The Time for Lighting Is Now

Now more than ever, homeowners are interested in lighting. Aside from convenience, energy savings, beauty, and control, this interest is grounded in how light makes humans feel. Moments of brilliance and illumination elevate everyday experiences: the energy you get when you step into the noonday sun, cozy moments around the campfire with friends, flickering flames from a candlelit dinner, or the golden morning sun streaming in a window to wake you. These light-bathed moments, when replicated at home via natural light control and artificial light, can make any home a sanctuary of joy and inspiration.

For the home technology integrator, the time for lighting is now thanks to the one-two punch of LED bulb technology and the rise of digitally addressable Intelligent Lighting Solutions from Lutron. These two fortuitous market dynamics open up the lighting fixture arena to integrators and harness the smart home skills and low-voltage licenses home technology integrators already have. 

Plus, according to Lutron Electronics’ VP of Residential Sales, David Weinstein, the luxury residential market segment of the AV business is growing disproportionately. While commercial AV may still be post-pandemic course-correcting, luxury residential continues to grow and offers integrators market-expanding opportunities through lighting, shading, and control.  

“The opportunity for integrators to successfully participate in the lighting systems business and take advantage of the paradigm shift from traditionally wired and controlled lighting fixtures to the new generation of intelligent lighting solutions is immense,” says Weinstein. “Integrators can create an entirely new business model and revenue stream.”  

While today Lutron’s Ketra lighting system is positioned as a luxury solution, the new smart lighting systems stand out for their cost-effectiveness. The total installed cost of this technology is comparable to traditionally controlled and wired architectural lighting systems, and by eliminating dimming panels and significantly reducing the wiring infrastructure and the associated labor, Lutron has made high-quality lighting significantly more accessible.

Thanks to its ongoing innovation in lighting, Lutron is at the forefront of the paradigm shift. In addition to its strong brand recognition and active marketing to design-build trades, the company is known for real innovation, and building products that make a daily difference in the lives of your clients. 

“ILS is the latest evolution in the home technology space. Adding this to our company’s offerings, and educating architects, designers, builders, and homeowners on the benefits of ILS has bolstered our position as the ‘experts.’ Whether you choose to invest in demonstrating it in your own showroom, or partnering with Lutron in one of their experience centers, it is vital to your success in this space to demonstrate the capabilities of this technology. We have a very high closure rate when demonstrating circadian, full spectrum, and tunable white lighting to perspective clients,” says Al Reinhard, principal, AHT Miami.

The Quality of Light
When you talk to your clients about lighting design, you might mention the convenience of control and dimming, but are you talking about the quality of light emitted? Lutron’s Intelligent Lighting Solutions are digitally addressable systems, that, according to the company, deliver the highest level of light quality. The industry often refers to this as circadian lighting, also known as human-centric lighting. Both terms have become marketing buzzwords, but when you can demonstrate the lifestyle-enhancing experience of great light beyond science, you’ll be able to explain this technology to your clients with greater impact. Both terms, in essence, are about dynamic and natural light, which changes color over the course of a day.

“Truly high-quality light should feel natural,” says Weinstein. “Lutron can properly illuminate interior spaces and correlate the light with the color temperature of sunlight over the course of the day.”  

Lutron acquired Ketra in 2018 to enhance its portfolio with Ketra's advanced lighting technology. Ketra is known for its innovative, high-quality lighting solutions that can mimic natural light and offer a wide range of color temperatures and vibrancy. By integrating Ketra's technology, Lutron has been able to offer more comprehensive and sophisticated lighting solutions. 

Get Up To Speed with Lutron Ketra and Rania D2 Downlights
Lutron’s latest innovation is the Ketra D2 downlight, Lutron’s flagship full-spectrum performance product. It offers dynamic lighting from 1400 to 10000 CCT (Correlated Color Temperature) as well as Vibrancy and Saturated Color across 16.7 million color possibilities. Users can tune the light to match natural daylight rhythms or enhance the vibrancy in a space, which can bring artwork to life. 

“We call the Ketra D2 the Instagram Filter for Life, as it can dramatically change the dynamic of a room or make a piece of artwork look more vibrant,” says Weinstein (see the video above to see this lighting phenomenon in action). Ketra D2’s highly engineered optics ensure uniform light placement. Then there’s Lutron’s Color Lock technology, which maintains consistent hues and light output over time, giving your lighting system longevity. The Ketra D2 downlight is also designed with a slim, modular fixture that fits into smaller spaces, offering in-field adaptability with a suite of lenses and architectural accessories for maximum beam control. A hot-aiming system allows for precise adjustments. 

