Dec 20 2012
Clearing the way for widespread adoption of LED lighting, Soraa today launched the lighting industry’s first fixture validation program—Works with Soraa. Lighting fixture manufacturers Tech Lighting, Focal Point, Hevi Lite, and Dreamscape Lighting have joined Soraa to kick off the program.
Incompatibility between LED lamps and fixtures designed for traditional light sources—incandescent, halogen, or fluorescent—is one of the biggest hurdles facing the lighting industry today. The Works with Soraa fixture program is designed to foster strong collaboration between Soraa and fixture manufacturers, so fixture and lamp combinations can be rapidly validated for mechanical, thermal, and electrical compatibility. As a result, the program will facilitate faster time-to-market for new fixtures and lamps. Specifiers can then specify, and customers can purchase and install, these validated combinations with confidence.
“The Works with Soraa program will benefit all stakeholders in the lighting industry—lighting designers, architects, contractors, installers, and end users—by providing certainty about fixture and LED lamp compatibility,” said Eric Kim, CEO of Soraa. “Furthermore, this program will enable fixture manufacturers to quickly offer a world-class LED solution, while focusing on what they do best—building beautiful fixtures. Its all about enabling flexibility and choice without compromising performance and quality.”
“For LED lighting to gain greater acceptance in the lighting design community, it is critical that we solve the LED lamp and fixture compatibility issue,” said Chip Israel, President of the award-winning architectural lighting design firm Lighting Design Alliance. “I commend Soraa and its fixture manufacturer partners for tackling this important issue and encourage other fixture manufacturers to join this program, as we are desperate for this information.”
“For too long, many in our industry have used the word LED ‘replacement’ lamp far too loosely. We are excited to partner with Soraa because we can say with confidence that their MR16 lamps are true replacements both in output and quality of light. At the same time, they exceed the definition of ‘replacement’ on numerous other criteria and serve as the perfect long-lasting, energy efficient complement to our fixtures,” said Joshua Weiss, President of Tech Lighting.
“Focal Point is excited to work with Soraa as they are the first LED lamp supplier that is taking a proactive approach to ensuring compatibility between lamp and luminaire,” said Michael Thornton, Vice President of Marketing at Focal Point. “Working together ensures that the thermal requirements of the Soraa lamp perform within specification when used in select Focal Point luminaires. We look forward to validating additional Focal Point luminaires in the future using Soraa lamps.”
“Soraa has one of the most innovative MR16 replacement LEDs that I have seen. Its unique thermal heatsink, with an exact MR16 bulb shape, make it a perfect retrofit LED replacement lamp. The lamp is true to the color and output of a standard halogen MR16 lamp,” said John Baldasti, CEO of Hevi Lite, Inc. “Lighting designers are thrilled about our partnership in the Works with Soraa program. We really look forward to our partnership with Soraa in this program.”
"The Works with Soraa program allows us to validate the compatibility of our products with the Soraa lamp—simplifying the end-users' lamp and fixture choice," said Victor Kelmelis, Vice President of Dreamscape Lighting Mfg., Inc. "Soraa was very helpful during our initial fixture testing and we plan on validating many of our products in the future."
Validated fixtures will be listed on Soraa’s website, cross-referenced with the lamps with which the fixtures were tested. Similarly, fixture manufacturers will list the validated fixtures in their catalogs and website, cross-referenced with the Soraa lamps tested.