LED professional

📋 A new sales playbook is coming to a German lighting leader — the date is already set.

TRILUX will appoint Carsten Beier as Chief Sales Officer on 1 October 2026. He'll lead global sales and steer strategy in national and international markets. Beier brings leadership experience from RHEINZINK (CEO, previously Sales & Marketing) and ~25 years at the Sievert Group, where he led international sales and marketing on the Management Board.

His brief: expand existing markets, open new ones, and align sales with changing customer needs. Another focus is tighter linkage between sales, market and customer development — and further digitalizing sales processes. The role will also build on TRILUX's market position, technology expertise and long customer ties, advance the shift to an integrated solution provider, and leverage modern lighting, sensors and intelligent light management.

Where would you start: market expansion, sales–customer alignment, or sales digitization — and why? Let us know in the comments.

A 600 billion KRW bet to reshape automotive lighting. But what's OPmobility really buying?

OPmobility has signed a final agreement to acquire 100% of Hyundai Mobis' lighting business for an enterprise value of 600 billion Korean won. The deal adds scale, technology, customers, and regions to OPmobility's Lighting division, in line with its diversification strategy.

The Hyundai Mobis lighting unit posted 2.5 trillion KRW in revenue with a positive operating margin in 2025, and runs five plants across South Korea, China, Mexico, and the Czech Republic.

Closing is targeted for H2 2027, pending antitrust and regulatory approvals.

→ More scale and technology for OPmobility's Lighting business
→ A broader customer base and reach across Asia, North America, and Europe
→ Integration aimed at strengthening Lighting performance, with no material impact on deleveraging

What would you prioritize first in an integration like this: manufacturing footprint, customer transitions, or product roadmap alignment?

⚡ ams OSRAM unveils a breakthrough Thin-Film VCSEL platform for AI Scale-Up at ECOC 2026 in Malaga — alongside a connectorized multi-core fiber demonstrator built with ecosystem partner BizLink.

As AI clusters continue to scale, moving data efficiently is becoming as critical as processing it. ams OSRAM's new 850nm Thin-Film microVCSEL arrays bring addressability for highly parallel "wide-and-slow" optical architectures — distributing data across many lower-speed optical lanes instead of pushing more through fewer complex channels, cutting latency, power consumption and system complexity as AI infrastructure scales. The platform has demonstrated error-free 32 Gb/s NRZ operation at approximately 0.25 pJ/bit energy efficiency, with no failures after more than 2,000 hours of reliability testing under elevated junction temperatures and current overstress conditions.

"AI infrastructure requires a fundamentally different approach to moving data, and wide-and-slow optical architectures deliver a step-change in power efficiency, latency and scalability," said Ashkan Seyedi, Vice President and General Manager of Optical Interconnects at ams OSRAM.

The demonstrator combines ams OSRAM's 2D addressable 850nm microVCSEL array technology with BizLink's fiber-array integration and optical connectivity expertise, creating a connectorized multi-core fiber solution optimized for wide-and-slow data communication. It will be shown in a private setting for selected customers and industry partners at the event.

ECOC attendees can learn more at booth #1281 and at the company's presentations at the Global Photonics Economic Forum (GPEF 2026).

IALD Enlighten Americas 2026 — "Into the Sunset" — heads to Austin, Texas from October 15–17 (with pre-conference activities starting October 14), bringing together lighting professionals for three days of workshops, seminars and networking hosted by the International Association of Lighting Designers.

The program covers sustainability and embodied carbon in lighting specifications, lighting control systems and design intent, net zero carbon project design, AI applications in lighting practice, the biological effects of light and circadian rhythms, material interactions with light, entertainment design techniques for architectural applications, and business strategy and firm growth. Steve Lieberman headlines with a keynote on production design for clubs and festivals.

👔 US LED, Ltd. has named global lighting and technology executive Mark McClear as President, with a focus on growing strategic national accounts and bolstering the company's expansion in lighting controls.

McClear most recently served as global CEO of Casambi Technologies, the Finland-based maker of wireless Bluetooth® lighting control systems, after joining as General Manager for North America in 2022 — the same year US LED established a strategic partnership with Casambi to incorporate mesh network capabilities into its products. Earlier in his career, he held executive roles at BIOS Lighting, Seoul Semiconductor, Phonic, CREE and Dow Chemical.

"Mark has led several global lighting and technology businesses through significant growth, and he understands large-scale organizations' needs," said Ron Farmer, founder and CEO of US LED, Ltd. "We value his expertise in taking LED lighting, controls, and project services to an even broader market."

At US LED, McClear will focus on cultivating new enterprise relationships nationwide, drawing on his lighting and controls expertise to help customers managing multiple sites navigate complexity across building types, installation schedules and operating requirements — bringing controls fully into US LED's turnkey model of manufactured products, project management and installation.

Founded in 2001, US LED started in sign lighting — pioneering the industry's first use of white LED modules for nationwide projects — before expanding into commercial and industrial general lighting, now backed by a comprehensive Ten-Year Warranty.

🔬 EMC, RED, ENEC — all under one roof. Why is that a big deal?

Glamox just opened a new laboratory and research facility near its Dobczyce manufacturing site in Poland. It centralizes testing, research and compliance for building, marine and naval lighting — including Ex luminaires and gear built for extreme conditions.

