Lighting the world with LEDs

Music Sumi Das: According to some analysts' estimates, by 2020, the LED lighting industry well be a 25-billion dollar market. Bridglux wants to be on the forefront of this shift. Recently, it announced a new LED array that offers better performance. Here to talk about what the company is doing in this area is Bill Watkins, CEO of Bridgelux. Bill thanks for joining us today. Bill Watkins: Thanks for having me. Sumi Das: You brought the new LED array. Tell us what makes this revolutionary. How does it differ from this current existing LED array? Bill Watkins: Well, this is our newest generation of array, which is really a solid-state light source. It's a 5,000 lumen, high output light, really designed for those areas in retail stores where they need a high quality light, and they need a lot of energy savings. It is in competition and replaces this, which is another LED light source. Sumi Das: Clearly, it's larger, but these both produce the same amount of light? Bill Watkins: Same amount of light, only this particular product uses single emitters -- Sumi Das: Okay. Bill Watkins: -- Of red, green, and blue. And if your eye sees red, green, and blue, it sees white. Sumi Das: Okay. Bill Watkins: What we do is we have just one color, and we shift everything to white light with our phosphorous coatings. This allows not only to get, obviously, a smaller point of source, it also allows a higher quality light and at a much lower cost. Sumi Das: So you've simplified the manufacturing process because you have -- Bill Watkins: We've eliminated many steps. Sumi Das: -- Fewer pieces. Bill Watkins: Yep. Sumi Das: Okay, so this is used in a light, like the one you have there next to you. Bill Watkins: Right. So think of this as a light bulb, and we would put it into a light source like this, and this would be hanged from a ceiling that happens to be a commercial application. Sumi Das: Right. Clearly, that's not a residential application. Bill Watkins: So -- no. Sumi Das: I'm not going to put that in my home. Bill Watkins: No, but again, the commercial business, because of the fact that they use a lot of energy; it becomes a very easy conversion to convert to our source. Sumi Das: There have been a lot of criticisms of LED lights. Some people are saying that, you know, the quality of the light is harsh. It's not a warm light, like incandescent lights -- light bulbs offer. And the other thing is that it's expensive. That's the main gripe that people have. So does this new LED array respond to those criticisms? Bill Watkins: It's all part of a path in the evolution. I think this technology is very exciting. You know, at Bridgelux, we're very passionate about it, but this product is -- it allows you to have a light, and actually, if you put this in your light source, you will find that you don't know that you have a LED in it. Sumi Das: Really? Bill Watkins: It will look very much like an incandescent. And again, this is where we're trying to do. Sumi Das: That's a serious challenge. Bill Watkins: It is. Sumi Das: That's a -- Bill Watkins: But you'll see that improvement. I mean, I think any technology at a stage -- and I think the criticisms of LED are really for three or four years ago. And the progress that people have made over the last two or three years have been phenomenal. And as you see, the concept, just from us able to do this versus this, phenomenal not only on the quality of light, on the cost of that light. Sumi Das: But the expense. Bill Watkins: The expense will come down. It's just scale. Sumi Das: Okay. Bill Watkins: In scale and volume. And you will see -- Sumi Das: So it will take a while. Right now, it's not significantly cheaper. Bill Watkins: But every year, if you look at it, the costs are dropping by half. And with the energy savings, it is. Sumi Das: But you know people are impatient. Consumers want it cheaper now. Bill Watkins: But the commercial people are driving it. Because commercial, in this particular application, they see a two-year payback. Sumi Das: Okay. Tell us about the future of LED lighting. Because these LED arrays have chips in them, that enables and opens up a whole host of applications that we never had with incandescent bulbs. Bill Watkins: Well, and that's a great opportunity. What really makes it exciting is it's not just replacing an incandescent bulb. We're putting into the -- a digital solution into your home. I mean, an incandescent is sort of the last analog part we have in our house, and so the opportunities are unlimited once you start having, if you will, what I call very smart chips in your light source. Sumi Das: Bill Watkins, thank you so much for joining us today. We appreciate you showing us this new technology. Bill Watkins: All right, thank you for the opportunity. Sumi Das: For SmartPlanet, I'm Sumi Das. Thanks for watching.

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