News By Sal Cangeloso May. 5, 2014 1:14 pm
Cree’s goal is 100% adoption of LED lighting. That’s something that’s easy to say but quite difficult to pull off, especially when major segments of the lighting market don’t offer adequate LED-based options. Cree started off their “Cree LED” lighting push by releasing products that covered the bulk of the consumer lighting segment — particularly the A19*bulb in various forms. Cree also released a BR bulb and just last week announced a PAR38, both of which are directional bulbs (as opposed to omnidirectional) that are popular in homes and offices. The next piece of the puzzle, the one Cree put into place today, is a true replacement for the T8*fluorescent.
Commercial lighting is a major part of the marketing, something approaching half, depending on whose numbers you are looking at. The T8 design is a popular one — as you know if you’ve got into any office — and it’s the most popular of the linear fluorescent lamps (about 60% share). Importantly, this not a segment with significant LED penetration yet. Estimates put LED T8s at just 1% of the marketing (though the latest DoE report uses a 2012 number, so it could be significantly higher than that). Adoption has been slow because of the price of LED T8s, the limited number of options, and poor compatibility with existing hardware.
Cree’s LED T8 will sell for $30 (48-inch size) and brings with it a 30% reduction in power usage and what the company is calling “near-universal” driver compatibility. This second bit is especially important because it means the cost of upgrading to LED lighting will be only the cost of the lamps — the existing troffers and ballasts that were build for fluorescent tubes should work with Cree’s LED T8. The lamp will be eligible for utility company rebates and will be offered in both 3500K and 4000K varieties. The CRI is 90 and efficiency is 100 lumens-per-watt.
The Cree T8 has a five-year warranty and an expected lifetime of 50,000 hours. It’s hard to narrow down a typical fluorescent T8 — they come in many varieties — but a common fluorescent might cost about $15 and last for 20,000 hours. As with other lighting scenarios, this gives the LED offering a significant advantage in terms of power consumption and lifetime, but with the trade-off being a higher initial price.
This isn’t a consumer-focused offering so it might not be too exciting for all us LED lighting fans, that said, it’s another LED milestone. Cree isn’t the first company to release an LED-powered T8, nor are they doing anything revolutionary here aside from developing some clever circuitry for ballast compatibility, but the company is executing extremely well on their goal of greater LED adoption.
In the matter of about a year, Cree has entered a number of lighting segments with extremely competitive offerings that are prices to sell and aimed at disrupting the market. Their first bulb, the A19 Cree LED, forced the hand of big players and kickstarted the drop in LED pricing. Now this movement — and the expansion of the company Cree has become since the release of the Cree LED bulb — has extended to the commercial segment, opening the doors to much greater LED adoption.
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Commercial lighting is a major part of the marketing, something approaching half, depending on whose numbers you are looking at. The T8 design is a popular one — as you know if you’ve got into any office — and it’s the most popular of the linear fluorescent lamps (about 60% share). Importantly, this not a segment with significant LED penetration yet. Estimates put LED T8s at just 1% of the marketing (though the latest DoE report uses a 2012 number, so it could be significantly higher than that). Adoption has been slow because of the price of LED T8s, the limited number of options, and poor compatibility with existing hardware.
Cree’s LED T8 will sell for $30 (48-inch size) and brings with it a 30% reduction in power usage and what the company is calling “near-universal” driver compatibility. This second bit is especially important because it means the cost of upgrading to LED lighting will be only the cost of the lamps — the existing troffers and ballasts that were build for fluorescent tubes should work with Cree’s LED T8. The lamp will be eligible for utility company rebates and will be offered in both 3500K and 4000K varieties. The CRI is 90 and efficiency is 100 lumens-per-watt.
The Cree T8 has a five-year warranty and an expected lifetime of 50,000 hours. It’s hard to narrow down a typical fluorescent T8 — they come in many varieties — but a common fluorescent might cost about $15 and last for 20,000 hours. As with other lighting scenarios, this gives the LED offering a significant advantage in terms of power consumption and lifetime, but with the trade-off being a higher initial price.
This isn’t a consumer-focused offering so it might not be too exciting for all us LED lighting fans, that said, it’s another LED milestone. Cree isn’t the first company to release an LED-powered T8, nor are they doing anything revolutionary here aside from developing some clever circuitry for ballast compatibility, but the company is executing extremely well on their goal of greater LED adoption.
In the matter of about a year, Cree has entered a number of lighting segments with extremely competitive offerings that are prices to sell and aimed at disrupting the market. Their first bulb, the A19 Cree LED, forced the hand of big players and kickstarted the drop in LED pricing. Now this movement — and the expansion of the company Cree has become since the release of the Cree LED bulb — has extended to the commercial segment, opening the doors to much greater LED adoption.
More...
