Tag Archives: lighting controls

Fulham Names Chris Veira to Head Distribution Sales and Harold Thompson to Head North American OEM Sales

Staffing changes come after Fulham achieves record revenue in 2018.

Hawthorne, CA, USA — Fulham Co., Inc., a leading supplier of lighting components and electronics for commercial and specialty applications, today announced that Chris Veira has been promoted from Southwest Distribution Manager to Director of Sales, North American Distribution. Harold Thompson, who has been serving as Northeast OEM Manager, also has been promoted to Director of Sales, North American OEM.

The changes come following the retirement of Richard White, Vice President, U.S. Distribution Channel, and the departure of Mike Bauer, VP of Global Sales, who left for a job outside of the lighting industry. Thanks largely to a commitment to continued innovation in LED lighting, Fulham has just completed 2018 with record company revenue despite market pressures such as increased tariffs and other costs.

During his 13 year career at Fulham, White was responsible for developing business relationships with the top 10 North American electrical and industrial distributors. He also was instrumental in driving Fulham’s e-commerce initiative, including overseeing the company’s Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Industry Data Exchange Association (IDEA) initiatives. During White’s tenure both the annual sales volume through distribution and the number of distributors associated with Fulham grew significantly.

Bauer, who was with the company for nearly five years, contributed to Fulham’s growth in the LED and emergency lighting markets, as well as structuring the global sales organization to maximize these types of product sales opportunities. Bauer, who is based in North Carolina, departed in early January for a role closer to his home.

“During my tenture at Fulham, developing bench strength in all of our departments has been a top priority for me,” said Bob Howard-Anderson, CEO of Fulham. “While Mike and Richard will be missed, we are confident that Harold and Chris will continue to drive our business. It’s never easy to see good people depart, but they left on the high note of record revenue.”

Veira has been with Fulham since 2015, helping build and support the southwestern distribution channel. In his new role he will assume responsibility for overseeing all U.S. sales distribution, including providing sales support and bringing on new distributors.

Thompson has been with Fulham since 2006, helping to expand and service the company’s OEM customers throughout the Northeast. In his new role he will assume responsibility for overseeing all North American OEM sales, including major accounts.

Howard-Anderson is acting as the interim head of Global Sales while a new leader is being recruited. Fulham was founded in 1994 so 2019 marks its 25th year in business. The company now employs more than 500 people worldwide in North America, China, India and Europe.

For more information, visit http://www.fulham.com.

About Fulham
Fulham Co., Inc. is a leading global provider of intelligent, socially-conscious sustainable commercial lighting components and electronics for use in commercial general lighting, parking structure, signage, horticultural, UV and other applications. The company develops and manufactures a variety of award-winning LED and emergency products, lighting controls, as well as legacy products across multiple lighting platforms. Fulham sells its lighting solutions worldwide through original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and electrical equipment distribution channels. Headquartered in Hawthorne, Calif., the company has sales and/or manufacturing facilities in the Europe, China, and India. For more information, visit http://www.fulham.com, @FulhamUSA or @FulhamEurope.

Media Contact:
Andy Firchau
Marketing Manager
Fulham Co., Inc.
Phone: +1 (323) 779-2980, ext. 1252
afirchau@fulham.com

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Fulham Offers EliteControl Bluetooth Mesh LabKit for Fast, Easy Evaluation and Development of Wireless LED Controls

Self-contained EliteControl LabKit makes it easy to understand and test wireless Bluetooth mesh lighting control systems.

Hawthorne, CA, USA — Fulham Co., Inc., a leading supplier of lighting components and electronics for commercial and specialty applications, has just released a new Bluetooth Mesh LabKit to make it easy for OEMs to quickly test and evaluate wireless LED controllers for commercial lighting systems. The LabKit comes ready to use, complete with Fulham’s Bluetooth mesh mobile commissioning application.

The EliteControl Bluetooth Mesh LabKit is a self-contained, 120V unit. The LabKit includes a Fulham LED light engine, a Fulham SmartBridge Bluetooth controller, an EnOcean wireless Bluetooth switch, and an Apple iPad loaded with Fulham’s controller software. Using the LabKit, the user will have a fully operational Bluetooth mesh LED control system in minutes.

