract discretionary dollars with new products that offer new, better, more interesting and more “…cant live with out” innovation to turn shoppers to buyers.
Residential lighting companies have since WWII relied on huge product assortments to attract dealer interest and customer sales. Expanding the range of shapes, finish and styles worked for a long time as makers and retailers continued to expand assortments as the way to entice customers to spend. The world has changed and so has our reality and after a period of over half a century of growth housing sales the market is contracting and so will our model unless we drive demand with innovation. The simple truth is “….you can’t only take air in.”
We are focused on sustainable growth, no small challenge given the state of China’s supply issues and our market condition. We are focused on relevance, innovation and value and not bloating our product offerings to drive the business. I believe that innovation will be the key factor in driving demand. You can expect to see us applying our knowledge, our insight and our design skills toward precise objectives in new ways as our strategy for growth manifests in products born from innovation.
“Relevant design through Innovation… is our mission.”

Robert Sonneman 05/27/11
Before you stockpile enough incandescent bulbs for the next 20 years, RELAX!

The consumer incandescent panic attack and personal hoarding of pre-law bulbs was described with great color and example by Penelope Green in her feature article for the New York Times last Thursday May 26, 2011. Ms. Green points out “…as the deadline for the first phase of the legislation looms, light bulb confusion — even profound light bulb anxiety — is roiling the minds of many.”

Those of us that manufacture lighting are of course involved and concerned about our compliance and our ability to produce illuminating designs that satisfy both user desires and the federally mandated requirements.

The 2012 to 2014 Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007(EISA) will not phase out or eliminate incandescent light bulbs but rather require an improvement in efficiency of 30% in an stepped plan over the next three years. Starting with the 100 watt lamp in 2012 and progressively stepping down to 40watt “A” shape general-purpose lamps by 2014 manufacturers will be required to produce lamps with that simply produce 30% more lumens per watt than current incarnations.

The second tier of restrictions of the EISA will become effective in 2020 and require general purpose lamps to produce at least 45 lumens per watt. A requirement that is easily achievable for manufacturers with the currently available technology.

The exclusions in the law are so numerous that for most of us we will hardly notice the change. Bulbs that produce 310 to 2600 lumens of light are included in the mandate but bulbs that are outside that performance envelope are exempt from the law. Also exempt are several classes of specialty lamps including: reflector flood, 3-way, decorative candelabra, appliance, rough service, colored, and the old fashioned looking carbon filament lamps.

In a way the consumer hoarding of lamps is a reaction analogous to buying up gas guzzling automobiles to drive after the federally mandated requirement improved the performance of gas consumption per mile in newly made cars. It makes no sense.

What is even more paradoxical is the fact that the new technology taking hold in the lighting industry promises a dawn of an entirely new era of unlimited options in digitally controlled electronic illumination. This brave new world will provide designers and users with new options of variability and controllability that will allow them the creativity to “Paint with Light” to alter mood, tone, color and variety to a place or space. In addition digitally controlled illumination will integrate with a wide range of associative technologies to enable and enhance, alter and vary the total sensory living experience. Programmed to always present the user in the perfect the illumination with the perfect background of color and sound to present the personality as he or she is, or imagines himself or herself to be. Its only the beginning.

So fear not the coming changes in your light bulb performance. The change will open new options and possibilities that until now were only dreamed of.

http://www.sonnemanawayoflight.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/26/garden/fearing-the-phase-out-of-incandescent-bulbs.html?_r=1

www.nemasavesenergy.org/assets/YK4Q6YhC70yCdkbePFFAKg.pdf
www.nema.org/

Lighting is in a revolution of science and technology. Now electronically generated and digitally controlled, Illumination is manifested in the form of LEDs – (Light Emitting Diode). We are at the dawn of an era that is destined to impact our lives as profoundly as the transistor did for the lives of our parents in the 1950s and 60s. It’s here, Its happening now and if you want to be wow’d by the LED tsunami sweeping the world just visit Lightfair 2011 in Philadelphia. www.lightfair.com/

Yesterday’s tour of the latest in illuminating developments at Lightfair dazzled even the most jaded and experienced professionals with the technological introductions of dozens of innovators of LED products. This show was not about a decorative twist on an old idea. It was about true innovation from applied research and science. For the most part it left the utility and the application of LED technology to designers like me. It freed us to explore the potential of a limitless world of possibilities and new directions. Lightfair really brought big ideas to a market and to industries desperate for innovation and hungry for change. We are so ready to develop intelligent products. We have been eager to embrace LEDs as a facility to achieving innovative design with social conscience but in its infancy LEDs were only a good idea – that’s coming, now it is here in the forms and with the practically that will allow us to make real lighting designs that work well, in new ways.

2011 Ligthfair showcased LED innovation as profoundly as did the technology of the DAWN OF TOMORROW – The 1939 New York World’s Fair that helped lift the spirits and the vision of those trapped in the great depression .

Some of the Lightfair highlights for me were:
Philips Luxeon A LEDs are the first single-die LED’s that are free from color binning, a complex process of sorting by color and performance. (http://www.philipslumileds.com/)

Cree’s EasyWhite MT-G multi-die LED for single source lighting with excellent color consistency (no binning). and the xme producing 165 lumens per watt. (http://www.cree.com/products/xlamp_mtg.asp

Seoul Semiconductor’s Acriche series of AC line voltage LEDs eliminates the need for bulky drivers and could absolutely revolutionize the use and cost of LED illumination. (http://www.acriche.com/en/)
If you care about lighting and you didn’t get to go to Lightfair be sure that you look at the list of exhibiters and visit their sites. The LED revolution is on and we are all going to be a part of it.

Design is becoming increasing universal. No longer the exclusive province of a dominant country or cultural influence, design is global in its reach and in its appeal.

In a few month period design based shows From Paris to Hong Kong, Manila to Milan, High Point to Shanghai and from NY to Las Vegas welcomed many of the same visitors. and shared several of the same exhibitors. That fluidity of attendance moving easily from one event to another around the globe has flattened the landscape in the search for the unique.

In the six or so of these events that I have or will attend in a few month period I was surprised to see how many of the same people and products I saw from one show to another with little or no consideration for the country or distance traveled.

Globalization with its unrestricted access to markets excites the creative passion and increases the talents requirement to develop original work from a fresh point of view.
It is expands the opportunity to capture markets independently but challenges the vision and uniqueness of the work, measured against a much broader field of the worlds competitors.

In the forty years or so that I have worked as designer, inventor, manufacturer and marketer of contemporary design I have seen several waves of influences and evolutions. There was often a national character to the design presentations which were often seen as valid only within a specific regional context. Today that canvas has expanded to include a broader pallet of influences based less on locale and more on individual talent.

I loved the ICFF in NY and thought it was fresh and exciting. Milan was fun and experimental with fanciful notions unfettered by concern for utility. I cant wait to see Lightfair tomorrow in Phili. and back in two weeks to Guangzhou for more LED developments.

Its a great time to be working in design and I am more excited then ever about the challenges of developing product designs in a marriage of art and technology. The future will look less and less about the past and more and more about individual creativity expressed to a more unified world of design.

www.sonnemanawayoflight.com
www.icff.com
www.eventogo.com/feature-events/italy/euroluce.php
www.lightfair.com/