This was my first trip to the LED Specifier Summit and it was a good show. The weather was bitterly cold, but it didn’t seem to affect anything. ExpoNation hosted the show and it was organized by Rep, much like LEDucation, and I assume this is one of the reasons for its success. The traffic was steady throughout the day and we know of four parties that were held at the end of the show.
There were paid seminars as well as free seminars on the showroom floor. I had no intention of attending either, but Parth Joshi, CTO, VP of Engineering – Cooper Lighting Solutions, roped me in. He gave a fascinating talk about Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) in lighting design. This was a fascinating talk. VR provides a fully immersive experience as it takes users into an interactive computer generated virtual world. AR blends the virtual world with the real one. It lets people remain aware of their surroundings while also seeing virtual objects (think “holograms”).
Cooper Lighting Solutions has 3D files on their products that they create using mechanical design programs like SolidWorks; next they run those digital models through studio tools like 3DSMAX and Blender. From there, the user will scan the real world using sensors and cameras on either a headset or a mobile device like an iPhone/iPad, and the digital objects are merged with the real world. It is fascinating. The user can see his or her space with the fixtures installed. In addition, the user can instantly see the foot-candles. The first release of the AR app named, ‘Light ARchitect’, is already available on the App Store as it promotes the award-winning, Shaper Sense acoustic products. Other proprietary capabilities and products, previewed only at the LED Summit will follow very soon in regular app releases. Cooper Lighting Solutions demonstrated their patent-pending AR technologies in more detail at their booth. If EdisonReport gave an award, they would win.
The Women in Lighting Design held a seminar that featured Anne Kustner, Ann Reo, and Gwen Grossman– –this was well-attended and well-received.
Dan Hampton and Steve McMichael were on hand signing footballs compliments of KSA and Acuity Brands.
Agency Sponsors for the show were A&M, Chicago LIGHTWORKS, Force Partners, KSA, PG Enlighten, R&D Lighting & Controls and Vertical Lighting + Controls.
A previous version of the LED Specifier Summit was two days, but we prefer their one-day format. As we have said many times, there are too many shows in our industry and we think that one busy day is better than two slow days. We spoke to Chris Gibbs, President and COO of ExpoNation. Gibbs did not have exact numbers, but did say that attendance was higher than the previous show in 2017.