Is your business still not sold on LEDs? See how light-emitting diodes are making fashionable businesses look brilliant.

Key Takeaways:

  • There’s growing awareness of the connection between LED commercial lighting and health.
  • More design-efficient direct-current chips are saving manufacturers and businesses money.
  • Flexible LEDs allow businesses of all kinds to express their visual identity.
  • Your next LED setup could also double as your internet provider.

LED commercial lighting is well on its way to becoming the norm for commercial sites everywhere. Our earlier blog took an illuminating look at why they’re so popular, and how they can benefit your business by dramatically reducing your energy consumption and utility bill. LEDs also create a more comfortable workplace by generating significantly less heat.

LEDs aren’t the standard quite yet, so they’re still cutting-edge enough to be trendy. We’ve collected five of the most stylish innovations for today’s spotlight. Slip on your shades as we share what’s both bright and cool in the world of commercial lighting!

1. Connecting people with lights

We don’t mean getting Gerry from Accounting to stick his fingers in the socket. We’re referring to the revolution in commercial lighting applications. Once, lights were just a way to make everything visible. Today, diverse types of businesses understand the tremendous potential of LED office lighting to create a strategically lit commercial space that benefits employees and customers.

This isn’t solely because of the broad color and intensity options available on today’s LED market thanks to its broad spectrum. Facility managers increasingly understand that LED bulbs are the next best thing to natural light. Certain LED wavelengths work in harmony with human circadian rhythms and can mimic solar effects, helping people stay more alert. Other LEDs can boost productivity and even decrease headaches, stress, and anxiety!

2. Direct current (DC) chips

Gone are the old external circuit boards that used to be necessary to power LEDs. DC chips are where it’s at these days – they’ve made these bulbs more powerful and cost-effective. They’re also getting smaller; all power conversion from AC to DC takes place within the bulb without extraneous drivers.

This lowers the manufacturing cost, making modern LED office lighting an even cheaper investment for businesses, and the streamlined profile creates more innovative design possibilities for manufacturers to make your business look more attractive.

DC chips doing away with external boards also eliminates several weaknesses of the old drivers. These include fewer LED lighting wires and circuits, which are vulnerable to environmental conditions and shorten service life, all of which could compromise LED performance.

3. Fashionable flexibility 

Lighting fixtures are being replaced by more free-form lighting ideas. Add flexible LEDs to your commercial space: You can bend ‘em, shape ‘em, and flex ‘em to your heart’s content!

You won’t have to live with a tangle of LED lighting wires, either. Modern lighting strips incorporate single wires and printed electronics that can be wrapped and twisted without losing functionality. This Californian company has a great selection of application photos demonstrating how flexible LED lighting’s versatility and effectiveness.

4. Logging into Li-Fi

You’ve heard of Wi-Fi, but Li-Fi is the buzzword for tomorrow’s most connected commercial spaces. It really is as fun and crazy as it sounds: Your next LED office-lighting project could both illuminate your space and use those LED bulbs to transmit and receive internet data.

It’s just as fast as the best wireless broadband (faster in some cases), with the bonus of being a more effective option for sending and receiving data option in some commercial spaces due to a lower electromagnetic impact. Those radio waves used to transmit traditional internet signals are so last century. It’s all ultraviolet and infrared light waves with modern Li-Fi.

This tech is still in its infancy; limitations are being worked out before it goes fully commercial. These problems include being confined to a single space (it can’t transmit through walls and doors) and the inability to operate outdoors due to solar interference.

However, you can expect it to become the trendiest lighting development in the near future. Growing commercial interest and investment in the Li-Fi sector are set to experience massive growth, with some projections topping $4 billion by 2026. Many of the biggest names in power and electronics, like Panasonic, Qualcomm, and General Electric, are already taking steps toward getting involved in Li-Fi.

5. Smart LED lights will continue to help commercial sites work smarter.

“Smart lighting” isn’t just a catchy name. LED office lighting is capable of some genuinely impressive independent thinking. Here are some futuristic functions making smart LED lights increasingly popular:

-Occupancy sensors

Remember the adults around you complaining about leaving lights on in empty rooms? They would love these sensors, which use infrared, radar, and other forms of spatial monitoring to tell when there’s nobody there and turn the lights off until someone enters a room. This can save a lot of money and reduce unnecessary energy consumption in commercial buildings, which, in addition to the added expense, is a huge environmental problem.

-Look Skywatcher

This little play on words may amuse Star Wars buffs, but it would be an accurate name for some smart LEDs. Certain designs keep an eye on environmental conditions outside of the building, watching the sun’s passage from rising to setting, then adjusting interior lighting accordingly. This is a kind of automatic color/intensity tuning, as opposed to manually changing them (which you can still do, of course).

-Remote control

Another “D’oh!” moment is getting home and wondering if you turned all the lights out at the office. Smart LEDs can be remotely turned on and off via software and apps. No matter where you are, you’re still in control.

It’s a bright future for LED commercial lighting and a more economical and environmentally friendly one for businesses that explore these trends. You can count on us to answer any electrical questions when you’re ready to make the switch. Just contact us for a free quote!