LEX News

Where there is light, there are customers.

I spent the weekend in a town called Schaumburg, Illinois, which is about 20 miles outside of Chicago.  My son, Sam, who is 17, was playing in a soccer tournament in the area.  Thanks to a quirky schedule (we had more than 24 hours between games) and some amazingly cold weather (you would have thought it was January), we decided doing anything outdoors between games was completely out of the equation.

After our second meal at Portillo’s in two days, it was time to do something other than drink Chocolate Cake Shakes.  So we headed to Woodfield Mall, a massive shopping complex that is one of the largest in the country.  I thought for sure we could kill a few hours between games doing something other than eating more Portillo’s.

Sold out for the 12th year in a row with 362 exhibits, the show’s format allowed attendees to examine the latest LED luminaires and related lighting from 287 manufacturers. Renowned for its continuing education conference, LEDucation offered multiple tracks of AIA accredited seminars and panel discussions related to SSL and the challenges faced by lighting designers, architects, interior designers and manufacturers. A comprehensive lineup of 32 seminars, which included nine panels, was presented by industry experts from across the lighting industry. Presentations covered everything from evolving design trends, the latest protocols and code compliance, smart lighting, controls, exterior lighting and healthcare requirements.

Li-Fi – derived from ‘light fidelity’ – is an emerging technology in which LED lighting provides a broadband Internet connection through light waves. Its adoption by the market leader could be transformational if Philips put the necessary technical and marketing resource behind it. Philips Lighting CEO Eric Rondolat promised that the company would licence its technology to OEMs, ensuring that the Li-Fi capability could be bundled in luminaires from many brands.

If the goal of “community-friendly lighting” is to create environments with improved visibility while limiting light trespass and glare, and at the same time preserving the ambiance of a given community, one would think it a good idea to talk to the folks who live there before swapping out all the lights. Such community outreach is unfortunately rare, according to Bob Parks, Executive Director of the Smart Outdoor Lighting Alliance(SOLA). Parks presented a seminar on Community Friendly Lighting last week at the LEDucation Conference in New York.

Instead of using light switches, HBMSU’s lighting is controlled in a variety of ways: by occupancy sensors in luminaires that detect people’s presence, switching on and off lighting; by automatic adjustment of light levels according to the availability of natural daylight; by a smartphone or tablet app; or from a central console.