Some vintage images for my old Color Kinetics colleagues. Circa April 2007, our very first “MegaBlast” prototype at the old 10 Milk Street office location in the Financial District of Downtown Boston. Our engineers put the first prototype optics on … Continue reading megablast
Over the years I have predicted that it might make sense to manufacture lighting fixtures in portable units directly at construction sites. My reasoning is: Lighting will become “embedded” into final architectural surfaces Parametric design, BIM, and digital fabrication are … Continue reading odico
Color Kinetics just turned 20 years old, having been founded in August 1997 by George Mueller and Ihor Lys. Color Kinetics was the pioneer of not only LED lighting for architectural applications, but of truly digitally-connected lighting systems. After a … Continue reading happy birthday, color kinetics!
Boston-based lighting and lighting networking company Digital Lumens announced their acquisition by OSRAM. Digital Lumens was incubated in 2007/2008 as part of Jon Guerster’s team at Groom Energy. At the time, Jon had a laser-focused vision to use LED tech and … Continue reading Digital Lumens acquired by OSRAM
A great episode from Monocle’s podcast series “The Entrepreneurs” interviews Massimo Buster Minale, the founder of the interior design brand Buster + Punch. Its a fascinating story of how Minale, an experienced architect from big firms such as Fosters and Richard Rogers, … Continue reading buster + punch
The expanding use of China’s labor force beyond low-cost manufacturing and into areas like customer service, sales and marketing will have profound effects on the global lighting industry This past week I was invited by the Messe Frankfurt/Hong Kong team … Continue reading my experience at the Guangzhou International Lighting Exhibition
LOVE this video. “COME DEAL WITH US” From Modular Lighting. Continue reading modular dealer days
In the past two decades, the lighting industry has undergone two major technology-driven disruptions: The introduction of LEDs and the introduction of digital, IP-based networking. Their impact has been profound: LED’s have become the dominate light source and nearly every … Continue reading the disruption to come: finding the next opple lighting
As a United States citizen, I express my deep personal thanks to the entire team at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solid State Lighting program for their vision, courage and tenacity in driving forward the entire lighting industry for the past 12+ years. The US DOE SSL recognized early in the technology cycle of LED’s — when white light LEDs barely yet existed — that they could have a tremendous impact on lowering the United States’ energy consumption. The DOE team provided a steady hand and plenty of common sense in their approach to the nascent technology, talking with numerous … Continue reading a special thanks to the US DOE
Corning’s “A Day Made of Glass” was launched in 2011, depicting a very futuristic view of a world were nearly every surface is a portal to the digital world. I posted about it about in 2013, but I didn’t realize the … Continue reading corning’s “a day made of glass” has had tremendous impact
The DOE continues their long term accelerated testing of the Philips L-Prize winning bulbs from 2010. The lamps continue to give shockingly good performance, with the average lumen maintenance for the 31 lamps at 93.0%. At that rate, the average operating hours … Continue reading go, baby go: the philips L-prize lamps rock on
It is so nice to see Philips Lighting finally package together a series of internal sustainability programs and initiatives into one comprehensive presentation to the public. Called “Bright Lives, Better World“, the program addresses a range of issues, such as … Continue reading philips lighting: bright lives, better world program
Winds of change are blowing through the lighting industry… The growth and scale achieved by Chinese lighting manufacturer Opple is quite impressive. Check out their recent corporate video. One thing that is especially striking is the focus on the customization services … Continue reading opple – corporate video
A great article just appeared in the New Yorker comparing the history of light bulbs and the challenge of switching from an industry structure around planned obsolescence to an industry built around durable products — effectively circular economy strategies. Some notable sections … Continue reading planned obsolescence vs. LED lighting
Another update of my spreadsheet tracking VC-backed lighting startups, with scattered data points on funding and revenue, collected from web and anecdotal sources. This time including Cooledge Lighting into the mix. You can download the Excel file here. BK_InvestmentRevIPO List Continue reading update: lighting venture funding and revenue spreadsheet
I just noticed that Bill Sims is now serving as interim CEO for Cooledge Lighting, replacing former CEO Wade Sheen. And also Phil O’Donnell joined recently as Sr. VP of Global Sales. So now two of the guys who helped … Continue reading cooledge lighting: ceo transition
A great article at The Verge about ewaste recycling. Stunning is the complexity and thin margins associated with recycling electronic waste. How is the lighting industry going to respond? What is the end of life scenarios for our products? I … Continue reading ewaste empire
I find this humorous on so many levels… The City of Holland (that’s in Michigan…not the Netherlands) has a fantastic marketing campaign going for energy efficiency. Recalling classic tropes of American television advertising throughout the decades, the ads are really … Continue reading holland energy prize
Ouch! Some tough love from analysts covering the Philips Lighting IPO. Continue reading welcome to the stock market…
An interesting software cross-platform partnership announced by Digital Lumens: In a nutshell, Schneider’s system can talk to Digital Lumens’ system. As part of the partnership, Schneider Electric will add support for Digital Lumens’ sensors and software to its SmartStruxure offering, … Continue reading digital lumens connects its software with schneider electric
