Bright Ideas

The lighting world is full of ceritifications and ratings and symbols that can get very confusing if you don't know what they all mean. This is a quick guide to the symbols and certifications you'll find on our website.

Understanding the differences between each type of vapour proof lighting can be a little difficult. To help you pick which one works best for you, we’ve outlined some of the specific functional uses for each of our fixtures – the FW4, LFW, and LFX ranges of LED vapour proofs.

There are a wide range of free, useful sources of information available online. These include governmental organizations, industry associations and certification bodies. North America and Europe each tend to have their own industry bodies covering information relevant to their members. In some cases there is cooperation and crossover. For this post, we thought we would cover some of these resources with a brief summary and link below.

Whether you are a lighting systems designer or a facility owner, it is important to ensure that every part of your facility has optimum illumination, both to enhance the ambience and avoid energy wastage. Figuring out the right number and mix of LED lamps, fixtures and lumens for a facility is both an art and a science. It helps if you understand the terminology used to talk about lighting, especially in terms of rating, measuring and quantifying the effectiveness, efficiency, intensity and quality of light output. In this post we cover some of the common language used to measure lighting.

With almost 40% of a typical business’s energy bill related to lighting, controls are ever more important. Smart lighting controls are increasingly replacing traditional lighting controls in residential, commercial, and industrial environments because of the higher efficiency and enhanced energy saving capabilities. Some of the new smart technologies that have found applications in lighting controls include: motion detection (microwave), sound sensing, heating-sensing (infrared), door contact sensors, and optical cameras. In part two of the Essentials of Lighting Controls, we discuss how to plan and select the right lighting control, future trends in lighting controls and some commonly asked questions.

Lighting controls come in different designs and utilize different technologies, but generally they help people to regulate the quality of lighting in residential, commercial, and industrial environments. In addition to enhancing the aesthetics and experience of a space, lighting controls are also critical in minimizing energy usage. This post, part one of a two part series, will cover common systems and types of lighting controls.

Colour temperature has to be one of the more counter intuitive aspects of understanding the nuances of lighting. Its purpose is to gives us a way to talk about the colour characteristics of light.  The terminology used to describe colour temperature is what makes it confusing to the layperson.  Colour temperature actually has nothing to do with the heat emitted from the lamp, but rather refers to the appearance of the light.

A power supply or driver is an electronic device that supplies energy to an electrical load in order to convert one form of electricity to another and control the electrical current. Most residential, commercial and industrial lighting systems require a power supply to regulate the electrical current to the lamp or fixture. In this post we will discuss the three main types of lighting power drivers: ballasts, transformers and LED drivers. 

How well a luminaire (fixture) performs, depends a lot on the type of light source (bulb or lamp) used. Different bulbs have different lighting effects, performance and pros and cons. Probably the biggest driver of innovation in light sources is energy efficiency, with LED technology leading the charge.

In this post we cover the most common electric light sources used in residential, commercial and industrial lighting including: how they work, pros and cons, applications, average rated life and cost.