For the past 100 years lighting has been a slow growth industry with gradual changes in technology dominated by a handful of stodgy players on a well worn field.
Innovation has been incremental and there is not much to give the industry sex appeal.
Unlike trade shows devoted to, smart phones and iPads, a lighting trade show is a usually tame affair peppered with coma inducing seminars on subjects that would make Einstein yawn. This year I went to the Hong Kong International Lighting Fair fully expecting to seek excitement beyond its walls but I was surprised to the contrary.
What I saw made me feel like Marco Polo. I was witness to an industry transformed by a technology that made lighting as sexy as any high tech industry. The mammoth Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center perched on the shores of Hong Kong harbor could barely contain all the vendors devoted to this new arrival. This was lighting on steroids!
Yes -LED is the new technology which is revolutionizing the industry but why is this turn generating more interest than anything to come before now? The answer I believe is that LED put lighting in the hands of all those who dare to dream.
It has unleashed the “Inner Edison” in all of us. Until now, lighting required a large manufacturing infrastructure to create traditional products like light bulbs and ballasts. If you had several million in start up capital and a factory to make glass, vacuum chambers and filaments, then lighting was the business you.
Not so with LED. LED light is really unique and as such it puts the components in the hands of everyman. Anybody with access to a chip, driver and a heat sink can now play in the vast sandbox of lighting. LED has democratized lighting. In fact LED is transforming the lighting industry the same way the internet transformed information.
Like the internet, everyone wants in on the game. The result is a huge convention center filled to the brim with excited players. Of course there are pros and cons to explosive growth. To its credit LED innovation is now leading the industry and with lamp efficiencies expected to double in the next 5 years. It is very possible that a one watt chip might produce the same light output as a 100 watt incandescent light bulb.
Self driven T8 lamps are poised to really eliminate their fluorescent counterparts once costs come down.
Edison would be proud.
The dark side of this new lighting Gold Rush is poor quality, misapplied applications and the “snake oil” salesman claims that LED is a good cure for all lighting ills.
All bubbles burst, but this is a bubble that is truly exciting to watch.
LED will find it is useful niche in the world of lighting and we will all benefit.
“Democracy” has arrived in China and it has a bright future.
Adam Komesar
Director of Sales and
Team Leader for Product Development
For SMC LED
