I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Glenn Siegel, Director, Marketing and Product Management, Eaton Corporation. The topic: what’s new in LED downlights. The responses informed an article I wrote for the March issue of tED Magazine.
DiLouie: How would you characterize the downlight lighting market in terms of size, and current demand for downlights?
Siegel: The downlighting market spans both residential and non-residential construction encompassing a huge segment of lighting fixtures sold each year. Positive growth in new construction and on-going remodel work continues to push demand higher for downlights.
DiLouie: In what key areas have LED downlights improved over the past three years, and what benefits do these improvements offer?
Siegel: The market has demanded and Eaton has delivered several solutions including lighting products with improved lumens per watt (lm/W) for reduced energy consumption, as acknowledged by Eaton being named ENERGY STAR® Partner of the Year for the past three years.
Another key area includes providing fixtures that offer a better quality of light for truer look and feel in an environment, resulting in Eaton introducing options of extreme CRI of 97. Finally, end-users want enhanced control of their lighting through connected capability. The Halo product line offers a ZigBee-based recessed downlight that can perform dimming, white tuning, scheduling, grouping, geo-fencing, automations and remote access through the convenience of a mobile device.
DiLouie: What are the top 5 trends in LED downlight design?
Siegel: To meet the ever-evolving regulatory codes, specifier design challenges and end-user preferences, fixtures are incorporating reduced aperture sizes, increased lumen outputs, more adjustable and beam pattern options, easier installation methods and connected capability.
DiLouie: How would you characterize current LED downlight offerings in terms of light output, sizes, optics, wattages, CRI, color temperatures, service life, and compatibility with or integration of lighting controls?
Siegel: The industry has certainly taken great strides since the Halo product line introduced the first ENERGY STAR® certified LED downlight in 2008. As systems continue to become more efficient, lumen delivery has increased, allowing for a greater range of fixture outputs, both higher and lower, to tackle the span of interior spaces. The variety of LEDs incorporated into fixtures has advanced to the point that we can now emulate halogen sources with solutions like our new Dim-to-Warm (D2W) technology. This new technology follows the Black Body Curve when dimming, from 1800K at 5 percent lumen output to 3000K at full brightness. Additional recent developments in connected lighting include Eaton’s new Distributed Low Voltage Power System (DLVP), which provides increased safety; centralized maintenance; a reduction in installation time, labor and materials; simplified controls installation and configuration; and ultimately energy code compliance.
DiLouie: What are typical benefits of upgrading existing downlights with LED retrofit kits? What’s the market opportunity?
Siegel: When replacing traditional light source,s LED retrofit kits can provide longer life, higher lm/W, better dimming performance, air-tite and wet location capability. Due to the vast number of existing non-LED downlights already installed that are utilizing lamps that will no longer function after a varying period of time, a tremendous market opportunity will continue to exist for years to come.
DiLouie: What are the main attributes of an LED downlight that electrical distributors would be looking for? How do they confidently select a quality product?
Siegel: Distributors are presented with a myriad of product choices. To best serve their customers, they need to focus on products that meet or exceed ENERGY STAR® and/or DLC requirements, are compliant to UL standards, meet local or state building codes and come from companies with a long history of providing strong service and support.
DiLouie: What listings are important for downlights and why are they important?
Siegel: First and foremost, the fixture should be certified to UL safety standards. This assures that the product meets a minimum of safety compliance. Then depending on the application, compliances can range from a wet location, so that it can used where water may come in contact with the fixture, IP rating, which will indicate ability to block various particle infiltration levels, ASTM E283 restricted flow of air to meet energy codes, RoHs that assures no mercury or lead is in the product and FCC, which indicates whether the product is rated for residential or commercial environments.
DiLouie: What are value-added features distributors should be selling, and for what applications or problems are they ideally suited?
Siegel: Proper lighting of a space requires general illumination, accent, task and wall washing. These design principles can now be fully realized through features that are now readily available in LED downlights. We offers in a single size unit that can deliver 600, 900 or 1200 lumen capability to have the correct amount of lumens depending on the ceiling height. There are fixtures that can provide very narrow beams to provide specific accent and highlight where needed. There are now LED products that are designed specifically for sloped ceiling applications to direct the light downwards.
DiLouie: What are the control capabilities of LED downlights? What control strategies are possible and typically implemented?
Siegel: In today’s market there is Phase cut, 0-10 and digital control. Depending on the driver technology, dimming can go down to less than 1 percent of lumen output. Phase cut most likely is found in residential, 0-10 would have been used primarily in non-residential and now digital is spanning both segments. With the advent of LED being a solid state light source, growth is centering on control being located within the fixture itself, so no additional wiring is necessary to have the fixture or system controlled.
DiLouie: What impact is the proliferation of LED products having on electrical distribution business practices in general?
Siegel: The LED revolution is requiring the electrical distributor to make a deeper investment in on-going training of existing employees, as well as hiring more technology savvy personnel. They must be more aware and on top of their inventory and be prepared to provide holistic lighting solutions to their customer base.
DiLouie: If you could tell the entire electrical industry just one thing about LED downlights, what would it be?
Siegel: LED downlights should be one of the central products your business focuses on to grow your sales profitably.
