Lighting is the accessory to watch in the future and it is consistently being identified in surveys as one of the top consumer demands – interior cabinet LED lighting and drawer lighting as well as outside the cabinet pendant lighting.

 

Following is a look at a few lighting trends and innovations:

Michael Stubblefield, Western lighting manager, Rev-A-Shelf/Tresco Lighting: “First homeowners and designers no longer want to see the hot spots from the diodes either in the light or reflecting off a countertop or other surface. There are products now with Luniform technology that hide the diodes and give you a burst of light just like you would get from a fluorescent fixture. You can find puck lights, linear lights, and even flex tape now with this technology. 

 

“Secondly, people want to control their lighting wirelessly. This can be achieved by RF wall dimmers that have no wires running to them, handheld controllers, and apps on your smart phone. No need in many cases to have the electrician come and wire up a wall dimmer switch. Many of these systems will allow you to set up scenes as well. If you would like to have your toe kick lights dimmed to a certain level, the undercabinet light off, and the ambient lighting above the cabinets on full, you can set the scene, and by pushing one button, create that scene. Any time you want that scene, one push on the button will give it to you. 

 

“The third trend I think you will start to see a lot of is color tunable lighting. Being able to change the color temperature of your lights for warm to a white light instead of buying an LED light in a set color temperature. The advantage this has is your undercabinet or closet lighting can be color tuned to match the lighting in the ceiling. Nothing worse than having two different color temperatures in one environment.”

 

Jake Van Wyk, category manager lighting, Hafele America: “We’re watching where the trends are going. We redesigned the Loox 5 integrated lighting system from top to bottom to really position it to meet the needs of the cabinet and closet industry. So, it’s everything from the circuitry and the driver as well as the actual lighting, the lights themselves. When I say an overhaul and a new program, it doesn’t make the old one obsolete. Our engineers designed it so that it can be compatible and so that it makes the transition seamless. But we have developed for every component, there is a new component that we consider an upgrade and kind of the platform that we’re going to be developing from for the future.  

 

“One of the key drivers, probably the biggest trend that we’ve been seeing is that where LED started being very what I call puck-centrist, little spotlight-centric, it is definitely going much more towards the ribbons or LED strips. So, we’ve really designed it so our transformer or drivers are designed to support the needs of long strips that are on for long periods of time so that everything is designed to meet those needs.”

 

David Tyler, executive vice president, product management, marketing, engineering, Hardware Resources: The company recently launched its Task Lighting TandemLED product line. 

 

TandemLED, named for its unique two-wire (tandem) operation, is a patent-pending, tunable white LED lighting technology that adjusts LED lights from Warm White 2,700K to Daylight White 5,000K and all white color temperatures in between, all while allowing the user to adjust the light output from dim to bright.

 

“Now it’s easy to tune the white light Kelvin temperature of the kitchen lighting after the cabinets and lighting are installed,” Tyler said. “It’s an industry standard two-wire installation, and the Kelvin temperature can be set anywhere from 2700K to 5000K, easily and at any time, by the installer and by the homeowner. It’s a game-changer for our customers and their customers.” It comes with a wireless remote and can be controlled through the new Task Lighting WAV Smart Control system and control lights via a smartphone app or voice command. The system can be connected to Google Assistant, Apple HomeKit, Phillips Hue, Samsung Smart Things and more.  Several LED kits and accessories are available.