2021 has been quite a year in the lighting world; one fraught with challenges after an already daunting 2020 with the hit of the pandemic. The irony is that the several years prior were home runs for the lighting industry and end users alike with the boom of LED and rebate business aiding adoption. What can we expect in 2022?
1 – Lighting Continues to be Crucial
The effects of the pandemic have ravaged the economy yet lighting continues to be essential. After all, we still have to be able to see what we are doing indoors. There are still many who are operating legacy products that require re-lamping or a retrofit to LED. By the same token there are early-LED adopters that are seeing their LED’s reach the end of their lifespan and needing to re-lamp or upgrade fixtures.
2 – Supply Chain Issues Persist
If you have ordered lighting or pretty much any overseas-manufactured product these days, you likely have come across a long backorder or two. We already have numerous large projects that are pushed out into February-March as customers await product. Whether those lead times are accurate is anyone’s guess but certainly it seems fair to say this will be commonplace heading into the first part of 2022.
3 – Adaptability and Flexibility are the Key
One thing Premier Lighting strives for is providing good/better/best options for customers so they can determine what route to go based on their own needs/budget. We are seeing many decision-makers go with the options that have the least cumbersome lead times; sometimes that is the “best” option or the “good” option. In other cases it can be as simple as going with different color temps (eg. 3000K out of stock so going with 3500K) or a different manufacturer that has stock.
4 – High CRI Push Continues
With the efficacies of new LED’s continuing to push the boundaries of what is possible, expect more and more traditional LED replacement lamps to focus on 90CRI as the standard. Some of that may be done through legislation as we have already seen it in recent years with California Quality LED lamps that have a 90+ CRI in addition to high efficacy standards. Thus it would not be a surprise for that to be extended to the rest of the country or manufacturers just deciding to produce only 90CRI bulbs.
5 – Are We Done with Price Increases?
Sadly, probably not. This goes hand-in-hand with #2 on this list, as the cost of freight both locally and containers coming from overseas has skyrocketed. You can be sure that these increases have been embedded into product costs and that is before even considering the changes in component cost/availability. Several large lighting manufacturers had multiple price increases already in 2021 and more on the horizon with January 1st being a nice shiny date for more to be implemented.
6 – Power-Select/Color-Select Reigns Supreme
With all the challenges on stock due to shipping issues, Power-Select and Color-Select technology hitting the lighting world in late 2020 and flourishing in 2021 turned out to be a godsend. Look around at the new LED Cobs, Highbays, Downlights, Troffers, etc and many of them are being offered in multiple color temps (2700K/3000K/3500K/4000K/5000K) and wattage selectable. This has made it easy for users to be flexible and expect to see more of that in 2022. In fact, there are now TLED’s that do the same such as the TCP Color Select LED T8s.
7 – Smaller, Flash-in-the-Pan Lighting Brands Continue to Falter
There was momentum building towards this prior to Covid-19, and the pandemic has accelerated it. With the rise of LED, many new lighting manufacturers joined the market to get in on some of the action. Often times these manufacturers would focus on 10 year warranties and other attempts at differentiating themselves; alas many of them have faltered beneath the promises of companies that hadn’t been in business for half that time of these warranties. The tried and true manufacturers that have stood by their products for decades are the ones still standing providing not only innovation with lighting but standing by their product.
8 – Get Ready for…Darkness?
Early on in the LED game, people were putting up new LED fixtures or jamming 5000K LED cobs in outdoor wallpacks/pole lights/area lights with little regard for any side effects of this light. After all, they were saving a ton on energy and maintenance, plus look how much brighter these LED’s are compared to the old amber HID sources?
Come to find out years later these solutions led to skyglow, light trespass, and the environment (namely wildlife) were suffering. Thanks to folks like the International Dark-Sky Association as well as the Restoring Darkness Podcast there is now more awareness on these effects, resulting in the IES and DLC pushing forth guidance for all new outdoor LED lights. As older outdoor LED fixtures and bulbs were reaching a point of being replaced anyway, expect to start seeing warmer LED colors outdoors along with light being shielded, controlled (sensors) and directed only to where it needs to be. Ultimately resulting in darker skies for all.
9 – More Locally Manufactured Products?
As the supply chain issues persist, expect to see some manufacturers attempt to localize production in the states or Mexico. There are difficulties to this in that no where else has the infrastructure for manufacturing that China does and cost will be prohibitive. But so long as the supply chain constraints continue to hamper growth, companies
10 – Health Effects of Lighting
We have been talking about the health effects of lighting for some time but are still learning a lot. In general we can say that bright, whiter light during the day combined with warmer, amber color at night is best for our circadian rhythm. Yet what constitutes “healthy” lighting for each person is different and varies based on their schedule during the day, where on earth they live and their genetics. That said we know flicker is bad and prominent in older LED bypass tubes, so check out UL-verified low free LED T8 tubes for some relief.
And with that, 2022 is almost here so we’ll see how everything looks in the months ahead. Let’s hope for good news on pricing and freight while keeping our eyes peeled for new technology that better serves us. As always, Premier Lighting is here to meet all your lighting needs so contact us if we can be of assistance or if you have predictions feel free to comment below as well!
Nice one – hoping prices stay put finally