Lighting Industry

According to rebate experts BriteSwitch, commercial lighting rebates remain widely available and financially attractive in 2026, but programs are shifting toward deeper energy savings, controls, and away from legacy fluorescent technologies. Despite high LED penetration, many utilities still view lighting as a cost‑effective efficiency resource and are increasing many incentive levels to drive next‑generation retrofits [...]

  Los Angeles is grappling with a severe streetlight crisis, with about 1 in 10 of its 225,000 streetlights out of service and a repair backlog of roughly 33,000 open service requests, many due to copper wire theft and vandalism. Residents in multiple neighborhoods have been left in darkness for months, with the average repair [...]

  There is a shortage in AI memory chip supply, due to the explosive growth in AI server memory demand. DRAM and NAND prices have surge up to 70%. This memory shortage will not directly constrain basic lighting components (LEDs, drivers, optics), but it is likely to slow availability and raise costs for “smart” and [...]

  By Geoff Marlow, Founder & President, Marlow Advisory Group This article is reprinted with permission from MarlowAdvisoryGroup.com. The lighting industry is at an inflection point. After decades in this business, I’ve watched the same patterns repeat, the same mistakes compound, and the same opportunities slip through our fingers. It’s time we had an honest [...]

  Quantum sensing uses uniquely quantum properties of light and matter—such as superposition, entanglement, and squeezed states—to measure physical quantities (like phase, displacement, fields, or photon number) with sensitivities that can surpass classical sensors. In photonics, new interferometry-based schemes with quantum light can simultaneously estimate multiple parameters of an optical network (e.g., phase shifts and [...]

  Energy efficiency in buildings has become the leading infrastructure priority for corporations, driven by cost pressures, regulatory demands, and decarbonization commitments, according to new survey data from Siemens’ Infrastructure Transition Monitor 2025 study. Organizations increasingly see upgrades to existing building stock—rather than new construction—as the fastest, most financially compelling route to cutting emissions and [...]

  Big picture The Department of Labor’s rule (effective March 11, 2024) replaced the 2021 Trump-1.0‑era independent contractor rule and restored a broader, six‑factor “economic realities” test to decide whether a worker is an employee or a genuine independent business under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The rule makes it generally harder to classify [...]

  Google is promoting a new wave of “agentic commerce,” where AI agents not only answer questions but help shoppers to complete tasks and transactions end to end. Google’s new Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) and related tools are being adopted by major retailers like The Home Depot and Lowe’s to enable more seamless, personalized, and [...]

  The Q4 Pulse of Lighting reports that 2025 was a disappointing, essentially flat year for the lighting industry, with tariffs hurting project activity and masking weak unit volumes behind modest price-driven revenue stability. The quarterly Pulse of Lighting reports are produced by Channel Marketing Group (CMG). For Q4 2025, the Pulse of Lighting surveyed [...]