With the EliteControl LabKit you can configure and manage wireless control zones. The Fulham controller app allows users to set up a new lighting project that can encompass one or more floors of a building. Zones made up of a group of Bluetooth mesh devices such as fixtures, sensors or switches are used to define controlled spaces on a specific floor or even within rooms. Custom configuration scenarios can be created using the Fulham app and stored for office spaces, restrooms, etc., to simplify controller commissioning.

Once the zones are configured, the LabKit can be used to connect and control the lighting system. Luminaires can be added to each zone as needed and the LED engine will flash to show connectivity has been established. Once connected, the dimmer switch included in the LabKit can be used to test and control the zone lighting infrastructure.

“We wanted to offer a simple Bluetooth commissioning and evaluation kit to show customers how easy it is to set up a Bluetooth mesh control network,” said Alvaro Garcia, Senior Director, Product Management, for Fulham. “The EliteControl LabKit is ideal for understanding Bluetooth mesh for smaller projects, as well as for demonstrating and testing other Bluetooth mesh wireless LED devices.”

SIG qualified Bluetooth mesh is rapidly gaining momentum as the preferred approach for wireless LED lighting control. Bluetooth is an open standard so any qualified device will interoperable. The mesh architecture also is highly reliable with built-in failover and Bluetooth-enabled luminaires can be added or removed without disruption. Bluetooth mesh also is secure and highly scalable so it can connect thousands of nodes, and it provides a full stack communications platform so it can become the infrastructure for the Internet of Things (IoT).

For more information, visit http://www.fulham.com.

About Fulham
Fulham Co., Inc. is a leading global provider of intelligent, socially-conscious sustainable commercial lighting components and electronics for use in commercial general lighting, parking structure, signage, horticultural, UV and other applications. The company develops and manufactures a variety of award-winning LED and emergency products, lighting controls, as well as legacy products across multiple lighting platforms. Fulham sells its lighting solutions worldwide through original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and electrical equipment distribution channels. Headquartered in Hawthorne, Calif., the company has sales and/or manufacturing facilities in the Europe, China, India, and the UAE. For more information, visit http://www.fulham.com, @FulhamUSA or @FulhamEurope.

Media Contact:
Andy Firchau
Marketing Manager
Fulham Co., Inc.
Phone: +1 (323) 779-2980, ext. 1252
afirchau@fulham.com

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Fulham White Paper Describes How Digital Lighting Controls Overcomes Lack of Dimming Standards

Migration to Digital Standards Promises to Simplify Lighting Installation, Add Wireless Communications, and Extend Controls to Other Building Systems.

Hawthorne, CA, USA — Fulham Co., Inc., a leading supplier of lighting components and electronics for commercial and specialty applications, has released a new white paper that discusses the limitations surrounding 0-10V luminaire dimming and the benefits of adopting open digital standards to promote universal lighting compatibility. The white paper, entitled “Next-Gen Digital Dimming and the Shortcomings of 0-10V,” describes the pitfalls of trying to retrofit luminaires with incompatible dimming curves and how the emergence of new digital control and communications platforms extends lighting controls beyond simple dimming.

To date, there has been no universal standard for 0-10V dimming in LED luminaires. As a result, LED drivers from different vendors have different dimming characteristics; a 5V signal could result in a dimming profile of 50, 80, or 30 percent, depending on the manufacturer. Similarly, at 0V some LED drivers will turn power off, while others may dim from 1 or 10 percent. Non-standard dimming drivers also can overload a lighting system, tripping a circuit breaker or creating a catastrophic driver failure.

Lighting control systems such as DALI, Bluetooth mesh, and Zigbee address this lack of common dimming standards by taking advantage of embedded software support in LED components. Intelligent LED drivers can be grouped and programmed to accommodate changes and incompatibilities in dimming profiles, including making changes and upgrades automatically. In addition, polarity is not an issue with digital control systems, which makes digital luminaires easier to wire and scale.

More importantly, where most dimming protocols are unidirectional, issuing instructions with no means to verify response, digital control systems provide two-way communications to show the status and health of each switch, sensor, and luminaire. In addition, lighting manufacturers are finding that digital LED controls lend themselves to wireless connectivity, eliminating the need for extensive retrofits or additional control wiring.

“We released this white paper to show the industry what we see coming in digital lighting and open control standards,” said Russ Sharer, Vice President of Global Marketing for Fulham. “Digital controls not only make it easier to mix and match lighting systems, but ensures faster and more trouble-free installations.”