The lab features a state-of-the-art SAC-3 EMC chamber for EMC and radio-related testing, and runs with CTF Stage 3 status, so Glamox can conduct testing within the ENEC certification process in cooperation with certification bodies.

By bringing these capabilities in-house, the team aims to speed product development, tighten troubleshooting, and keep closer control of final compliance — centralized testing and research for a broad product range, in-house EMC/RED testing, and CTF Stage 3 status supporting ENEC cooperation.

If you could add one more in-house test to this setup, what would move the needle most for you? Let us know in the comments.

💡 One supplier, LEDs and boards both — Cree LED's new L2 Solutions.

Cree LED's Level 2 (L2) Solutions feature a range of fully assembled LED printed circuit board assemblies (PCBAs), designed to accelerate lighting product development and simplify supply chains for indoor and outdoor applications. The portfolio lets lighting manufacturers source both LEDs and fully populated LED boards from a single global supplier, reducing sourcing complexity while providing ready-to-integrate solutions.

The indoor linear portfolio includes two board designs and five LED-count configurations based on J Series® 2835 LEDs, available in 5000K, 4000K, 3500K and 3000K with 80 and 90 CRI options. For outdoor applications, five board designs and four LED-count configurations use J Series® 5050 LEDs, available in 5000K, 4000K, 3000K and 2700K at 70 CRI. Standard L2 PCBAs are stocked through Cree LED's established distribution network, making them readily accessible to lighting manufacturers.

By combining LED components and populated PCB assemblies within one portfolio, Cree LED's L2 Solutions give manufacturers a more streamlined path from LED selection to finished lighting product development.

📡 Long-range mesh networking for IoT, standardized — meet Suzi.

The recording of the Alliance's webinar, "Intro to Suzi: A Standardized, Long-Range Mesh Network for IoT," is now available. Held on September 15, the session features Genie Peshkova (President, DSR Corporation), Leslie Mulder (President and Founder, Exegin) and Vladimir Stepanchenko (IoT Business Unit Manager, DSR Corporation), and covers what Suzi is and how it extends reliable mesh networking for IoT devices.

Topics covered include how Suzi delivers extended range, low power consumption and interoperability across residential, commercial and industrial deployments; the different network configurations it supports — standard sub-GHz, dual-band coordinator, and mixed/bridge networks; key technical specifications behind its security, encryption and data rate; and practical guidance for evaluating Suzi for new or existing product designs.

If you're working on connected devices — for the home, for commercial buildings, or for industrial settings — this webinar is worth watching.

Watch the recording: link in comments
Connectivity Standards Alliance

🔬 Researchers at Fraunhofer IPMS in Dresden have developed a full-colour OLED microdisplay with sub-pixels only 2.52 × 2.52 µm in size and a pixel density of up to 5,040 PPI. Philipp Wartenberg, Head of Department IC & System Design at Fraunhofer IPMS, presented the results at Eurodisplay 2026 in Dublin.

What's new: the display is built on a 28 nm CMOS process, so the manufacturing is fine enough for extremely small pixels. Full-color RGBW pixels come from a White Calculation Block on the chip, which adds a white sub-pixel worked out from standard RGB image data. And two driving modes — frame-based for video, memory-based for still images — keep power draw very low when showing static content.

AR, VR and mixed-reality glasses need three things at once: high resolution, a very small size and long battery life. Wartenberg says the new display uses significantly less power than conventional microdisplays while giving ultra-high resolution, making it a good fit for lightweight, battery-powered devices.

Fraunhofer IPMS works with industry from technology consulting and evaluation kits through to pilot production, and can adapt display parameters and interfaces to what a customer needs.

The work was partly funded by the RUBIN EdgeVision project, part of the RUBIN programme of the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR), and by the Backplane project of the Saxon State Ministry for Economic Affairs, Labour, Energy and Climate Action (SMWA).

Where do you expect microdisplays with this pixel density to have the biggest impact first?
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft

😴 Sleep with a light on? Your heart may look different on MRI. How different?

New research analyzing UK Biobank data found that nighttime light exposure above just 3 lux was linked to subtle but widespread heart remodeling. Jin Dai, Wen Dai, Yoriko Heianza and Lu Qi found higher left-ventricular mass, thicker walls, lower myocardial contraction fraction, and worse strain across the ventricles and left atrium. In a larger cohort, higher nighttime light exposure was linked to higher risks of heart failure, atrial fibrillation, myocardial infarction, stroke and cardiovascular death over 8–10 years.

This was an observational study using wrist-worn light sensors over 7 days (2013–2015) and cardiovascular magnetic resonance a median of 3 years later, in 11,017 adults; incident events were assessed in up to 73,286 participants.

The authors report dose–response associations across cardiac structure and function, with part of the link — roughly one-quarter to one-half — mediated by shorter sleep. The findings highlight dark nights and adequate sleep as potentially protective.

Main limitation: this is an observational study, so causality and unmeasured confounding remain possible.

What mechanism do you think best explains the remodeling — sleep disruption, circadian misalignment, or something else? Let us know in the comments.

Study: Jin Dai, Wen Dai, Yoriko Heianza, Lu Qi — European Heart Journal, 09 September 2026