A recent Wall Street Journal article (Why LED Bulbs Don’t Always Live Up to the Hype About Their Life Span – Jo Craven McGinty 10-1-2021) detailed some of the frailties surrounding expected lifespan of LED light bulbs. Unfortunately, they failed to discuss a crucial element that is now leading to shorter lived lamps…the desire for cheap.
The reporter talked to the Director of Research at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and he clearly defined the reasons for lower longevity. There is, however an underlying reason for his recommendation to use “LED System Life” rather than LED life as a better way to measure expected life. Multiple reports and investigations indicate failure is most likely to occur in the driver and electronics. The LED have proven to be very effective and hardy, failing at a very low rate. A quick overview by the DOE https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/04/f14/life-reliability_fact-sheet.pdf helps us to understand the conclusion delivered by Rensselaer.
Consumers were never able to justify a light bulb that cost tens times a conventional incandescent lamp. Initial sales were poor. At those prices, efficiency needs would not be met.
One of my favorite jokes tells the story. A kangaroo walks into a bar and orders a martini. The bartender prepares the drink and places it on the bar. “That will be $35.” The kangaroo pays the bartender and the bartenders comments, “You know, we don’t get many kangaroos in here.” The kangaroo responds, “At these prices, I’m not surprised!”
To make LED lighting more acceptable to the greater kangaroo population, they had to be cheaper. That means money needed to be extracted from the components and manufacturing process. Using high quality LED, electronic circuitry, drivers and a strong deference to thermal management, the original LED would last far longer than the advertised 50,000 hours. Cheaper electronics, disregarding heat or combining circuits on a common board all make the light bulb less expensive, but at a cost to longevity.
There is a wonderful analysis conducted by the website “Hackaday” that tells this tale. By analyzing the components and construction of three readily available LED lamps, understanding “you get what you pay for” is easy.
To paraphrase the research, a very inexpensive lamp combines the LED and driver on a single board. (There are other electronic and wiring variations I will not recount.) With inexpensive components, wiring and assembly, this lamp promises a life of 7500 hours. The second lamp is a bit more expensive and the life expectancy is doubled to 15,000 hours. This is accomplished by separating the driver, thereby protecting it from the heat and delivering an incrementally better product. The best of the three tested light bulbs separates the driver and LED and uses superior capacitors rated for higher temperatures. (There are other improvement as well.) The price is the highest of the three and it lasts the longest, at a promised 25,000 hours. If longer lasting light bulbs are desired, they can be had, but it will cost more.
LED System Life should be the barometer of the future. The reality of our desire for cheap, cheaper and cheapest has forced a realignment of expectations for LED. It is a shame that the LED is getting the bad name.
Sure, I am a “lighting guy” but it is virtually impossible to ignore all or the “other” interesting design ideas that surround me. By nature, I am aesthetically inquisitive. I see, assess and catalog, fashion, labels, product design, interiors…almost anything that comes from the mind of a creative person. During that absorption, some strike me as interesting, fresh and worthy of note, perhaps indicating some sort of trend change, or maybe they might have an impact on the next trend. Here is my list of things that stood out.
Beige! Beige! Beige!
It’s as if gray neutrals never existed. Every major furniture manufacturer was showing beige products. Now don’t get me wrong. This does not mean a return to all beige, all the time. It simply indicates that beige, rather than gray will be the hinge on which interiors will be hung. In my mind, this makes sense. We see brass/gold rising, brushed nickel declining and black at its peak, with a decline inevitable. As we enter this warmer design phase, beige and warm brass are perfect partners. Expect this combo to dominate for the next ten to fifteen years.
Pile
Could Glyn John’s 60s era fashions, so dominant in “The Beatles: Get Back” documentary have made such an immediate impact (doubtful, simply because of timing) or are we just looking for something cozy because of the never ending pandemic separation? (More likely!) For whatever reason, pile is EVERYWHERE! Pile lined coats, pile coat exteriors, cuffs and collars, pile covered furniture (in beige, of course!) and pile trimmed everything else. It is textural, demands a touch and just feels engaging.
Demar Leather
We all know leather is hot right now, so I could have easily passed by this company. What is so striking here is the WIDE variety of color. They are combining high quality materials and a nice selection of textures with their ability to customize color. There are a lot of possibilities here, delivering trend-relevant material in brand-specific color palettes. https://demanrleather.com
Poltrona Frau
With leather in mind, I love to visit the Poltrona Frau showroom. The furniture is intoxicating and so beautifully crafted. In the window of their Wooster Street showroom they displayed ottomans with a basket weave pattern in dense red. Adding the pattern was a nice way to contemporize classic leather furniture.
Poltrona Frau – SOHO front window featuring beautifully woven leather furniture.
