LIGHTFAIR International (LFI) 2017 is held by Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IES) and International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD). This year is LFI's 25th anniversary. LFI is currently the largest international lighting expo in the USA and attracts the most amount of visitors among international lighting expos. LFI is held once per year, and it takes turns being held in New York City, Philadelphia, and Las Vegas. LFI is the grand event of luminaire industry in the North America.

 

LFI 2017 was held in Philadelphia Convention Center in Philadelphia, USA. With professional technologies and high quality of products, LFI 2017 is the world-renowned biggest architecture & commercial luminaire expo in the world. It provides opportunities for exhibitors and visitors to exchange ideas of new products, designs, technologies, and services. In real time, current luminaire industry's latest trends will be shown during the expo.

 

In LFI 2017, there were 550 world-renowned luminaire enterprises from over 70 countries & regions exhibiting. With over 1,500 booths, the exhibition area covered a total floor space of 200,000 square feet. Participants included 23,709 professional luminaire manufacturers & dealers of architecture, engineering, and design industries from all over the world.

 

The organizer in 2017 predicted this fair would attract more than 25,000 professionals globally who mostly come from design, lighting, architecture, engineering, energy and facility industries. 

 

Theme one: lighting manufacturers

 

LEDinside noticed that the main themes included: improving energy efficiency, enhancing color rendering index (CRI), the dimming, and smart lighting. The major exhibitors were Philips Lighting, GE, CREE, Hubbell, Eaton, Energy Focus, and OSRAM SYLVANIA. All the major manufacturers in the USA have been proactively developing their LED lighting businesses. LED lighting products’ shares continued rising, and demand of LED commercial lighting/engineering lighting are both strongly developing in the USA market.

 

Amid them, the fastest growing demand is from the troffers, LED panel lights, tunnel lights, high bay lights, and wall washers. Demand began to gradually shift to smart lighting and fiber-optic communication sectors. Eaton's stadium lighting became the convention's spotlight. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Larry Fallon, senior vice president of marketing sales division from Energy Focus, expressed, currently its lighting revenue centers on commercial lighting and engineering lighting. They take up a 60% share of revenue. The rest of 40% comes from government and navy procurement. .

 

Energy Focus' key commercial lighting products include ultra-high energy efficiency 180lm/W luminaires and price-friendly 150lm/W luminaires. Their life spans all exceed above 10 years. 

 

Moreover, emergency lighting products have drawn lots of attention from the market. With built-in rechargeable batteries, they can use the power to shine for a long time. They are planned to be debuted in the coming month.

 

All series of lighting products of Energy Focus are flicker-free and suitable for schools and hospitals. In the USA market, Energy Focus began collaboration with 28 home appliance channels.  

 

 

 

Theme two: LED component manufacturers

 

Smart lighting solutions

 

LED component manufacturers included OSRAM Opto, Samsung and EVERLIGHT. They all launched smart lighting related components or power devices. 

 

 

OSRAM Opto was exhibited at the booth of OSRAM Licht AG. The major products have been lighting solutions: indoor, outdoor, and color LED solutions. Its targeted sectors are commercial, outdoor, and horticultural lighting segments.

 

 

Regarding to Samsung, its lighting market strategies center on "Four-block strategies". First, smart lighting platform solution: residential and office lighting. Second, chip scale package (CSP) products. CSP technology enables a wide range of applications, including down lights, LED strips for ambient lighting, and industrial lighting. Third, advanced and premium types. They provide AC LED modules, and flicker-free is a popular feature to customer. Meanwhile, CoB products are expanding CRIs’ product lines, in order to satisfy customers' need. Fourth, brand program. Samsung launched smart lighting light engine products, and they can integrate with sensor components in the future. This segment is believed to become a driving force for the smart lighting market. 

 

 

High light efficiency products

 

LED manufacturers continued pursuing extreme efficiency. Currently, Nichia’s 3030 LED package product has achieved 215lm/W. Samsung’s 3030 LED product has reached 220lm/W. EVERLIGHT’s 5630 product achieved 220lm/W. 

 

 

Horticultural lighting

 

In the North America horticultural lighting market, marijuana’s growth light demand kept on rising. Because growing medical marijuana is legal, and States of Colorado and Washington both legalize recreational marijuana usage. Start-up companies and lighting system manufacturers both are excited and preparing for the great business opportunities.

 

AVNET integrates supply chains and distributors, in order to launch a series of horticultural lighting integration services. Its LED light sources come from EVERLIGHT, and its solution uses AVNET modules and UV sensors.

 

 

CREE proactively introduced horticultural lighting and engineering lighting products during the exhibition. CREE’s comprehensive horticultural lighting product lines enable CREE to provide optimized solutions and comprehensive services for customers.

 

 

Dr. Falk Meissner (Chief Strategy Officer of Lumileds) expressed, Lumileds’ product advantages have always been comprehensive product lines of color temperature: from ultraviolet to infrared. Lumileds also equips algorithms for horticultural lighting software. It has actively cultivated the horticultural lighting. Meanwhile, in order to respond to light quality requirement from the market, Lumileds was the first manufacturer who reached mass production phase for quantum dot (QD) LED products. Lumileds puts QD phosphor onto LED chips (as known as Quantum Dot on Chip). Its light conversion efficiency has been 5%~15% higher than average LED’s. Lumileds currently provides products with color temperature ranging from 2,700 K to 5,000 K.

 

 

 

EVERLIGHT’s agricultural lighting LED product lines have been comprehensive: from ultraviolet to infrared. EVERLIGHT has entered the supply chain of famous lighting manufacturers in the North America.

 

 

Chip scale package (CSP) LED Products

 

CSP LED has wide range of application categories. Korean and Japanese manufacturers develop them actively, especially Samsung, LG Innotek, and Seoul Semi. During the expo, Seoul Semi debuted 1111 LED products for backlight and lighting markets. 

 

 

Epistar showcased its CSP LED products for the backlight, lighting, flash LED and the automotive. Package manufacturers, such as Samsung and EVERLIGHT, put many CSP LEDs on the substrate and make it “multi-chip on Board”. Flip chip products provide better thermal dissipation than average CoB could. Meanwhile, light-emitting angles can be widened. During the expo, Epistar launched flexible filament LEDs with various designs on their images and formations.          

 

 

  

UV-C LED products

 

LG Innotek manufactures 278nm UV-C LED. This 6060 LED product can achieve 70mW with 350mA, and uses vertical structured LED chip technology with single chip package. Speaking of 6868 LED product, it can achieve 340mW at 350mA current. 6868 LED uses vertical structured LED chip technology, with 4-chip package models. It will forcefully advance into the water disinfection market in the near future, and currently it has received orders from customers.

 

 

(Joanne/ LEDinside)