I recently interviewed Scott Roos, Vice President of Product Design for Juno Lighting Group about what’s new in residential lighting for an article I’m writing for TED Magazine. The transcript is below:

DiLouie: What are the major recent trends in single-family residential construction and design, and how are they impacting lighting needs?

Roos: Sustainable materials and energy efficiency are increasingly influencing design and buy decisions. In terms of lighting, everyone is asking about LEDs. They want to understand the technology to help them decide if it is right for them. Another trend that’s emerging in the residential market is has to do with the fact that virtually anything in a home can now be connected to and accessed via the Internet. This level of connectivity is leading the ability for homeowners to consolidate previously disparate system controls to a single device that control multiple (and in some cases, automates) in-home technologies. This connectivity holds a lot of promise for the residential market, and will eventually reach into lighting in a bigger way.

DiLouie: Single-family residential new construction has been a tough market in recent years. How would you characterize demand for lighting for new construction in 2013?

Roos: The steady increase we experienced in the second half of 2012 has continued into 2013. However, residential lighting sales are still below where they were at the market peak.

DiLouie: What are the major trends in residential lighting design and how are they impacting demand for and development of lighting products?

Roos: Residential lighting designers are looking for luminaires that are small, less conspicuous and green. Specifically, the demand for smaller, less conspicuous fixtures is resulting from the desire for more targeted illumination from smaller fixtures that can be easily/subtly integrated into home architecture. Of course, as we all continue look for ways to save on energy and reduce our environmental footprint, homeowners are looking for green, energy efficient luminaires that don’t draw on resources. They’re also looking for the fixtures to be made of materials that are safe, recyclable and last longer. In many cases, “green lighting” is being enabled by LED technology. For example, in under cabinet lighting applications, we have seen a large shift to LEDs due to their inherent characteristics of producing energy savings, cool operation and low maintenance with no tradeoff in light quality. This easily offsets the cost premium to move up from halogen sources. Another example is the use of mini 1-inch aperture LED downlights to provide focus/accent lighting from a very inconspicuous source that consumes only around 5-watts of energy. These can be used, for example, to graze the front of kitchen cabinets, light art niches, provide circulation lighting in a home theatre or provide maintenance free exterior soffit lighting. While LEDs for general downlighting are a more challenging sell to the average homeowner, we have seen difficult-to-lamp areas, such as sloped ceiling downlights, experiencing a higher rate of LED adoption. Precision LED recessed accent lighting has become very popular with lighting designers working on higher end homes. A 13-watt LED adjustable accent light can now outperform 50-watt halogen both in terms of light output and beam uniformity, and the way these premium fixtures can cleanly integrate in the ceiling with a trimless appearance makes this a high value, desirable purchase when compared with other home upgrades vying for the discriminating homeowner’s dollars.

DiLouie: How important are certifications such as LEED and ENERGY STAR in the single-family residential market, how do they work, and what impact are they having on demand for lighting products?

Roos: We have not seen much in terms of residential LEED certification, but Energy Star compliance has become a standard customer expectation for any of our energy saving products.

DiLouie: IECC 2009 and 2012 require a certain percentage of lamps be high efficacy, while California’s Title 24 requires high-efficacy lamps or dimming in certain spaces. How would you summarize these code/standard requirements, the prevalence of their adoption, and how are they impacting demand for lighting in single-family homes?

Roos: In our experience, we’re seeing adoption of California Title 24 in California. In addition, the most recently mandated lamp efficacy improvements, including those driven by the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, have just made their way into the market. This is resulting in consumers purchasing more efficient, more expensive versions of their favorite incandescent and halogen lamps. While they’re still receiving the same type of lighting quality from these sources, the main benefit is the resulting energy savings. To us, it appears that LED adoption in the average home is still lagging, except for some of the specialty and higher end applications discussed in question 3. With the cost of LED retrofit lamps starting to come down, this situation could change quickly, assuming that the quality of light and performance of the lamps does not degrade in proportion to the price.

DiLouie: As incandescent omnidirectional and incandescent/halogen reflector lamps become increasingly regulated, what are the ideal applications for the prevailing technologies: CFL, halogen, LED?

Roos: Halogen lighting will still have a place in residential applications for quite some time to come, especially for lower burning hour applications. Let’s face it, people still like their incandescent lamps – and they don’t cause issues with dimming. As the color and dimming performance of LED technology continues to improve, it will become an acceptable substitute for incandescents in a broader range of applications from a wider range of suppliers. CFLs will continue to hang on due to their relatively low cost per lumen, although they are likely to be increasingly displaced by LEDs as the cost of the technology comes down and dimming performance improves.

DiLouie: What can electrical distributors do to increase their residential lighting business?

Roos: Find a way to keep your front line sales force educated on the latest technologies, products and how to most effectively apply them to create an overall improved residential lighting experience. We are in a rapidly changing world, and from our vantage point, the changes in technology will continue to accelerate. If you do not structure yourself to invest in the education of your sales force, eventually you will find yourself offering less value than a competitor who does have such a commitment in place. Learning how to design in the latest generation of products into a home to make it both green and visually amazing is a winning strategy for the distributor. Juno Lighting Group offers training resources, such as an Advanced Residential Lighting Design class at our Lighting Education Center in Des Plaines, Ill., that can help them learn to do just that. We also offer a growing list of e-learning courses through our e-luminance university.

DiLouie: If you could tell all electrical distributors just one thing about today’s residential lighting, what would it be?

Roos: With emerging developments in technology and connectivity, there has never been a better time to capture and put a greater share of a home owner’s discretionary spend towards lighting.

Craig DiLouie

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