The Next Evolution of Light: Introduction

A View from the Year 2020

Let’s take a trip in our time machine 5-years ahead to the year 2020 and check out the evolution of the lighting industry.

The lighting industry continues to face both amazing opportunities and grueling changes.   LEDs have won the war and rendered traditional electric light sources irrelevant.  A brutal commoditization war has kept down the costs of LED components and lamps.  The industry has embraced significant new standards and technologies to the benefit of customers and end-users.  In the year 2020, three key innovation areas now dominate the industry:  Connected Lighting, Embedded Lighting, and Sustainable Lighting.

Each of these three innovation areas will drive tremendous changes in the industry.  But the real magic will happen in the connections between the three areas:  The individual advances will start driving 2nd level innovations that are hard to predict.

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.  So over the course of the next three posts, let’s try to envision where we want to drive the industry.