Lutron’s Rania D2 downlight utilizes the same platform as the Ketra D2 downlight. It features similar specs as the Ketra model but with a focus on the natural white light spectrum. Where Ketra D2 uses a 16-channel RGBW emitter, Rania has a three-channel white emitter offering dynamic white light and a CCT range of 1800 to 5500. 

As both systems are identical in terms of hardware, they can be “blended” into projects to respond to the need or the budget. Both models offer Lutron’s Natural Show, which is the company’s term for simulating the sun’s natural light characteristics over the course of a day.

Helping Customers See the Why and the How
The new Lutron Luxury App is a powerful tool that visually and emotionally engages clients, specifiers, and integrators. “We need to educate and inspire architects and homeowners about the ‘Whys’ of intelligent lighting and guide integrators on the ‘Hows’ to tactically enable their organizations to convert our shared vision into reality,” says Weinstein. 

The app helps accomplish that, featuring gorgeous product imagery and high-level inspiration, while also giving granular product details. Users can discover and engage with Lutron's luxury portfolio, learn about essential lighting control features, and immerse themselves in the beauty of natural light and warm dimming. They can even customize bespoke keypads to match their style and save items to create their own favorites showcase. It’s a great tool to share with your customers and trade partners.

Building a Collaboration Community
About those trade partners: The next logical question in exploring the viability of Lutron’s new intelligent lighting systems as part of your repertoire is how to work with associated trades on lighting projects in this new lighting paradigm. According to Weinstein, building what he calls a ‘collaboration community’ is an ideal way to make sure that the homeowner is getting the best lighting experience possible and that everyone’s voice is heard. 

Lutron, for one, takes time to focus on design-build industry awareness. By educating architects, designers, builders, and integrators about the benefits of intelligent lighting, Lutron helps them understand why its products and software are essential. This education is not about making them experts in programming and installation, but about conveying the importance of beautiful shades, human-centric lighting, and intuitive keypads.

“Manufacturers like Lutron spend time creating awareness and demand. Integrators should work with their most innovative vendors to plan market development events with the trades,” says Weinstein. “These are small group events to build a local working community. In these collaboration communities, you might have a builder, architect, developer, integrator, lighting designer, interior designer, electrician, and manufacturer’s rep.”

Everyone in the community delivers value, and the end result is better. Weinstein cautions against thinking that any trade is beholden to you. “Just because you are in a collaboration community, you don’t ‘own’ its members. It’s important to avoid thinking ‘Those are my specifiers’ because that just doesn’t work,” he says. “Additionally, if you build these communities and relationships, they also build confidence and trust with the client. We always try to encourage people to learn to play in a dolphin pool instead of in a shark tank. If you work against one another, no one wins.” 

It is important to note that electricians are, and will remain an important component of the process. Integrators and electricians should work together and in a cooperative and mutually beneficial manner to best serve the needs of the client. “When Lutron meets with cross-industry stakeholders to see and experience the innovation of Ketra and its broader Intelligent Lighting Solutions offering, most often the response from the group is ‘Why would we not do this?’” says Weinstein. “These systems deliver superior illumination, eliminate traditional panels, free up valuable closet space, require fewer lighting circuits, offer more control flexibility, and reduce installation labor. In the end, smart businesspeople—both integrators and electricians—will find a way for everyone to win.”

“Educating your clients, your referral base, electrical contractors, etc. on the benefits of ILS takes time. Teaching your employees the proper documentation and deployment methods takes time. But in the end, it will be worth the time and investment. In most cases, the price of the ILS package is as much and sometimes more than the price of the technology package in a home. This added revenue stream has created a significant increase in our annual revenues,” adds Reinhard.

From inventing the solid-state dimmer to launching the first digitally addressable quiet shades, Lutron has always been on the cutting edge of smart home technology. “We didn’t do it alone, but have relied on the trust and commitment of the integration community who believe in Lutron's vision,” says Weinstein. “We want integrators to embark on this journey with us again. Lighting is a multibillion-dollar industry, and the proportional share being sold through integrators is still in its infancy. The opportunity is there. It’s about creating an industry together.”