Many people know Terry Crews as an actor, most recently, television’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Others remember him as a football player. Football players remember him as the player who created individualized artwork that appealed to the narcissistic tendencies of the star athlete. Some people might even know him as a body builder, inspirational speaker or all-around “nice guy.” I, on the other hand respect him and know him for his talent as a designer. So does Bernhardt, the premium manufacturer of fine furniture. Over the last five (?) years, Crews has design some remarkable pieces for Bernhardt and I look forward to seeing each new item, every year. Crews worked his way through art school as a ball player, when success came in that field he never forgot his core calling. With success in many areas, his return to art/design probably was inevitable for such a motivated guy. Regardless of how he got here, we should all enjoy the end result. The new Belmont chair just became another jewel in his crown.
Bernhardt – The Belmont chair designed by Terry Crews
Lioli produces thin micro-tiles (3mm) in an astounding array of colors. The small size allows them to contour to irregular surfaces and refract light in multiple directions. Because of the size and palette, there are endless possibilities for use. I must admit, their website and displays can be perceived as tacky with too much glitz and corny examples, but in the hands of the right designer, this is a product that could individualize a space.
Lioli Glass – miniature sized mosaic glass pieces combined to create amazing designs and item facades.
When wallpaper reemerged I was mesmerized by the reinvention of the stale product I remember from my youth. Gone were the tiny flowers, pinstripes and inane patterns. Bold, clever design was everywhere. Since then, I have nodded politely to most wallcovering sources. Been there. Seen that. So I was surprised to be taken aback by Arte. Some were bold, some subtle, some textural, others with the complexity of a Persian rugs. Perhaps, to a more learned eye, there is nothing new here, but for me, this was notch above what I have seen for a while.
Arte – Textured wallpaperArte – Wallpaper borrowing from the detailed visuals created by Persian rug artisans.
Like wallcoverings, laminates have been readily available and oh, so typical. I found the variety and color of Lab Designs to be different and new. The range of creative patterns and colors was inspiring. A quick review of their samples has me wondering where I could use it. Done well, it could substantially elevate a space. I’m pumped!
Lab Design – It might look like wallpaper, but it is in-fact, a laminate surface!Lab Design – It might look like wallpaper, but it is in-fact, a laminated surface!
I’ve always associated the introduction of black into the bathroom with the Jason Wu collection of faucets for Brizo. Perhaps there were others who proposed matte black, but none so elegantly and persistently. They alone persevered until the whole industry followed. Black can now be found in Home Depot and Brizo has shifted to a wood-enhanced faucet, part of their Frank Lloyd Wright collection. While I’m not sure how FLW connects with this design, it is time to think about the proposed intersection of wood, chrome and water. The wood compels you to touch and feel the faucet in a way metallic finishes alone do not. The hardware feels soft and approachable. The designs are also available in metallic-only finishes, but they are really uneventful without the draw of wood.
By the way, Jason Wu is now showing Brizo faucet designs in white, a finish that has been unused in plumbing for over twenty years and it looks fresh, new and revolutionary. The difference here is a subtle matte instead of the 1990s gloss. Re-read the first few sentences of this section and buckle your seat belts for what is next!
Brizo – Frank Lloyd Wright inspired faucet suite.Brizo – Frank Lloyd Wright inspired suite uses wood as a design element.
What’s not to like about a Poggenpohl kitchen? I find myself drooling over each one. I was especially drawn to the Venova island, realized with chrome “legs,” gloss white surfaces and stepped countertop. It is flawless.
Poggenpohl – a streamlined island with simple legs and tiered countertop.
Let’s face it, hand sanitation stations are REALLY ugly. Some are placed on a wobbly pole in the middle of a hallway, others are mounted in bathrooms featuring some pedestrian, brand-specific look. We need this cleansing juice, but we surely don’t want to interact with the homely dispenser. Vaask has elevated this yeoman’s piece of equipment into an aesthetically interesting and interactive tool. The station recognizes the user when a hand is placed under the sculptural spigot by illuminating the wall surface. As the sanitizer is distributed, the light replicates the fluid’s motion. A mirror-image drip guard eliminates the unsightly and inevitable puddle on the floor below. Don’t you love when a designer solves a multi-faceted problem with a great looking solution? Sure, it’s a sanitizer dispenser, but I love this design!
Vaask – Why do hand sanitation stations need to look ugly? Vaask has solved the problem with a beautiful, streamlined design.
Peters is creating 3D printed ceramics and employing them in installations that take advantage of the multiplicity of the printed unit. Because of the digital manufacturing, these pieces appear to be delicate and more detailed than those produced using conventional methodology.
Brian Peters – 3-D printed ceramic that takes advantage of duplicates to form something amazing.
Inspiration comes from many places. Pile lined parkas lead to furniture fabric that defines the tonal nuances of the metallic surroundings and that in-turn drives the style of a space. Trends start from the oddest places and typically die of exhaustion. Watchful eyes can understand those paths and determine how to use the information. Trips to New York help me sort through these concepts. I hope this miniature overview helped you as well.
