By: Raja Moudgil, Country Manager at Philips Lighting Southern Africa  

In the era of digital transformation, technological trends such as mobility, cloud computing, IoT, and big data analytics is reshaping the operating environment for businesses as well as enabling people to be more productive in their professional and personal lives.

However, these same trends are also influencing the lighting industry. The development of home lighting for instance is being guided by technological evolution along with new research on how light affects us as human beings.

Here are five important trends we see in home lighting:

1.     Taking the best from the past

Warm, glowing, cozy light with the best of modern, efficient lighting technology.

The trend of heritage lighting design is enduring. People value the familiar shapes, the qualities of the warm decorative light from the past and the attention to authentic materials and details, it reflects a sense of belonging, comfort and the care for traditions.

LED vintage bulbs have the classic charm of filament bulbs with the benefits of modern LED lighting. Made of glass and with high-quality finishing they blend into home interiors, looking beautiful on and off. Warm glow dimmable LED lamps, behave in a familiar way as well. They dim down in the same way as the old incandescent bulbs did.

2. Flexible Light

Adaptive lighting that gives maximum flexibility for our multi-faceted lifestyles.

While the outer walls of our homes remain fixed for the most part, inside the home has become a constant evolving and vibrating hub. New family compositions, smaller housing and the many different activities taking place in the same spot, demand flexibility. Spaces need to easily adapt to changing activities, mind-states, and personal preferences.

One way of doing this is by making lighting portable, so you can simply bring the best light to the place you want. Portable lights, like the Philips candles have a rechargeable internal battery.

Another way of addressing versatility is by adjustable and modular lighting. An example of this is The Compendium light range designed by Daniel Rybakken for Luceplan. This elegant beam-like luminaire modestly disappears by day, and comes to life when lit - creating a quantity of light on surfaces, transforming spaces and making them look bigger. There is a floor standing version and a suspended version.

You can create the light you need by rotating parts to make direct light or bounce light of the wall or ceiling to get indirect light. The slim form factor supports compact and decluttered living by taking up a very small footprint.

3. Well-being Light

Light that behaves like Mother Nature to support our health and well-being in a busy and stressful world.

As well as light to create mood and atmosphere, we are learning more and more about the effect of light on our bodies and how it can influence our health.

Broadly speaking, bright light with blue in it, activates us and gives us energy and warm coloured light is relaxing and calms us down. It’s important for people to get enough light at certain times of the day, because this affects our biological rhythms.

Light recipes that support these biological rhythms, or mimic natural light effects can support our emotional and physical well-being. For example, lighting can help you to wake up and go to sleep naturally. It will help get you out of bed the way you like it, helping you start your day feeling refreshed.

In the morning, a light wake-up scene that mimics the effect of sunrise can help you wake up naturally, instead of being woken up by the loud sound of an alarm clock. In the evening, relaxing warm white light helps you to unwind, relax and prepare your body for a good night’s sleep.

4. Experience Light

Light that gives you a new experience of your home, without having to physically change it.

There is a growing need of people to own less and experience as well as share more. Light is intangible, yet can create a rich experience. Light can be a tool of expression in your home – you can use light as a way to express your personality; who you are, what you feel and the stories you want to tell.

Light scenes with warm, cool and soft colour lighting can instantly change the look and atmosphere of your room. Every new season could bring a different feel in the interior with new color palettes and scenes, without bringing new home décor items in your house.

This trend really puts the focus on the light experience itself. The light fixture is neutral and the light brings an adaptable decorative layer of light to your home. This can be achieved by placing or integrating lighting strips and LEDs into objects, furniture and or the architecture.

5. ‘Talk to me’ light

Lighting you can interact with in simple and pleasant ways – to make the most of sophisticated new lighting.

Today, we can already control lights with smart devices by performing functions such as turning the lights on and off or dimming to the desired brightness for a perfect ambiance. For the longer term, companies like Philips Lighting is looking at the future ways we will use and interact with lighting as part of the smart home.

We have been trying out different ways of controlling light and music. One installation we built is called Aura. Many people tried it at light festivals in New Zealand, London and Eindhoven. They could control the light and music by hand gestures – a bit like a conductor of an orchestra. One small movement creates a large reaction.