Review of Hong Kong international lighting fair (Autumn edition)

Organized by the HKTDC and held at the HKCEC, the Hong Kong International Lighting Fair (Autumn Edition) is the largest autumn lighting fair in Asia. Exhibits include advertising lighting, commercial lighting, household lighting, LED & green lighting, lighting accessories, parts & components, outdoor lighting, smart lighting & solutions, testing, certification & inspection, along with Hall of Aurora for branded lighting.

Entrance looks full of people

For Yuji led, we have been visited almost all of large lighting fair in the world, certainly we didn’t want to miss the famous one, Hong Kong lighting fair autumn edition. Hong Kong Lighting fair is spread on three different floors; small lighting manufacturer, power supply, lighting accessories, parts & components manufacturer were all concentrate on ground floor which I went first. Most of the manufacturer on this floor came from Chinese mainland and they are not famous. the exhibition boots were very simple, the purposiveness of these exhibition boots were plain and simple ,it is just for showing their cheap and fine products to the buyer and settle the small deals . The ground floor of HKCEC is on semi-underground, it's probably because in Hong Kong there isn't enough space and every inch of space is too valuable. In my opinion these area didn't worth too much of my time, so I have decided don't spend too much time at ground floor.

Here is something interested me at G floor:

Spotlight with radiator

LED street lamp

Automatic LED panel production line

Rechargeable light bulb

After I’ve had my lunch, I’ve recovered some strength. Hall of Aurora is the key point of my visit, however I’ve decided save the best for last. Skip second floor I put my foot in the third floor, the exhibition in third floor specialized in advertising lighting, commercial lighting, household lighting. This area was much bigger than ground floor, almost same as a soccer field. As for the exhibitor of this hall, most of them were still from Chinese mainland, after took a look inside the hall I instantly understand the reason. If you have ever been to a Chinese lighting market in Beijing you will fell it very familiar with it. Indeed, the appearance of lamp is very important, some beautiful lamp was breath taking. However the outlook of lamp is very easy to simulate and the creative of appearance will ran out someday, so it's very import that you have some core technology to compete with other manufacturers.

After visited few boots, I have discovered there aren’t any exhibitor shows anything related to their technology such as CRI, to be honest that is a little disappointed to me. So when I saw a manufacturer introduce CRI of their product I instantly decided to have a little chat with their salesman. The exhibitor came from Shenzhen and at the conspicuous place of their exhibition they put two same color board irradiate by two different light, one of the light shows CRI95 and the other one shows CRI 80. As we know CRI represents the average value of R1-R15, and R9 (red) is the hardest to achieve, therefore it's necessary to find out what value of R9. However when I throw this questions to the stuff of this company, the answer of their response quite shock me, all of them seems never heard of R9 value. After a while , one lady seems to be their manager told me the R9 value of their product is 10，anyone have some common sense about CRI knew that if the CRI is 95, R9 can't be just 10, it's even just a simple math question. The unprofessional of their stuff makes me highly adopt the quality of their product. but differ from other buyer I bring my portable  spectrometry with me, after I get permit from their stuff I have tested the light with my equipment, the CRI of their light surprisingly higher than I expect,  looks like they didn't boast about their product . However, most of buyer didn't bring any equipment with them, if they heard such unprofessional answer from sales, they might be walk away and that is such a loss for the exhibitor.

To be honest, I was a little disappointed after I meet such unprofessional exhibitor, however when you throughout the global LED market you could very easily find out the reason, high end LED market still dominate by famous brand, most of the manufacturer that came from Chinese mainland still haven't find out how to ascend to the ranks of high end manufacturer. As far as I am aware. Improve their R&D capability and up rise the professional level of their employee is the first thing they need to do if they wish to being the top of the industry.

For me, the appearance of the lamp is not the only thing I’d like to see in autumn edition, what I really want to see is the dominator of the market, high end lighting manufacturer. After I found myself in the hall of Aurora, I have realized I didn't waste my time at all. There were some specified brand Such as Cree, Citizen, Seoul Semiconductor and LUMILEDS（Philips), they are all of the most attractive exhibitor for me.

At Seoul Semiconductor, there was a new product called WICOP, it is a SMD without package and wire. WICOP with its small form factor provides market leading color uniformity, cost saving at the fixture level with high lumen density and allows design flexibility, it will very much helped to reduces number of LEDs and PCB size. While common chips for high/mid-power go through multiple thermal interfaces between the chip, package and PCB, WICOP enable excellent thermal characteristic with a direct thermal path to the PCB.

Lumileds has been sold by Philips, however it still use chip from Philips. Lumileds specialize in commercial lighting by plus 410nm purple wavelength to excite the fluorescent in the fiber of clothes .

Due to the reason that I have had some appointment with clients from Australia and Europe, I didn’t have enough time go through all of the fair. When I talk to my client they all shows a little disappointed with this year’s Hong Kong lighting fair, they both told me that there weren't any new things that interested them, I think that is probably because more and more business went through Internet nowadays and exhibition start become a second choice for both seller and buyer.