Q & A with LED Eco Lights’ Managing Director

Josh Brooks, Publisher at Electronics Weekly Magazine, sat down with Waquee Bhatti, LED Eco Lights‘ Managing Director, to discuss a manifesto for electronics.

Q: Tell me briefly about your company

We are an ISO:9001 British manufacturer and supplier of LED lighting technology specialising in retrofit LED lamps and luminares. We provide a comprehensive range of LED solutions for commercial, industrial, amenity, leisure and hospitality environments. Our award-winning range of Goodlight retrofit LED lamps and luminaires are recognised as amongst the most reliable, energy-efficient and consistently bright LEDs on the market providing unparalleled light quality over an incredible 50,000 hour lifespan. Our Bright Goods range of antique-style filament LED lamps include classic GLS, pear shapes, globes, candles and tubes and are supplied to leading restaurants, bars, hotels,  cafes and retail stores throughout the world.

 

Q: How long have you been involved in LED lighting?

We founded LED Eco Lights inn 2006, pioneering the adoption of LED in commercial and industrial environments and have become one of the UK’s leading experts in LED technology. From the outset, we focused on providing the most energy and cost-reduction challenges across their buildings. Our vision was to provide these lighting solutions, so that the energy benefits could be delivered as low-cost, and with minimal business disruption, by designing LED lamps that could slot into existing light fittings. We have always remained passionate in supporting our clients in saving tonnes of CO2, and hundreds of thousands of pounds from their electricity bills, plus reducing lighting maintenance overheads. We are continually introducing new LED lamp and luminaire types to deliver the most comprehensive retrofit LED lighting range available.

Q: How has the market changed in that time?

Being one of the first companies to introduce LED lamps and luminaires to the market in 2006, we have witnessed jumps in the market over the last 11 years. Firstly and probably most importantly, the entry level costs to adopting LED technology for customers have dropped significantly due to more widespread availability of components and demand/supply improvements. The pricing of LED chips took at least 5-7 years to mature to a ‘tipping point’ where they are now very competitively priced, and providing efficient performance, where they are easily comparable to other traditional albeit antiquated forms of light. As manufacturing costs have been rapidly increasing, the purchasing costs have also got to a point now where LED lighting projects are able to deliver ROI of less than 3 months in some cases, making them a highly attractive energy-efficient lighting option. With the market becoming more accessible, more and more companies have started using this technology, so there are varied LED solutions around, apart from lamps and luminaires, alone. This makes for a very exciting market opportunity, where product design, cost and service are all starting to make clear distinctions between brand offerings.

Q: How much original design do you do?

We are driven by design so we originate many of our products from scratch.  Being a relatively new company in this field we started developing products with a clear and open mind. Our team of experts create and develop lamps that give us a portfolio of unique and innovative products that are clever and attractive and that meet both the existing and future demands of our clients.

We use a design-make-test methodology and a concurrent engineering approach. Knowledge and testing are the foundations of our products. We have a holistic design ethos instead of a linear one used by most. We consider all aspects of Design, Engineering and Supply with equal value. Our products stand out not only functionally, but aesthetically and qualitatively. Goodlight originated products are revered by the design community, desired by customers, preferred by installers and envied by our competitors.

Our light fittings are designed from the ground up, by our design engineers. Whilst they work within a framework of existing lamp or luminaires styles i.e. catering for various types of functional lighting, we have a real ethos of being driven by design excellence. Being a new entrant 11 years ago, and without the shackles of a legacy lighting business, our design ethos is to focus on fit, form and function – however the underlying objective is to make our lighting look exceptional. Most of our products stand out from everything in their class, they look particularly well-engineered, and when coupled with stand-out lighting performance, the Goodlight brand is respected by designers, customers and installers alike.

Our product specifications are unique to Goodlight and Bright Goods brands and rigorously tested to meet our quality and performance standards. We’re so confident in the quality and performance of our products that all our LED lamps and luminaires come with a 5 Year Guarantee against full or partial failure.

Q: Tell me about some design that is unique to your company 

When developing a new product we consider insights into the main issues experienced by other companies. By researching these issues, we often solve them by introducing a new technology that no one else has used and thus this differentiates us from others. For example; we were, and still may be, the first British company to integrate MagLev Fan technology into our G360 LED SON range of lamps. This unique cooling method allows us to deliver unrivalled lighting performance in a retrofit lamp. It also has a unique assembly making it more reliable with fewer connections than other similar lamps.

We have also incorporated a Copper Cooling Column into our GX1 LED High Bay range, which houses ‘phase-change’ liquid in its core, for unrivalled thermal management, prolonging the LED life, another first for a British LED company.

Ultimately, we are not governed by traditional lighting design rules, and our expertise comes from a wide range of industries so we prefer to think outside the box, and create unquiet products which are often considered to be the most attractive in design and the most thoroughly well-engineered.

Q: How much of your design work is integrating other company’s products? 

We don’t produce our own LED chips or standard drivers, as there are market-leading, branded components readily available on the market, however we do focus on our own internal drivers, moulds and tooling for parts and cases. Occasionally, we come across a unique product concept and will work with its original manufacturer to improve its aesthetics and internal capabilities under OEM license agreements. We often suggest new ideas to suppliers that help us and make sense for them. We work with experts in different fields and top class suppliers for parts.

Q: What are the challenges you face in developing LED lighting systems? 

Probably the biggest challenge we have is ensuring that we future-proof our designs, given that LED capabilities are every-improving. For example, when designing a lamp or luminaire, we are prepared for it to be able to cope with the LED chip performance doubles over time, i.e. all aspects of the product can handle increased heat and light energy. Being a leader when it comes to Design and Engineering attracts a lot of attention and unfortunately the copying of our work. This is something we have had to accept but our ethos is that it is a form of flattery and we will stay ahead of the competition by continuing to be active and not reactive.

Q: What are your customers looking for from you? 

Our customers expect us to deliver the brightest lamps for the least amount of circuit watts. Our Goodlight and Bright Goods brands have become synonymous with good design and leading light performance, so our clients expect reliability, consistency and an industry-leading low failure rate. Ultimately our customers expect very reliable LED products which don’t cost the earth!

Q: How has the boundary between the electronics and lighting markets changes? Would you say that LED lighting is now part of the electronics industry? 

Personally, I still see a gap between the two industries. Whilst there has been a lot of movement between the two, with most major electronics brands dabbling in LED lighting, the two disciplines are very different. Technology is driven by its function, and largely scientific. Lighting is too, to a certain extent, hence we see big electronics brands creating LED products with relative ease.  This doesn’t always translate into big sales.

There is an alternative reality in which lighting is a form of art, and the way in which we light our spaces is much more subjective.  In this aspect, I see a huge gap between purely electronics companies understanding the finesse of light and shade and the impact it has on users.  LED is all about electronics, but how we use them and design them into our world is entirely another matter.

Q: What technologies do you think would help you in the future? 

Once fully developed, I think Artificial Intelligence will take us to the next stage in controlling lighting, which is becoming increasingly more important.  The discovery of new metals which are lighter and cheaper to allow us to cool more efficiently will help us make bigger strides to achieving the ultimate goal of increased efficiency.