How LED can find the balance point in the indoor lighting market

Since the first commercial LED was launched in the 1960s, LED has been used in the lighting industry for more than 40 years. A relatively complete industrial chain has been formed in the upstream, midstream and downstream of the industry. LED is being used in more and more industries. This article will explain the advantages of LED lighting sources compared with other light sources, the significance of indoor applications, the scope of application of LED light sources in the field of indoor lighting, and the direction of research and development and promotion of LED indoor lighting products from the following four aspects.

In the field of indoor lighting, the main traditional light sources generally include incandescent lamps, halogen lamps, fluorescent lamps, PAR lamps, metal halide lamps, etc. This type of light source consumes a lot of power, has a single color and control method, and has a large thermal radiation. Its application in some special places is limited to a certain extent. LED light sources have the advantages of full-color easy control, energy saving and environmental protection. They can create a high-quality light environment that cannot be replaced by other traditional light sources, fully meet the market demand for high-end interior decoration atmosphere lighting, and provide new ideas for indoor space lighting design. In particular, the emergence of high-power LEDs has found a breakthrough for the application of LED lighting in the field of indoor lighting, accelerating the application of LED in the field of indoor lighting.

When it comes to the application of LED, I have to talk about some advantages of LED over traditional light sources. These advantages are precisely the reasons why LED may be widely used in indoor commercial atmosphere lighting.

LED is known as the green lighting product of the 21st century. Now almost the whole world is focusing on this new light source. Compared with traditional light sources, it has incomparable advantages:

1. High purity, bright and rich colors. Currently, LED products cover almost the entire visible spectrum and have high color purity. The traditional way to obtain colored light is to add filters to incandescent lamps, which greatly reduces the light efficiency ;

2. Ultra-long life. The actual life of LED exceeds 50,000 hours, which is several times or even dozens of times that of general light sources;

3. There is no mercury in the light source, and the light beam does not contain ultraviolet rays. LED is a solid light source, green and environmentally friendly, especially suitable for professional places such as perfume shops, jewelry stores, museums, and art galleries, and can meet their special lighting requirements for displaying goods;

4. Solid luminescence, good shock resistance, firm and reliable;

5. Energy saving, economical and maintenance-free;

6. Dynamic color control, adjustable brightness, the three-primary color LED combination can use PWM to achieve color changes;

7. LED has strong luminous directionality, high luminous flux utilization rate, and small size, which is easy to design the appearance of LED lamps and control the light intensity distribution;

8. LED can be powered by DC low voltage, which is safe and reliable;

9. LED is not limited by starting temperature and can be started instantly, generally in a few milliseconds, and can instantly reach full luminous flux output.

Next, let’s talk about the application scenarios of LED in indoor lighting projects;

At present, the application of LED in indoor lighting projects is mainly concentrated in the field of commercial lighting, mainly decorative lighting:

1. LED light sources for indoor commercial atmosphere lighting in mid-to-high-end specialty stores, shopping malls, etc.
are energy-saving, environmentally friendly, and UV-free, which caters to the psychology of some businesses to display personalized light environments, and have become the preferred light source for some businesses to display certain special products; its full spectrum color range is very suitable for setting off the atmosphere of specialty stores and shopping malls. The advantages of LED light sources in local lighting, key lighting, and regional lighting can create a high-quality light environment that other traditional lighting electric light sources cannot match, and are very suitable for the field of commercial lighting. At this time, price becomes a secondary consideration.

2.
The LED integrated light source for entertainment venues and beauty salons is full-color and easy to control. It can create static and dynamic lighting effects, from white light to any color of the full spectrum, rendering a strong entertainment atmosphere. The emergence of LED has opened up new ideas for the decoration design of this type of space environment.

3. The LED light source for atmosphere lighting in bars, cafes and other leisure places
is small in size and solid-state, which gives lamp manufacturers unlimited room to play. They can professionally produce LED lamps of various styles. The LED full spectrum of arbitrary colors and dynamic and static lighting effects make its decorative and mood-making functions fully demonstrated in such places.

4. Lighting for professional places such as museums and art galleries
Museums, art galleries and other places are special places with high requirements for lighting environment. The special nature of the exhibits requires that the lighting source does not contain ultraviolet rays and has no heat radiation. LED is a cold light source , which does not contain ultraviolet rays and can fully meet the special lighting requirements of museums and art galleries.

5. The application of LED light sources in indoor lighting for stage lighting of commercial theaters, TV studios, dance and photography
has given a new concept to the lighting environment of theaters and studios. The following is one of the award-winning projects of LED application in 2005:

GMTV, a leading British TV station, changed its studio lighting to color-changing LEDs last year, reducing energy use in lighting by more than 60% and bringing the studio temperature down to a more comfortable level. iVision's Lumos Drive 36 provides 2.5-4.0 kHz LED pulses, rather than 50-60 Hz, which produces flickering TV images, making the studio change feasible. Color-changing downlights, bird-shaped decorations, and color-changing strips create unique colors and logos for different program segments. Fluorescent accessories provide conventional and backlight support for the LED installation. The system is expected to pay back the equivalent value within 39 weeks.