Every year (COVID 2019/2020 excluded) I spend a long weekend, or two in New York. I plan my trip(s) around the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) and another design-related show that attracts my attention. In the past, the Architectural Digest Design Show, NY Now and BDNY have provided a second reason to visit. This year, LightFair gave me that excuse. During two visits, I try to absorb ideas, trends and directions that provide a vison of where we are and where we are headed in home furnishings. This year, ICFF was combined with BDNY and Most Wanted, a show featuring emerging home furnishings and design talent. Outside of the show, I visit galleries, showrooms, window-shop and poke around the many corners of the city to simply absorb.
This is the first of two posts covering my trips of 2021. It is concentrated on lighting. The next post will review interesting “non-lighting” (basically, everything else!) finds.
Pure Edge TruTrack
So much track lighting looks like it is pasted on the ceiling. While we need the light at various points around the room, to do so, the track must build a path to those assorted locations. TruTrack is only 5/8” deep, so it can be mounted directly on studs. The drywall is then installed against the track. After following the finishing instructions and using a paintable track cover, the track disappears into the ceiling! Only the head is visible. Finally, a clean look on the ceiling where track is needed.
In the same way that TruTrack allows the track to disappear, Hide-A-Trim has developed tools to hide wall mounted light switches and GCOs. The componentry works with all of the popular brands of control devices. Paint and wall covering expose only the usable or moving parts of the controls.
Hide-A-Trim – Flush mounted GCO
Artemide Lighting
LED has allowed for a complete rethinking of how we build luminaires. The Shoegun lamp rethinks the purpose of a lampshade, dividing it in half and forcing each section to diffuse the light in an unusual and different way.
The classic 1960s Eclisse design has been reintroduced in a series of metallic finishes. As with the Shoegun, an inner-shade can be rotated to serve as a regulator of the light. The size, colors and functionality make these little table lamps highly desirable again.
Artemide – Shoegun Lamp with two, adjustable half-shadesArtemide – Eclisse portable lamps with directional shields.
Kartell
Kartell has always been known for fine acrylic that elevated simple product beyond what “plastic” means to most people. They have so often played with classic designs, typified by the Louis XV inspired, Ghost Chair that I should not have been surprised to see the fine facet-cut crystal rendered in acrylic. These smoke, clear and amber pendants and lamps (Planet) are dazzling.
Equally interesting are the lace inspired resin lamps (Kabuki.) With an offset inner and outer shell, the result is much more delicate than one would expect from thermoplastic!
Kartell – SOHO window featuring the Planet lighting products with a cut-crystal feel.
Kartell – SOHO window featuring the Kabuki lamp with a resin-lace look.
Ochre
Ochre does not introduce a lot of new products, but what they present is always intriguing and subtle. Mandala is a soft porcelain rectangle with light that peeks out from behind, with just the softest glowing ring in the face of the porcelain. Very ethereal. https://ochre.us/
Ochre – Mandala sconce with light through and around a delicate porcelain plate.
Original BTC
The new Pebble pendant from Original BTC uses plates of English bone china that are stacked into a sphere to deliver a warm alabaster glow. BTC excels in the use of fine china and each year I look forward to their new pieces, even though they are a bit more transitional than my person preferences. https://www.originalbtc.com/?country=United%20States&cclcl=en_US&redirectSeoId
Original BTC – SOHO showroom front window – Pebble Pendant featuring overlapping English bone china plates.
Bandido
This Mexican company is turning marble into beautifully handcrafted lighting. The NAGA pendant features a collar of marble that encases the diffuser and is topped by a metal cone. This is nicely done marble from a place where polished stone usually means inexpensive souvenir trinkets. This is heirloom quality. https://www.bandidostudio.com/
Bandido – NAGA pendant features a polished stone center ring,
Secto Design
Secto is a Finnish company that has created a line of paper-based laminate covered birch wood. The result is delicate and airy. The pendants seem to float in space (actually, they do, albeit via a cord!) The lightness is accentuated with an LED light source that is tucked up inside and almost invisible, allowing the rays of light to play along with the scored wood shading. I loved this warm Scandinavian feel. This is a look immediately on-trend today with the rise of “Japandi” styling.
Secto Design – Paper based laminate covered birch wood shade.
Pablo
You can always count on Pablo to deliver an interesting and exciting new luminaire. This year, Luci forces a rethinking of what we think we know about portable lamps. Luci is unencumbered with cords. These are rechargeable and lightweight floor and table lamps. Light can be brought along wherever it is needed.
Danish company, Luxicole showed a similar product. It however featured a weighty base that subtracted from the light simplicity of the idea. Nonetheless, it is still a nice design.
