Here is a roundup of some interesting companies I spoke with at Lightfair, along with the awards announced at LFI.
LFI Innovation Awards
All the awards are linked from this (awkward, frames-based) page. For the most part, I had little luck turning up links to the products themselves on Lightfair's site or on the vendors' sites. Here are the winners of the show-wide awards:
- Most innovative Product of the Year: The Open linear luminaire by Acuity Brands. This linear fixture with no diffuser and no optics also won in the Commercial Indoor -- Linear Fluorescent, Troffers, Suspended, Surface, LED, OLED category.
- Judges' Citation: The Traxon Debut system by Osram. This new system is intended to transform a retail fitting room into an environment augmented by virtual reality. I will report further on Debut if I manage to get close to the Osram booth.
- Design Excellence: The Moon luminaire by Hess America. It also won in the Outdoor Luminaires -- Sports, Step, Landscape, Pool & Fountain category.
- Technical Excellence: The Cielux T80 LED Track Light by Dicon Lighting. This luminaire also won in the Track, Display, Undercabinet, and Shelf category.
In the category of Conventional, Retrofit and Replacement LED Lamps, the Philips SlimStyle LED lamp took the honors in a field with 30 entrants.
A surprise to me was the winner in the Controls, Building Integration, Site Automation and Distribution Systems category. Daintree was among the three finalists, but Schneider ELectric took the prize for its Energy Insight energy-monitoring solution. The company is here at Lightfair, and I will pay it a visit before leaving Las Vegas.
USAI Lighting Color Select wall control.
USAI Lighting
This company is the first to offer architectural lighting whose brightness and color temperature can be controlled independently. This contrasts with "warm dimming" scenarios, in which CCT and brightness change in lockstep.
USAI's "Color Select" lets users tune white light from 2,200K to 6,000K and independently control intensity from 100% down to 0.1%. A two-control wall dimmer, like the one shown here, can control the two dimensions, or programmable control systems can be used. The luminaires have efficacy of 58 lm/W, and the product line goes up to 5,000 lm. USAI guarantees fixture-to-fixture color consistency within a two-step MacAdam ellipse.
I asked Frank Cogliano, USAI's vice president of engineering, if he could elaborate on the LED technology behind Color Select. The company doesn't want to give away many details, other than to cite patent numbers 8,456,109 and 8,581,520. Both patents involve a white and a colored light source.
Luminus Devices
This Massachusetts company has been in business for a dozen years, funded by venture capital (upward of $200 million, by one estimate I heard). It has occasionally pivoted to pursue one new opportunity or another in LED lighting. In recent years, Luminus specialized in high-lumen-output LEDs for demanding applications such as projection and stage lighting.
Last June, Luminus announced a merger with the Lightera division of Sanan Optoelectronics, the largest LED supplier in China. The company is now doing business worldwide, with a broadened product line, under the Luminus Devices brand.
Last fall, the company announced a line of COB LED products, to the surprise of some observers. At Light + Building this year, it unveiled a mid-power product line.
At Lightfair on Monday, Luminus unveiled the XNOVA Sensus COB LED array, an outgrowth of its work with Lightera. The Sensus arrays feature chromaticity coordinates below the black-body locus, along with color consistency within a two- or three-step Macadam ellipse. They are targeted at applications where illumination that is maximally pleasing to humans is desired. Recent research has shown that people tend to prefer white light slightly below the BBL within a retail setting.
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