The Top 10 Articles That Shaped a Year in Lighting
Every December, we look back at the stories that captured the industry’s attention and helped define the year.
For this year’s roundup, the EdisonReport Top 10 Stories of 2025 are ordered by publish date. So, you can watch the year unfold in real time, from early policy debates and executive transitions to trade show soul-searching and late-year manufacturing disruption.
Time to Un-Ban the Incandescent Bulb?
10 January 2025
The year opened with a question that hits a nerve far beyond lighting: Should efficiency standards be revisited? The story explored the DOE’s raised efficacy requirements and what that means for incandescent lamps. A recurring theme for the year also surfaced: The industry’s growing tension between energy policy, product performance metrics, and human outcomes (health, comfort, and spectrum).
In other words, the “how we measure light” conversation didn’t stay academic. It went mainstream.
Keith Eagle Leaves Signify
15 January 2025
Leadership changes are always a signal flare, especially when they touch major channel strategy. Signify announced Keith Eagle’s departure and outlined follow-on leadership adjustments, an early reminder that 2025 would be a year of re-alignment inside Signify as they re-balance teams, territories, and priorities.
Why Rondolat Chose to Leave
24 January 2025
Still in January, another major leadership headline from Signify: CEO Eric Rondolat’s planned transition. The story leaned into the “timing vs. time” explanation and the idea that leadership tenure and what comes next can be as strategic as any product roadmap.
Put in the context of the year: 2025 repeatedly showed how closely the lighting business tracks broader corporate expectations around long-term growth, operational focus, and accountability. Rondolat’s leaving was a mutual decision.
Cooper Lighting’s Tariff Plan
7 February 2025
By early February, attention shifted to pricing risk and project continuity. Cooper Lighting Solutions was one of many companies that came out and addressed the tariff news head-on, outlining a tariff approach and how it intended to manage near-term disruption. This was an issue that stayed in the background all year for North American manufacturers and distributors trying to plan inventory, quote work, and protect margins in a jittery environment.
This story landed because it spoke to the practical reality of 2025: Customers still expect speed and stability, even when the inputs are anything but stable.
EdisonReport Unveils Top 10 MUST-SEE Products for LEDucation 2025
17 March 2025
The annual MUST-SEE list is a snapshot of where design and innovation energy is flowing, judged and curated ahead of LEDucation.
In the broader arc of the year, it reinforced that, even amid uncertainty, the industry kept pushing forward on optics, form factors, comfort, and new lighting experiences.
Enlighted to Cease Operations
15 April 2025
Mid-April brought a headline that hit the controls/IoT ecosystem. Enlighted (Siemens) announced it would wind down its core lighting and IoT business. Siemens would retain Enlighted Connect as part of a broader building software strategy.
“Smart building” remains a massive opportunity, but it’s also a brutally demanding space where corporate owners constantly reassess what scales, what fits strategy, and what clears the profitability bar.
Acuity Layoffs Shake Up LightFair 2025
8 May 2025
Trade shows are usually about optimism, but during LightFair 2025, news of Acuity layoffs circulated on the show floor, including impacts to well-known industry professionals.
This story resonated because it combined two conflicting realities of the year: the industry’s desire to gather and move forward—paired with real economic anxiety and restructuring inside even the biggest players.
How to Fix LightFair
12 May 2025
Just days later, the conversation turned to LightFair itself. Editor Randy Reid asked aloud, “What does the show need to be sustainable again?” The piece laid out the chicken-and-egg challenge (designers vs. exhibitors), acknowledged improvements in 2025, and argued that the industry’s changed economics may require a changed format.
Zooming out, this may have been the signature trade show theme of 2025: fewer easy answers, more experimentation, and an urgent need to align events with how business is actually done now.
Later in the year, we received clarification regarding the LightFair dilemma when the show’s owners launched Light + Intelligent Building North America, a new show seemingly replacing the dying LightFair.
Cree Lighting Announces Three-Week Furlough
1 October 2025
As the calendar turned to Q4, the year’s most unsettling operational headlines arrived. Cree Lighting announced a three-week furlough at its Racine facility, with an immediate pause affecting manufacturing and office operations.
This wasn’t just a company story—it was a “temperature check” story about demand, liquidity, and confidence.
Cree Lighting Turbulence Deepens
27 October 2025
Later in October, the Cree situation became more concerning. The uncertainty extended and questions were asked about financial footing and operational stability.
It was a stark late-year reminder that in 2025, brand legacy didn’t guarantee smooth sailing and that the ripple effects (reps, orders, trust, project risk) can move fast when the market senses instability.
Top 10 Stories in One Word
If you had to sum up the EdisonReport Top 10 Stories of 2025, it would be this: a year when leadership changes, policy pressure, trade-show reinvention, and operational turbulence all collided. One word captures the theme of our Top 10 stories—turmoil. But that word reflects only the top 10 articles that were viewed, not the industry as a whole.
Throughout the year, much of our coverage has been notably positive. Many companies—Acuity among them—have prospered, major non-profits such as the IES and IALD have stabilized their finances, and key tradeshows like LEDucation and ArchLIGHT Summit continue to perform exceptionally well.
While people may gravitate to bad news, the year actually turned out pretty well.
Here is hoping that the tough decisions made in 2015 will yield a happy and prosperous 2026 for our indsutry.