LED and the Seven Challenges that Lighting Designers Face when Using Them

During the 2014 Taiwan Solid State Lighting Forum held at Taipei World Trade Center Nangang Exhibition Hall last March 20, 2014, James Wallace revealed that LED lights might not always live up to their real-life applications. Wallace is the principal and design director of Light Plan and the director of the Professional Lighting Designer’s Association (PLDA).

In Wallace’s talk, he highlighted the seven challenges that designers encounter when using LED light.

One of the biggest problems, according to 47 percent of the respondents from PLDA’s survey, said that they were bothered by the strong glare that LEDs produce. In Wallace’s discussion, he projected LED lighting trends in the future which will incorporate the use of COB (Chip on Board) to reduce the problem.

Another apparent problem according to the survey would be LED's dimming capabilities. Wallace cited that instead of a smooth transition, LED dimming is choppy and does not perform according to how lighting designers have expected them to be. Aside from that, LED color tuning should be adjustable. This technology, according to Wallace, will cater the requirements of clients ranging from culture to season.

The LED industry currently also lacks a standardized Color Correlated Temperature which can be used by designers in choosing the right LED bulbs to use. This can create huge problems for the designer who can end up with legal responsibilities due to their specification of inappropriate lighting. LED manufacturers are not following the same CCT labels or may indicate the same CCT range which may differ from one manufacturer to another. A discussion with PLDA and LED manufacturers resulted to a resolution wherein the industry will standardize CCT to three categories: 2700K, 4000K, and 6500K.

Other problems that were seen from PLDA’s survey would be thermal management, interchangeability and the cost of using LED products.

Wallace projected that the LED industry will be exerting more effort in solving these problems and the first manufacturers that will launch more innovative LED products will highly benefit from these.