6. Hotel and guesthouse lighting
The use of LED products in hotel and guesthouse lighting, whether in the lobby or in the guest rooms, brings a different feeling to customers. In addition to saving energy, it can also show luxury and warmth. For the owners, the personalized light environment created by LED can fully demonstrate the strength of the enterprise.

7. Meeting room and multi-function hall lighting The
intelligently controlled LED grayscale is adjustable, and the lighting environment of the meeting room or multi-function hall can be adjusted according to the different content of the meeting. Seriousness or liveliness can be freely set. LED intelligent lighting can meet the needs of different meeting themes for light environment.

8. Exhibition and fashion show lighting
Exhibitions and fashion shows are places where businesses display their products and services. For businesses, in order to better attract customers, promote products and ultimately reach a cooperation agreement, they need a personalized light environment to display their products and services. LEDs are very useful in the field of exhibition and fashion show lighting.

9. Living room and home theater lighting
Use the color of LED lights to create a warm, harmonious, romantic mood, reflecting a comfortable and casual atmosphere. The application of LEDs interprets another meaning for home lighting.

Development direction of LED indoor lighting products
The application of LED in outdoor lighting projects is already very common, but its application in indoor lighting projects is still in the initial stage. On the one hand, this is because the cost of lumen is too high. On the other hand, it is also because there are too few types of LED indoor lighting products. Lighting designers have no choice, which sets up obstacles for the promotion of indoor lighting products. Personally, I think the development and promotion of LED indoor lighting products should focus on the following five aspects:

1. Product serialization
There are many types of traditional lamps used for indoor lighting. Downlights, spotlights, grille lights, lanterns and chandeliers constitute the two major fields of commercial lighting and home lighting, which dominate the direction of indoor lighting. At present, the LED products used for indoor lighting are mainly decorative lighting lamps such as LED cup lights and LED floor tiles. Other common traditional lamps rarely use LED light sources. However, there is no doubt that this market has great potential. With the improvement of LED light efficiency and the reduction of prices, whoever develops serial products first will seize the market opportunity.

2. Product integration and intelligence
One of the biggest advantages of LED is that it is easy to control. It can be controlled in clusters. In some occasions where programmability is required, LED intelligent products can provide a series of solutions. Intelligent LED products containing three primary color LEDs and a microprocessor can be configured with DMX512 communication protocol and can run on Ethernet . This provides convenience for the intelligent management of indoor lighting and can also reduce the disadvantage of high initial investment costs due to the use of LEDs.

3. Humanized products
After a series of evolutions, lighting is slowly becoming a fashion, and humanized lighting products have become people's first choice. LEDs are small in size, do not have glass shells like traditional light sources, and the light is easy to control, which gives LED lamp manufacturers unlimited room for humanized design of lamp appearance.

4. Improve the utilization rate of luminous flux and minimize the comprehensive lighting cost.
Although LED light sources are not as efficient as some traditional light sources, due to the strong directional nature of LED light sources and high utilization rate, as long as reasonable optical processing is used to maximize the use of its luminous flux, in terms of illumination , LED can fully meet the requirements of functional lighting.

Under the same conditions, the illumination of 3W LED and 35W halogen lamp cups was tested . The central illumination of LED light source within 3 meters is much higher than that of halogen lamp cup. In practical applications, the common lighting range of lamp cups is 1-3 meters. It can be easily seen from the figure that the lighting effect of 3W LED lamp cup is obviously better than that of 35W halogen lamp cup, which is mainly because the halogen lamp cup does not make good use of its luminous flux.

5. Solve the heat dissipation technology of high-power LEDs and delay the light decay of high-power LEDs to the maximum extent
. High-power LEDs are a future development direction of the LED industry. At present, they have become products that major manufacturers are competing to develop due to their high light efficiency and superior lumen maintenance rate. However, high-power LEDs have high requirements for heat dissipation technology. When the ambient temperature reaches a certain limit, light decay will occur quickly, which directly leads to a decrease in the life of the LED. Currently, only 1W and 3W high-power LEDs are used in the market in small quantities, while 5W and 10W high-power LEDs are still in the laboratory stage. Only by solving the heat dissipation technology of high-power LEDs and delaying the light decay of LEDs to the maximum extent can the application of high-power LEDs be promoted on a large scale.

At present, LEDs can already replace traditional light sources in many places. The emergence of high-power LEDs, in particular, has accelerated the pace at which LEDs replace traditional lighting sources and made large-scale applications of LEDs in indoor lighting a reality. As the entire industry continues to mature and LED product development deepens, the price and luminous efficacy of high-power LEDs will fluctuate greatly. Coupled with the strong guidance of national policies and the active promotion of public opinion, we have reason to believe that in the next ten years, LEDs will become part of ordinary people’s homes, just like fluorescent lamps do today.