In Lutron Electronics’ most recent edition of LEDitorial, Lutron’s featured product was its new Hi-lume A-Series LED Driver, which is the world’s first LED driver to feature smooth, constant dimming for any LED fixture. This is an important innovation in LED lighting because if an LED fixture is dimmable, it usually has to be matched up to a certain driver. According to the website, the Hi-lume dims continuously from 100% to 1% lighting levels and is rated for a 50,000 hour lifetime.
Lutron Electronics is a widely respected company among commercial lighting decision makers, and created the first solid state dimmers. Until the mid-20th century, dimmers were made to control lighting on stages and in theaters, not for home use. In 1959, Joel Spira created the first solid state dimmer that could be installed in place of a light switch in the home. Spira, partnered with Ruth Spira, incorporated Lutron Electronics in 1961. Today, the company holds 2,700 patents worldwide and is the first company to mass-market dimmers and systems of linked dimmers successfully. It offers lighting controls for fluorescent, halogen incandescent, magnetic low-voltage, electronic low voltage, and most importantly, LED fixtures. The company has also led the way in using window shade technology to control daylight and electric light.
Using dimmers with lighting fixtures has many perks. According to Lutron’s website, dimmers have already cut down electricity use by 9.2 billion kWh and reduced electricity bills by $1 billion each year. Dimmers could make even more of an impact on the environment if they became more widely used. “Lutron estimates that by installing just two dimmers in place of two standard light switches in every home in the US, the potential annual savings could be $1.5 billion in electricity and close to 25 billion pounds of CO2 – the equivalent to taking more than 1 million cars off the road.” Dimmers also help increase the lifetime of the bulbs because they use much less energy when they are dimmed. Longer lifetime = less spent on new lamps! They are also useful for “setting the mood” for a dinner party or reducing light during the daytime.
We are excited to see Lutron Electronics raising the bar with its innovations in universal LED drivers in dimmers and hope to hear about their successes with the Hi-lume A-Series LED Driver in the future.