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TECHNOLOGY / LIGHTFAIR INTERNATIONAL
TURN ON THE BRIGHT LIGHTS
British lighting designer and IALD director Kevin Theobald visits Lightfair and thinks: “OK I’ve seen the LEDs... where’s everything else?”
This was my second visit to Lightfair, but my first time in Las Vegas. In a city that is all about night time economy and lighting my expectations were high.
Compared to Light+Building the show is much smaller and the stands (or booths as the Americans prefer to call them) were also smaller and less elaborate than their European counterparts.
There have been a number of high profile company acquisitions in North America but even taking this into account a number of the big name companies were noticeably absent. One household name was present but after their big statement in New York last year Philips had consolidated their many brands into a single booth. Compared to Frankfurt this had more of a feeling of a components show than one about useable end products. Whilst I am concerned by what goes into what I specify, particularly with regard to reliability and compatibility, as a lighting designer and specifier I would like to have seen more actual luminaires.
As was to be expected LEDs dominated the show floor. There was a noticeable amount of retrofit LED replacements for conven- tional sources, which, given the size of that market is probably not a big surprise. I asked one major player in the shape of GE about the seeming absence of technologies other than LED and was advised that they are currently still developing improvements to compact fluorescent lamps and gear but pressure from the marketing department resulted in an all LED booth. GE were dem- onstrating a 40W GLS (A Lamp) replacement which certainly showed characteristics of its predecessor in terms of output and distribu- tion but at $40 each and only being ‘dim- mer-safe’ – dimmable options are promised by the end of the year - they have already had feedback from hotel operators who are reluctant to use such an expensive product which can easily be stolen. An opportunity for luminaire manufacturers to come up
with a simple locking system to allow prod- uct to be used in public spaces perhaps? There was a proliferation of replacement LED fluorescent tube replacements, some better than others, ranging from lines of glary dots to those that were so diffuse no flux would ever reach a surface. As T5 is already one of the most efficient sources with an extremely long lamp life I am not sure why so many companies are following this route. Indeed the rep from Cree agreed that even their quality offering would have trouble competing on price and perfor- mance with the current technology. Most designers like the option to use warm white sources and whilst LEDs with colour temperatures as warm as 2700K were in evi- dence the efficiency of these products and the wide colour tolerances that seem to be on offer these are less appealing to design- ers. I am concerned that we will be pushed toward cooler colour temperatures where LEDs perform better. Venture Lighting had a booth with the grand title ‘Natural White’, but with the lighting being provided from 6000+K sources, their staff looked anything but natural.
On the topic of colour, only this time colour rendition, I was surprised to see a number of manufacturers who laid out fruit to show how good the quality of their white LEDs were. Unfortunately in most cases all it did was highlight the shortcomings of the sources, particularly in the red area of the spectrum.
I did find one booth that didn’t have LEDs - they were exhibiting plasma lamp technol- ogy. This seems to have been around forever with no one ever finding a really useful application for it. As plasma lamps basically rely on mercury to produce their light I was interested to ask about disposal of the lamps at end of life. I was advised that all of the mercury was used up during the life of the lamp so there was no disposal issue. As you may imagine I swiftly moved on back to the LED offerings.
A quick word about OLEDs. Whilst there was a small but significant presence at the Frankfurt show I only saw one task light and one fairly decorative pendant. It seems that the US is not as hyped up about this technology as we are in Europe. Whilst the trade show element is rela- tively small it is supported by an excellent conference programme including two-day long workshops in daylighting and artificial lighting in the days leading up to the show proper. Unfortunately my travel schedule did not allow me to attend the workshops but feedback was excellent and they are well attended. The seminar programme has seven tracks, covering topics including lighting design, professional development, technologies and sustainability. The quality of the speakers is extremely high. I attended the talk on the ‘Influence of Day- light and Sunlight in Nature and Buildings’ given by past president of IALD and fellow British designer Graham Phoenix. Graham urged the audience to get back to the basics of design. I despaired that the ques- tions from the young professionals in the audience all related to technology. I fear that they may have missed the point! Finally no report on Lightfair would be com- plete without mentioning the IALD Awards and the IALD Education Trust Benefit Dinner. The awards are arguably the best in the world with a good sprinkling of European winners including British success from Speirs & Major who once again won the Radiance Award. The dinner also raises valuable funds to educate future lighting professionals. As the exhibition centre in New York is be- ing refurbished next year Lightfair will be in Philadelphia. Here’s hoping that the focus moves back to lighting and away from com- ponents although I fear that market forces may dictate otherwise.
Kevin Theobald is Principal of Kevin Theobald Lighting Design and IALD Director
www.ktld.co.uk
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