Wireless Lighting Control Systems Almost Upstage LEDs at LightFair in Las Vegas

While the 22nd annual LightFair was dominated by new LED light sources and lighting fixtures, new wireless lighting control systems that control LEDs and more traditional lighting systems caught the attention of many attendees on the first day of the show in Las Vegas, Nev.

The show’s popular LFI Innovation Awards, which kick off LightFair each year, gave attendees an early look at some of the new wireless control systems that would be on the show floor. Several of the 34 entries in the lighting controls category offered wireless control of lighting fixtures, including nWiFi Wireless Solutions from Acuity Brands, Conyers, Ga.; Owlet Wireless Control System from Schreder Lighting, Addison, Ill.; the LeafNut Wireless Lighting Control System from Venture Lighting International, Streetsboro, Ohio; and the wireless High Bay Occupancy Sensor from Steinel, Bloomington, Minn.

CAST Lighting, Hawthorne, N.J., won the coveted Most Innovative Product of the Year Award for its Perimeter Lighting product, a 7W 24V luminaire that provides lighting along perimeter fences in large areas for military, temporary lighting and other applications. Other big winners in the 2012 LFI Innovation Awards, which attracted 228 entries, were: Design Excellence Award — Fin Light 5/8-inch LED lighting system from Sensitile Systems, Ypsilanti, Mich.; Technical Innovation Award — Warm Dim LED Downlights, Juno Lighting, Des Plaines, Ill.; and Judges’ Citation Award — Definity Motion Activated PAR 30, Lighting Science Group, Satellite Beach, Fla. As expected, the awards competition was loaded with LEDs. In the Conventional Lamps, Retrofit/Replacement LED Lamps category there were 33 LED entries, and there were dozens of other LED products in other product categories. It was interesting to see some well-known lighting names in the electrical market standing with the many boutique lighting companies that won awards. Among the category winners were Cooper Lighting, Juno Lighting/Schneider Electric, Lutron, Philips and Sylvania.

Exhibitors are clearly committed to LEDs as the future of lighting, as very few lighting manufacturers did not have LEDs on display. John Strainic, global products general manager, GE Lighting, Nela Park, Ohio, told media members at the company’s annual press luncheon that GE Lighting continues to spend the majority of its R&D budget on solid-state lighting and that the company believes LEDs will grow from 15% of all lighting sales today to 70% by 2020.

He also said one of the challenges of marketing LEDs is that because solid-state technology is changing so fast, LEDs often only have an 18-month product life-cycle before they are obsolete. That will present some stocking challenges for electrical distributors who are used to the long shelf life of many traditional lighting products.

On a related note, Jaime Irick, general manager for GE’s North American Professional Solutions, said that GE’s distributor advisory council recently told GE’s executive lighting team that they will rely on GE to keep them updated on the latest LED technology and to provide them with the proper training to sell LED solutions. Irick added that many of the distributors who have had success selling solid-state lighting technology utilize facility audit teams to evaluate customers’ lighting systems and are comfortable talking in terms of return-in-investment to customers’ CFOs and other financial decision-makers.

While show organizers had not released attendance figures at press-time, the word on the show floor was that attendance was expected to top the 23,709 attendees who swarmed LightFair in Philadelphia last year. Preliminary information released on exhibitors also point to a solid show, with 500-plus exhibitors utilizing more than 200,000 net square feet of show space, roughly the same as last year. Next year’s LightFair will be held in Philadelphia, April 23-25, 2013.