Fulham has already demonstrated interoperability of digital control systems over a Bluetooth mesh wireless infrastructure, as well as delivering power and control to luminaires using Power over Ethernet (PoE). New programmable, digital LED components that are Bluetooth-mesh and PoE compatible will become commercially available later this year.

For more information and a copy of Fulham’s white paper, “Next-Gen Digital Dimming and the Shortcomings of 0-10V,” visit http://www.fulham.com/resource-center.

About Fulham
Fulham Co., Inc. is a leading global provider of intelligent, socially-conscious sustainable commercial lighting components and electronics for use in commercial general lighting, parking structure, signage, horticultural, UV and other applications. The company develops and manufactures a variety of award-winning LED and emergency products, as well as legacy products across multiple lighting platforms. Fulham sells its lighting solutions worldwide through original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and electrical equipment distribution channels. Headquartered in Hawthorne, Calif., the company has sales and/or manufacturing facilities in the Netherlands, China, India and the UAE. For more information, visit http://www.fulham.com, @FulhamUSA or @FulhamEurope.

Media Contact:
Andy Firchau
Marketing Manager
Fulham Co., Inc.
Phone: +1 (323) 779-2980, ext. 1252
afirchau@fulham.com

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Fulham VP to Address Problems of Lighting Controls and the Need for Interoperable Standards at IoT Evolution

Fulham’s Russ Sharer to Show How Lighting Industry Serves as a Test Case for IoT Interoperability in Presentation on “How Smart Lighting Headaches are Delaying IoT”.

Orlando, FL, USA — For industrial lighting controls to become part of any Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure the lighting industry is going to have to overcome two primary hurdles: 1) lack of intelligence in lighting devices and 2) a lack of common control standards. That’s the primary focus of “How Smart Lighting Headaches are Delaying IoT,” a presentation to be delivered by Russ Sharer, Vice President of Global Marketing for Fulham Co., Inc., at IoT Evolution to be held here January 22 -25.

Fulham is a leading supplier of programmable LED lighting sub-systems and has been working with lighting vendors and OEMs to shape the future of intelligent lighting and IoT. As Sharer notes, there already is a new category of “clever” LED lighting products with on-board intelligence and programmability. To elevate these clever devices to smart lighting requires integration as well as intelligence, providing two-way communications for device monitoring and control. This is where the lighting industry is lagging behind; adopting common communication standards that can integrate current lighting controls into an IoT infrastructure.

“The challenges the lighting community are facing are typical of many industries; how to develop a common set of protocols to integrate legacy smart devices into an IoT infrastructure, said Sharer. “Clearly, IoT is going to be the foundation for building automation, but there are too many proprietary lighting control and communications standards. Today, customers can choose between DALI, Zigbee, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and many more for lighting controls, but there is still no guarantee of integration with a central IoT platform.”

To complicate the interoperability issue, many vendors are creating their own flavors of popular control standards. For example, some vendors are using DALI electrically and signaling, but adding proprietary commands for basic functions. Similarly, Zigbee has multiple variants of commands for when a luminaire is turned “off,” so two luminaires can receive the same signal and one device dims while the other turns off completely, which matters when it comes to energy consumption and extending the life of the luminaire.

“The teething pains of the lighting control industry are the perfect test case for other IoT control applications,” said Sharer. “It shows that without a well-defined set of common control standards, there is no way to implement control using IoT.”

Sharer’s presentation, “How Smart Lighitng Headaches are Delaying IoT,” is scheduled to take place Thursday, January 25, at 10:00 a.m. – #IOTEVOLUTION.

About Fulham
Fulham Co., Inc. is a leading global provider of intelligent, socially-conscious sustainable commercial lighting components and electronics for use in commercial general lighting, parking structure, signage, horticultural, UV and other applications. The company develops and manufactures a variety of award-winning LED and emergency products, as well as legacy products across multiple lighting platforms. Fulham sells its lighting solutions worldwide through original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and electrical equipment distribution channels. Headquartered in Hawthorne, Calif., the company has sales and/or manufacturing facilities in the Netherlands, China, India and the UAE. For more information, visit http://www.fulham.com. (@FulhamUSA and @FulhamEurope)

Media Contact:
Andy Firchau
Marketing Manager
Fulham Co., Inc.
Phone: +1 (323) 779-2980, ext. 1252
afirchau@fulham.com

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