Do women still use compacts? The women in my life do not, but Koncept took this purse staple and turned it into the Gravy Wall Sconce. As the photo suggests, all manner of color and patterns are fair game, but more importantly, the reflective “lid” is fully adjustable, allowing the amount and direction of light to be adjusted as needed. This is a fun, playful little luminaire!
Koncept – Gravy Wall Sconce with an adjustable front “compact” lid.
Nina Magon for Studio M
Studio M showed a collection of products designed by Houston based, Nina Magon called Zeppelin that made wonderful use of LED. The cylinders of glass feature linear etchings and are encased in a structural frame that hides the light source. That light magnifies the etch and defines the design. It is an elegant collection of light.
Nina Magon for Studio M – Zeppelin collection with a linear etched diffuser surrounded by a metal frame.
Aaron Ethan Green
A standout in the Wanted Design section of the show was the Roe collection by Brooklyn designer, Aaron Ethan Green and it was so simple. A collection of marble-sized glass spheres are gathered together in a cluster, reminiscent of fish eggs, hence the name, Roe. Light is nicely diffused and they look so delicate as a pendant or sconce.
Aaron Ethan Green – Roe lighting collection features a collection of marble-sized spheres clustered together.
Roll & Hill
No trip to SOHO is complete without a visit to the Roll & Hill showroom. Imagine my disappointment when I found paper on the windows. Not to worry, they are adding a collection of furniture to their lighting lines that I am sure will be great. Sadly, I was unable to see their new Deco collection, Moonrise. As we exit a fairly strong Mid-Century trend, look for many people to find solace in Art Deco, or pieces that have an inkling of deco. Moonrise is perhaps more than an inkling, but nevertheless interesting and exciting.
There was a fair amount of wood used in lighting at the show. Much of it borrowing heavily from actual tree architecture. There were driftwood chandeliers, raw wood pendants and this polished tree branch lamp from Joel Seigle, a Brooklyn wood designer. Indo Puri went back to woven wicker, rattan, etc. to create folk-world and earthy lighting products.
On a sad note, some of my favorite spots in New York closed. It might be hard to say if this is COVID related, or a result of internet sales, but the wildly inventive Ingo Mauer SOHO showroom is no more. Since his recent death, this may be the result of a company change or…? The Stickbulb SOHO showroom also closed. I wonder if this is a trend with no end in sight. I’ll see, when I return in May 2022.
I hope some of these new lighting ideas will inspire you. They sure motivated my creative juices! Remember, my next post will cover “non-lighting” ideas that caught my attention. I know. What could be better than lighting? Stay tuned!
Many years ago, I participated in an energy-use roundtable. Sitting around the perimeter of a hotel ballroom were representatives from energy producers (utility companies) energy program authors/administrators, governmental agencies and manufacturers. Many aspects of energy use were discussed, but I have been unable to forget the continual pleas from the Canadian utility representatives for more energy efficient holiday lighting. Throughout the day, it was brought up multiple times by all of the electrical producers in attendance. Finally, at about the three-quarter mark in the proceedings, one of the Americans asked what many of us were thinking. “Holiday lighting has been mentioned multiple times by every Canadian sitting around this table. Could someone explain why?”
At that point, all of the Canadians (knowingly) giggled. One of the members of the contingency from BC Hydro, the electric producer for the British Columbia province swallowed his laughter and helped us ill-informed Americans with a little known fact. According to the utilities, Canada is the world’s per-capita leader in the use of holiday lighting. (I have no way of confirming this, but if anyone should know, it was these electricity executives.) The period of time from the second week of December to sometime in mid-January represents the largest levels of electric consumption over the entire year. All production must be geared toward that six to eight week period of electricity demand. ANY reduction, however small is considered a gift to producers. Simply put, holiday lighting dictates their business.
This meeting occurred at the heady early days of energy efficient lighting. Much has changed since. Canada outlawed anything other than LED holiday lights and both Canada and America have made significant strides toward better lighting. Knowing that, let me leave you with a few holiday lighting tips.
Outdoors, it is best to remember, less is more. Clark Griswold probably doesn’t live in your neighborhood, but even if he, or his ilk do, your home will be better noticed with a subtle application of festivity.
Many people love to set up a “spot light” on their front door for the holiday season. I’m not sure when and why this started, but here we are, stuck with tradition. In this regard, I urge you to revolt. DO NOT light your front door with a spot! Don’t give your relatives an opportunity to quote Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, Bruce Springsteen or The Weekend (depending on age!) Aim the spot on a beautiful tree and save yourself a New Year’s law suit because your great aunt was unable to see the porch steps. (We’ll ignore the fact that she had a fourth egg nog.)
Telemarketers have been advertising a child’s “cuddly toy” that shoots light out of its belly, delivering a celestial pattern onto the nursery or bedroom ceiling. Yikes! This thing scares the hell out of me! Without better information on the color of light, the lumen intensity and its impact on sleep, I’d run far away from this product. No one needs an insomniac youngster. Buy a stuffed narwhal or cobra instead. It will be safer!
