On an exciting first day at Light Fair 2009 we witnessed at close quarters not so much an exhibition but a brutal confrontation as the battle lines were drawn between the competing lighting technologies of traditional, CFL and LED.
Democracy may not be a perfect system but it is a true indicator of tides and opinions and, put simply, whether people are fed up with hearing from one bunch of guys and begin to favour another. So it was with Light Fair. The CFL stands, not so long ago burning brightly, (well actually taking quite a bit of time to warm up if we’re honest), were deserted. How times change, he chuckled. The traditional stands of incandescents and fluorescents were being visited by way of curiosity, while there was standing room only at many of the LED stands.
Of particular interest to us was Fulham Technologies, who have partnered with Samsung to offer a potential straight replacement 2′ x 2′ even tone and very bright complete unit luminaire with little requirement for rewiring. Also, we spent a lot of time on the Ilumisys stand and were hugely impressed with their Mark 1 fluorescent tube replacement. This solid state unit requires no ballast replacement, has no flicker and offers a luminosity that is equivalent to traditional fluorescents. Furthermore, the individual points of light are much larger than those associated with other LED flourescents and,as a result are far more aesthetically pleasing. Their patented
technology was the talk of the show.
