17 December, 2013, NASHVILLE, TN—EdisonReport announces today its first LightTrades™ Awards for 2013. Your humble editor and a team of four anonymous judges determined the awards. Companies are not allowed to submit their products for consideration as the determination is made based on the best products that have been previously launched at lighting tradeshows/conferences. Products were evaluated at the following 2013 events: LIGHTFAIR, IES Street and Area Conference, IES Annual Conference, Lux Live, Strategies in Light, and The Guangzhou International Lighting Exhibition. (Next year, I hope to have more of a life and attend fewer tradeshows.)
Below are the top 10 lighting products launched in 2013:
Cree LED Bulb | Cree. Of all of the products we witnessed at tradeshows, our judges chose the Cree LED Bulb as the best product of 2013. The Cree bulb is the first economically viable incandescent replacement lamp with very good quality. When LED lamps were selling at $49, there was no interest. But at $9.97 for a 40-watt replacement and $12.97 for a 60-watt replacement, Cree changed the game. Also, for those EdisonReport readers who compete with Cree, Cree did the industry a favor by introducing the consumer to a high quality, affordable LED product. If commercial and industrial decision makers have experienced the Cree LED bulb first hand, they should be more accepting of LED technology. The $49 DIY bulbs and the low CRI, grey CCT LED bulbs did nothing to spur adoption. Cree’s entrance into this market should prevent another technology-acceptance issue which we saw from the early (and some current) junk CFL’s.
Last, their marketing campaign was the most brilliant we have seen in the residential lighting market. Specifically, we liked, “If You Argue with the Math, You will Lose.” Video. Press Release
BoldPlay | Philips Lighting. BoldPlay is a high performance architectural LED luminaire which integrates brilliant design and intuitive engineering to deliver unprecedented performance. Sculpted contours, and a minimalist design offer direct and indirect light. And it’s field upgradable. Philips uses a mesopic film to homogenize the color to eliminate color shifts. BoldPlay received Most Innovative Product of the Year from LIGHTFAIR. Video. Press Release.
HaloPrism | Holophane: Taking high bay lighting to new levels of lumen output with superior light control, Haloprism fuses the latest in highly efficient multi-junction LEDs with the dynamics of Holophane’s durable prismatic glass optics. Combined to deliver the highest LED lumen package, longest system life and lowest maintenance LED high bay luminaire. The Haloprism received Lux Live’s Lux Award for Interior Luminaire of the Year. View Video. Press Release
Light sheet | Cooledge. If there is a more apt-named product in our industry, I don’t know what it would be. This new medium for lighting combines the mechanical, electrical and LED source together into a flexible sheet of light. The product can be curved into fluid, organic shapes allowing for thin, minimal designs in any application. Light sheet enables lighting designs that blend architecture with functional, usable illumination. The product is thin, versatile and has no heat sink. It changes the paradigm of what we know as light. LIGHTFAIR Awarded this product the Design Excellence Award. Video. Press Release.
Evolve LED Scalable Area Light Parking Lot Fixture | GE Lighting The Evolve Series from GE Lighting continues to evolve. Their advanced LED optical designs of the Scalable Area Light offer hundreds of photometric options to meet precise lighting requirements while delivering reduced glare and improved glare control.
The lack of glare is one thing that caught our attention as the glare did not catch our eye. The Evolve light engine consists of reflective technology designed to optimize application efficiency and minimize glare giving it a glare rating of 3. We also like the 5 to 1 pole spacing. Video. Press Release.
ChromaLit Linear | Intematix. Compared to conventional LED designs, where blue chips are coated with a phosphor compound, the ChromaLit collection leverages a phosphor composite separated from the blue LED energy source. This architecture provides unparalleled design freedom, more efficient manufacturing processes, exceptional light quality and up to 30 percent higher system efficacy. One standardized LED energy source can power multiple CCT, CRI and R9 requirements by simply replacing the ChromaLit, so one blue LED energy supply can be stocked alongside compact and easily swappable ChromaLit. As blue LEDs continue to improve in efficacy, the same ChromaLit can be easily integrated into new systems. Chromalit won the Lux Live Light Source Innovation of the Year Award. Press Release.
LED Driver | Metrolight. Another LED driver, what’s the big deal? The big deal is that it is fully programmable. Many luminaire manufactures source their drivers from China and are constantly air-shipping specific drivers for specific jobs. The Metrolight driver allows for wattages up to 600 watts to be programmed at the OEM level. Another feature is the ability for high power with only one driver. Video. Press Release.
XSPR | Cree. A few companies will win awards for brilliant, over-engineered and over-priced products as most award competitions in our industry do not consider price. Typically, we train our people to discuss price only last and only if a gun is held to their head. If a product cannot be sold because of the high acquisition cost—even if the source of the cost is caused by channel stack—does it really matter? The XSPR, which I prefer to call the $99 streetlight, is another game changer from Cree. How many times does a worker visit the same cobra-head to replace a lamp, ballast, starter, or capacitor? After one trip, the fixture has paid for itself. Video. Press Release.
WaveStream LED Platform| Eaton’s Cooper Lighting. A patented optical coupling process maximizes the amount of light injected into the WaveStream panel, dramatically improving luminaire efficiently. Achieving up to 109 lumens per watt, this technology has been incorporated into the Metalux SkyRidge, one of the most attractive 4-foot luminaires we have ever seen. An additional feature is the plastic cover which is pre-installed to protect the fixture during the installation or retrofit. When the building is ready, simply remove the cover and you have an undamaged beautiful luminaire. Marketing in our industry continues to improve and we were pleased to see that Eaton’s Cooper Lighting has a 90-day tour blitz in 28 cities throughout the US and Canada. Video. Press Release
FINO | Amerlux. The FINO from Amerlux is a stunningly thin, indirect LED lighting solution. It is the world’s first ultra shallow asymmetric wall mounted indirect lighting for hotels and offices. At only 5/8” deep and 6.5w/ft it is designed to promote a crisp, comfortable work environment. FINO® runs seamlessly across the walls without the need to cut wall studs, leaving ceilings pristine clean – creating a beautiful visual impression. Also, the FINO has a 10-year warranty which soon will become the industry-standard. Press Release