Most importantly, have a wonderful holiday. Please overeat. Have one more drink. Tip your taxi/Uber/Lyft/Curb driver. Resolve to pay more attention to lighting in the New Year. Of all resolutions, this is the one that will deliver dividends for many years to come! Life is too short to live with poor lighting.
What the heck are non-visual photoreceptors and why do I care about them? I’m not a research scientist, so let me explain this in the way I understand it. Please don’t use this simplified explanation in your application for a Nobel Prize!
When I started to research the color of light and its impact on human health, perhaps ten years ago, I became aware of the circadian cycle built into the human body (and almost every animal.) Our understanding of the circadian rhythm is actually new science. It was first realized in 2000. At the time, we began to learn about non-visual receptors in our eyes (iPRGC) whose singular job is to detect levels of blue light, thereby turning on and off the body’s production of melatonin, which in turn drives our circadian. More recently, scientists have learned that there are other factors that control this important body-clock.
An educational session at LightFair 2021 talked about new research that has uncovered additional non-visual photoreceptors that help our body function, based on the color of light with which they interface.
In a previous post, (Baseball and Lighting) I reminded readers that our body was engineered with only natural light in mind. The body needs blue light during the day and darkness at night. Unfortunately, we have chosen, over the last 100 years or so to live in opposition to the natural environment, employing artificial light. That artificial light presents to our body wavelengths different than the sun’s and different than what we need, hence the health problems we are encountering.
Melanopsin regulates the circadian with input from the iPRGC in the eye. New research indicates we have other “light sensing proteins,” opsins that have their own specific demand for light and their own specific reason for needing it. Because artificial light does not now deliver that type of wavelength, adverse medical conditions are occurring. Opsin 5, Neuropsin is located in the brain, skin, retina and cornea. Opsin 4, Encephalopsin is found in the brain, skin, retina and fat cells. That means there are tissues in our body that are light sensitive.
It is believed that a reduction of the light anticipated by these opsins is responsible for elevated retinopathy in infants, increases in myopia and the regulation of metabolism. Most every lighting system used today is designed, understandably, for the body’s visual system. In the future, we will likely need to design and employ systems that address the needed wavelengths of light by these opsins.
How Will This Be Done?
Again, we should remember the sun. The sun delivers light at every wavelength, in varying values. By looking at the research and the levels of light required, engineers can create artificial light commensurate with the needs of our visual system AND our non-visual receptors.
The direction in which light reaches us is also important. As you know, most artificial light comes to us from overhead, but the sun travels through the sky in an ever-changing pattern starting very low in the morning, overhead at midday and again, near the opposite horizon in the evening. That means our bodies anticipate more vertical light than we currently receive. We should expect this solution to come in fewer ceiling flush lights, more task plane lighting and even illuminated walls and panels.
At this point, there are some products on the market that address this need. As the research continues and grows, expect to see and hear more. Just remember, like so much in lighting lately, change is afoot!
Perhaps the most well-attended educational program at LightFair is a survey of progress in the lighting industry. One of the speakers started their portion with a reminder of Amara’s Law. I think it a great place to begin this assessment also.
“We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.” – Roy Amara
Think back when LED was new. It was a panacea. Light would last 100,000 hours. Cancer would be cured. Cost would be reduced to pennies. Over-estimated? Check. The first half of the law is true.
Today, LED technology is saving millions of dollars in energy costs. The color of light is now more in-tune with the designed environment. LED can be wavelength configured to the demands of edible plants and thereby increase growth and yield, resulting in a reduction in hunger. Science is moments away from stating unequivocally that specific colors of light at specific times can aid in a variety of health concerns, sleeplessness and wellbeing. LED is poised to be a vehicle for increased home automation, better wireless communication and even more paradigm changes. Yet, we think of LED as a different type of light bulb. Under estimated? Check. The second half of the law is also true.
To bounce us from this complacency, here are a few of the things we can expect in the future. LED and solid-state lighting should not yet be taken for granted.
Expect better dimming, better color, more color tuning opportunities, tighter tolerances (variations) in output, and smaller physical size of the light source.
More granular lighting controls, down to each and every luminaire in a huge office complex, controlled via a smart phone app or computer program. If available already, added simplicity is around the corner.
The LED will become a critical sub-function of the much more complex communication technology employ into the future. More “processing” will be built into each luminaire making the actual lighting fixture a vehicle by which the building or home operates. This will increase the building’s operational efficacy and increase the occupant’s satisfaction.
Thanks to LED, wireless communication will increase its occupation in the visible light portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, thereby expanding the capacity by huge percentages. LiFi is on its way to become bigger than WiFi.
Autonomous vehicles will not require street lighting, further reducing electric demand. Even if driverless cars are not fully implemented, street lighting can be switched to an “on demand” mode via communication between the lamp post and the vehicle.
