Practical advice on commercial lighting from LED retrofits to lighting design.

One of our lighting specialists was recently working with a chief engineer at a commercial office who was scrambling to get a suite ready for a new tenant. The process was pretty typical, and the tenant was putting a share of their improvement funds toward lighting upgrades.

But, as always with construction and remodeling, a problem surfaced: the lighting fixtures that the tenant's architect specified had a 6-8 week lead time, but the tenant was expecting to occupy the space in 4 weeks.

The chief engineer was caught in a pickle, and the manufacturer's rep the architect worked with on the spec had no similar alternatives to offer.

Earlier this year, the Department of Energy published a report on LED failure that, among other things, found the lifetime claims for more than half of LED products to be inaccurate, or miscalculated.

Why is there so much bad information out there? Are manufacturers just fudging their claims, or are there other pieces to the puzzle?

Well, though we frequently stress the importance of vetting manufacturers, and manufacturer reps, a lot of this bad information just comes down to the industry adjusting to a new, still emerging and evolving lighting technology. That said, we're not here to make excuses for misleading or inaccurate lifetime claims. We're here to make the technicalities behind these inaccuracies understandable, so that you can effectively avoid the risk of getting left high-and-dry with early failures or poor light quality from LEDs.

2016 was a great year for lighting. LED prices continued falling while innovation maintained its sharp upward trajectory.

And now, because it's December, we're starting to see a bunch of superlative lists, ranking the top lighting products of the year. As they come through, we'll feature a few here on the blog.

What's the first thing that comes to mind when you hear "LED lighting"? If you're like most people, you probably think of long life ratings or extreme energy efficiency.

But the excitement around LED has actually caused some confusion in many circles. Claims that some products will last seven years or more, for example, make things pretty muddy, especially when those same products fail at the three-year mark.

In fact, the primary frustration I hear from my customers is related to this very topic.

LED has taken the lighting industry by storm. The price of entry into lighting manufacturing has never been smaller, opening up the floodgates for new, innovative manufacturers with little overhead to introduce a myriad of new products and ideas to the market.

If you’ve been considering LED lighting over the last few years, you’ve probably been approached by at least a few different manufacturers touting the superiority of their products. You’ve probably also noticed the explosion of new vendors and products on the market. It’s enough to make your head spin.

But some big questions still loom over the LED decision-making process. How do you commit to a product and avoid the anxiety that something better is going to come out in two months? How do you weed through the onslaught of new technologies, vendors, and options in the lighting industry?

This article has been updated to include new linear LED solutions and current recommendations. It was originally published in September 2015.

Thanks to continuing changes in the linear LED solutions available in the market, there are now more options and additional risks to consider when choosing to convert your linear fluorescent lamps to linear LED lamps. And in addition to those technological advances, prices have come down to make upgrading to more energy-efficient linear LED lamps more affordable.

Proven, well-known traditional lamp manufacturers have lowered their pricing on LED linear lamps so that it no longer makes sense to choose products made by riskier, lesser-known lamp manufacturers due to lower pricing.  

If you’re looking for a way to upgrade from linear fluorescent to linear LED, one of the decisions you’ll have to make is whether it’s better to replace your existing fluorescent tubes with linear LED tubes or make the leap for a new LED fixture.

This decision is a little like the choice to either rebuild your car’s engine or trade it in for a newer model. Which is right depends on the shape that your car is in, if there are other problems with it, how much you’re spending on gas, how much you want the latest technology or model, and your budget.

If you're beginning to consider a linear fluorescent lamp retrofit knowing where to begin can be overwhelming and unsettling. The lighting industry is packed full of information that's pulling you in multiple directions. But let's be honest –– none of us have time for that.

With my customers, I like to cut to the chase. I follow a simple decision path to find our customers exactly what they need and want.

The impact of LED lighting on the seeming endless sea of options is greater than just a few new — significantly more efficient — options for a table lamp or track fixture. LED technology has brought plenty of new replacement products, but it has also introduced a whole new category of options: LED fixtures. 

This is a question we commonly address: “I’d like to go with LED lighting, but how do I know if I should go with a screw-in replacement product or a new LED fixture?”

Of course, whether you're switching to an LED screw-in or a brand new LED fixture, you're probably well-acquainted with the lighting technology's many advantages. One important one to highlight here: the lumen output, or brightness, doesn't depreciate with LED like it does with fluorescent or HID technology. The lumen output will remain the same over the life of the product whether you go with a replacement lamp or fixture.