Strategies in Light 2018: 4 Facts You May Not Know and a Damning Comment About GE

 



Strategies in Light 2018:
4 Facts You May Not Know and a Damning Comment about GE

Good Wednesday morning,

Your humble editor is covering the Strategies Light/LED Show/Lightspace California in Long Beach this week.  If you are at the show, please introduce yourself and give me your thoughts about our industry.

Fact 1: The Connected Lighting Luminaire Market is still very small. By 2022, connected lighting will be $4B of the $72B Global market.

 

Why it matters:  The Industry can package data to sell, resulting in the recurring revenue that our industry so desperately needs.   Yesterday, we announced that Acuity purchased Lucid Design Group, a provider of  building analytics through its industry-leading BuildingOS® business intelligence platform.  What about the reverse?  Could a big data company acquire a lighting company?

Fact 2: T-LEDs lamps are overtaking A-lamps in sales. 

 

Why it matters:  Replacing a 1000 hour A-lamp is easy, but replacing a technology, like Fluorescent, which already had a 20,000 hour life, is another. This writer believes that in most retrofit cases, it is best to replace the entire fixture, but many in the market want to replace lamps.  It is also a statement about the huge price erosion of the LED T-lamps—which is a threat to luminaire sales.

Fact 3:  Deco Lighting, a Midsize company, just announced they are going with Bluetooth Mesh. 

 

Why it matters. Companies this size, about $50M,  moving to Bluetooth Mesh is further evidence that Bluetooth Mesh will be a leading technology that really ushers in connectivity to our industry.  We also are hearing that DALI is losing some favor in Western Europe—this is the market where DALI had the most strength.

Fact 4:  OLED is ready for primetime. The drivers are 95% efficient, and the Lumens per Watt are up to 80 with plans to get to 120 to 140.  Life is as high as 75,000 hours.

 

Why it Matters:  Huge opportunity in large niche markets like automotive and aerospace, but it is becoming practical in general lighting as well.  Is it a light or a building material?  Both!  OLEDs can be built directly into furniture, elevators, and ceilings.  Also, there is no blue-lumen issue, which we have with LED.   Don’t look for OLEDs to replace troffers.  Look for OLEDs to eliminate the need for troffers.

1 Damning Comment:

 

“We have been doing a lot with Daintree which is now owned by GE and GE is imploding and now it is a train wreck, It’s like Oh my God, what is happening to GE right now?”
– Ben Pouladian, President, Deco Lighting

 

Why it Matters:  Ben Pouladian was addressing the Investor Forum at Strategies in Light.  Although I sat in the front row I quickly turned to look at the audience after this unexpected statement.  I expected gasps and there were none. No shaking of heads, no reaction whatsoever that I observed.   SIL is a prominent show and for a company like Deco Lighting, who is a GE customer, to ridicule GE in a public environment shows how far Thomas Edison’s company has fallen.

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