All of these changes within a category we can call, “lighting” will open the floodgates for bigger changes in quantum computing, brain interface computing and building-based, low-voltage electricity.
Could all of this slip right into the primary phrase of Amara’s Law again? Have I and the futurists overestimated the impact of light in the next twenty years? Check back on my blog page in November of 2041!
Untitled – Robert Gober 1991 How many lighting pros who attended LightFair in New York, visited The Whitney Museum and commented on their brilliant name for this unsettling, untitled sculpture? “Foot-candle” anyone?
For those of you unfamiliar, LightFair is an annual tradeshow dedicated to lighting. Twenty years ago, when America started to seriously consider energy efficiency, the aging show received a needed jolt of purpose. Booth after booth featured creative ways to use fluorescent light. HID lighting gained more respect. Even Cold Cathode lighting briefly reappeared. Then, LED arrived.
The introduction of white LED again energized the lighting business. LightFair took on even more value. For the first time in 130 years, we were going to reconsider general lighting with new technology. The show was abuzz with thousands of people talking about light. For a guy who spend a career engulfed in lighting, nirvana had arrived. Change was coming to a dinosaur industry. LightFair provided a platform for displaying, marketing and learning about all the things necessary to create great light with LED. For the next five to eight years, it became THE place to go. LightFair was indispensable.
While the technology continued to improve, growth spurts were soon replaced with marginal, more predictable, year-over-year improvements. LightFair turned in a “connectivity” and “Smart” conference. That lasted until our understanding of the needs of plants grew and horticultural lighting had become the prom queen and king of the show for a year or two.
That brings us to the 2021 edition, just wrapped in New York. Radically smaller and in some ways less self-assured, it was a general disappointment. Sure, much can be blamed on travel reluctance on the part of companies and attendees. The few people there repeated the hopeful mantra, “Wait until Vegas.” (Las Vegas will host the 2022 edition, June 19-23.) While it might be better, almost anything will be, I’m not so sure we will see the vigorous enthusiasm witnessed in the near past. Here are a few reasons.
The End of Seismic Change
This year we again saw growth in efficacy, better understanding of “smart” communication protocols that span products and brands, better color, tighter binning and exciting implementations, the changes were smaller steps than we have enjoyed for almost twenty years. With fewer “ah-ha” moments and stunning discoveries, will attendance return? A 3% growth doesn’t warrant a trip to a trade show. Incandescent-like changes are the reason the show was melting just prior to the demand for better efficacy.
Deteriorating Trade Show Value
I remember the excitement and value that was brought from trade show attendance twenty years ago. This was pre-internet. Catalogs were carted back home via an empty piece of luggage, brought for that specific reason. Companies showed “brand new” products for the first time. Attendance meant you were getting a sneak preview of the next big thing. After returning back to your office, it took a few days to decompress and fully embrace the things just learned.
That is not the case today. Very little “new” is displayed. Booths are filled with flat screens (just like the internet!) to detail the products offered. Catalogs are not displayed, because they are not wanted, or needed. The information is available online. Booth workers appear bored, their heads buried in their mobile phones. With little sizzle to sell and see, what is the point?
Human interaction was however, very much on display. After our long world nightmare, that is surely understood. I must admit, it was nice to catch up with the few people I did know. Does a casual fist-bump, an update on family/golf handicaps or an exchange on work and company justify attending a trade show? The positive evidence is shrinking.
A New Generation of Workers
Trade Shows are a byproduct of the Boomer Generation and the tail end of the Silent Generation. When the economy tanked in 2008. Boomers did not bring the next generation along to shows. They were left in the office to work without information gleaned from shows. This forced them to double-down on unearthing information from online sources. As the economy righted itself, boomers retired and Gen Xers never took their place at shows. They simply did not need information presented in this fashion. They didn’t need the social connection either, having gathered their own circle of influence, also online. An alternate informational and social path is now in play. Millennial and Gen Z workers are even further entrenched in this new medium. It’s too late to change now.
What Happens Now?
Trade shows will likely limp along. As more and more Boomers disappear, smart companies will understand the diminishing returns provided by participation. Shows might consolidate to remain viable for a few additional years, but ultimately, they will die like traveling circuses, Howard Johnson restaurants and incandescent light bulbs.
That said, the next few blog post will reiterate some of the exciting things I picked up during the educational programs presented at LightFair. I’d like to think the educational aspect might keep trade shows alive, but alas, attendance there has always been slimmer than floor attendance. It was even more exaggerated this year. I know from personal experience that online education is more and more in demand. The attendance of my monthly training sessions is ten-fold of what I could attract in-person at any of the scores of trade shows I appeared over the years. The disappearance of LightFair does not mean technology and research will stop. We will simply learn of it in a different way. Sound familiar?
Summer has ended and that means we’re in the thick of baseball playoffs and well into football season, with most taking place under artificial light. The first Major League baseball game played at night, under a lighted stadium took place in Cincinnati, at Crosley Field on May 24, 1935. The Reds beat the visiting Philadelphia Phillies and a new era in sporting events was born. Along with baseball, high school football games are typically played on Friday nights under the lights. There was even a movie and popular television show that co-opted the term – Friday Night Lights. The NFL regularly schedules professional games on Monday, Thursday and Sunday nights and NCAA football features numerous games on Saturday night. (Should Tuesday and Wednesday feel slighted?) Lighted fields are de rigureur. We might wonder, without light, would these games be as popular? Without popular nighttime competition, would we have fewer self-centered, millionaire, adult-teenagers? One thing is certain, it would be as smaller business.
Before electric lighting, people awoke with the sun and went to sleep at sunset. Work in the fields was impossible in the dark. Candles and fire could provide only a few additional hours of light, before prudence forced their being extinguished. Light substitutes were expensive. Tallow candles in 1880 cost 40¢ per 1000 lumen hours. A fluorescent lamp cost about $0.001 per 1000 lumen hours for the same amount of light. The kerosene required for three hours of light cost about one hour of a workers wage at the time, while today, one hour’s pay buys about 300 days of light.* Sure, baseball would be different, but home life would be equally affected.
Would there be positives to an absence of nighttime illumination? An agrarian economy would likely still exist, forcing most of us to heed the dictates of the sun. Dark nights and blue-rich, sun-filled days are exactly what our body wants and needs. This circadian balance would, with a few exceptions, end sleepless nights and insomnia. There is mounting evidence that cancer rates would be lowered as melatonin levels are no longer suppressed. Of course we’d all need to balance that against the grueling hours of backbreaking physical labor.
We are living in a bit of a lighting renaissance today. The engineers have abandoned 130 year old incandescent technology and continue to escalate improvements in LED. That has allowed designers to reimagine what light could be. Doctors and scientist are developing a better grasp on how light impacts humans (and animals and plants and sea life and….) Both will allow us to enjoy the advantages of light and avoid all of the bad parts light used to deliver.
So is there a happy medium between Laura Ingalls and Aldous Huxley? We are still a few years away from definitive directives on light from the scientific community, but the direction is becoming VERY clear. If we think about a time when farm families arose early, spent most of day out of doors and prepared for sleep around the reddish-amber color of firelight, the closer we can replicate that, the better off we will be today. Our bodies have not changed, the surroundings in which we place them have. In short, we need to consider attending more day-games and fewer nighttime gridiron matches. Despite its impact on team owners’ player’s and groupie’s pocketbooks.
*Steven Johnson, How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World 2015.
A friend allowed me to borrow a book he thought would interest me. The 99% City (Mars & Kohlstedt) is described as “a field guide to the hidden world of everyday design” whereby it explores the important, but overlooked elements that make a city function. He knows my passion for better lighting and called my attention to sections on street lighting.
“City of Light – Dissuasive Illumination,” explains that street light was an early way to make streets safer at night. They raised visibility and invited community. Street lights are certainly not new. Ancient Roman, Chinese and 15th century Europe all found value in better nighttime illumination and levels of use continued to increase, until, the book points out, there was pushback. Dark nights were good places for French Revolutionists. On the opposite side of the equation, people engaging in unseemly activities also preferred the dark.
Too Much Light
Another chapter, “Moonlight Towers” talks about the multi-story, arc-light towers that were constructed in Austin, Texas, among other US municipalities in the 1890s. Along with the required daily replacement of the electrodes, the noise, waste and intense glare caused push-back from residents. They were eventually removed in every city, except for the cash-strapped, Austin. The un-electrified towers remain as an indicator of the city’s historic past. Welder’s helmets, no longer required.
Like Austin, at that time, most of our cities are over-lit. Every alleyway has lighting, car lots are blasted with light all night and downtowns are bombarded with excess light that often does nothing but erase our ability to see the sky. Plants and animals are subsequently impact by excess nighttime lighting, effecting migratory patterns, nocturnal predators, adjoining aquatic life and a fairly large swath of conifer varietals, among other plants.
Just the Right Amount of Light
We are nearing a similar “good/bad, more/less light” position today. New research has been published recently that shows lower levels of light, but with better color properties is better for the user, pedestrian and worker in nighttime situations. Most of these measurements are substantially below government mandated levels. We all know that changing government regulations is akin to a “U” turn in an aircraft carrier, but the enticement of lower electric costs should make change inevitable.
Many people still believe more light is better and even higher levels of light are even better than that. Simply put, they are wrong. Our eyes function very well in extremely low levels of light and are slow to adjust to higher levels. Turn on the bedroom light in the middle of the night and you’ll know what I mean. This can be a difficult argument to win, however, especially when perceptions of safety are at stake.
Roadblocks!
Just as headway was being made in convincing people to reduce lumen amounts in outdoor residential applications, energy efficiency introduced better fluorescent, then new LED lamping. Light quantities popped back up. With integrated LED luminaires, the lumen output is staying high and a front porch light is often the last place you’ll find a dimmer. The use of color temperatures over 3000 doesn’t help either. In an effort to do the right thing, the unexpected consequence was the wrong thing. Sigh.
I have always recommended the lowest wattage possible for any surface mounted light on a home, especially if a professional landscape lighting solution has been installed. Anything higher will force visitors to squint as they approach the door. As we adjust to energy efficient product, find the LED lamp that delivers 200 to 400 lumens rather than the 800 lumens you got from a 60 watt incandescent lamp. If using an integrated luminaire, (bravo to you!) install a dimmer. Your guests, along with the birds and trees will thank you.
I do not expect lighting professionals to become Robespierre, shouting “À la lanterne!” if lower light levels are not heeded. (Lampposts served as impromptu gallows for hanging during la révolution française.) I hope some common sense is employed and a happy balance between no light and too much is found. Now, if we are going to argue over the effectiveness of the Jacobins or Cordelier factions as they relate to the French Revolution, a lamppost might be in order. On or off won’t make a difference.
During a recent lecture with a large group of designers, “lighting brand recommendations” was the most popular request I received. Because there are so many brands, it is often difficult for designers, to say nothing of the typical consumer to wrap their arms around this broad category. Combine that with placement optimization and technology changes and the average consumer and professional designer is left with a challenge. So what do you do?
Lighting Designer
As lighting becomes more and more complicated, the need for a professional, well-versed in the practice is becoming more important. The percentage of projects that employ a designer to specifically address lighting is in the single digits. That must increase. LED has created “The Wild, Wild West” where new suppliers crop-up hourly, deliverables are knowingly, or unknowingly exaggerated and the foundation a conventional 60-watt light bulb provided has been shattered. People can’t intuitively relate to lumens. They don’t understand integrated installations and luminaire-control compatibility remains a mystery. We won’t even try to broch the subject of voice-controlled, smart systems.
While it could be a pipe dream, I have to think the employment of lighting designers will increase in the coming years. With Boomers and Gen X holding large percentages of wealth, residential projects should be increasing in value and a desire for a “better” lighting option should be inevitable. Insuring great lighting that saves money and performs more effectively will be worth the professional fees associated with the expertise delivered.
A Friend in the Biz
Weeding through the mass of decorative product is almost as daunting. One of the most popular requests I receive is for a curated list of lighting options. With selected furniture, floor-coverings, window dressings and wall-covering choices made, “What are the decorative lighting options?” if you talk to anyone who works in lighting, this is a common request. Showrooms display a thousand products. E-retailors fill websites with postage-stamp sized images of 36” diameter chandeliers. Both have pros and cons. An internet site allows you to shop in your PJs with no disturbance other than the incessant pop-ups. In the store size and scale is easier to imagine, if there weren’t so darned many other pieces encroaching on the vision. Mass retailers hang hundreds on wire racks, far overhead in a lovely warehouse setting. If that doesn’t get the creative juices flowing, I can’t imagine what will!
Having someone whittle the mass down to four or six options can be amazingly helpful for many people. Unfortunately, not everyone knows someone in lighting. That is why the next group is so valuable.
Lighting Sales People
You can’t buy a mattress without a salesperson. Try; it’s just too complicated. A salesman-free car buying experience could be a joy, unfortunately it is all but impossible, even via an online site. It is time to respect Lighting Salespeople more. Most are real pros. Most have multiple years of experience. A large quantity are ALA (American Lighting Association) Certified. While the average citizen buys a lighting product every seven years, these folks think about, discuss and learn about lighting daily. They are a great resource. What’s more, they are free! Talk to them online or in the retail establishment and they will provide a career of expertise.
Remember, many earn a commission. If you’ve received usable information, buy the luminaire from them! They worked. You learned. Respect that and allow them to earn money and help the next person. Didn’t get what you needed from the sales person? Ask for someone else or try another establishment. Perhaps the lighting store owner is trying to staff their place with minimum wage, junior-high school dropouts. They might be crappy employers and pros refuse to work for them. Taking your business elsewhere will help them understand their poor decisions. Just buy from a quality retailor with good salespeople.
HELP!
When each room in a home featured one light bulb in the center of each room, it was simpler. When each city had one retailer handling lighting and the internet was not yet imagined, it was simpler. Before LED, Smart Homes, Energy Efficiency and sustainability, it was simpler. Now, we need help to insure we are specifying, buying and using the best lighting options possible. Whether it is a Lighting Designer, a professional lighting salesperson or (if you’re lucky) a friend in the business, call them. You’ll be amazed at the difference they make. You’ll be amazed at the difference it will make in your home or business.
Lighting by Jeffrey 