Lumenpulse Awarded US Patent for Lumensmart™

Lumenpulse Inc., a leading innovator and manufacturer of high-performance, architectural LED-based lighting solutions for commercial, institutional, and urban environments, announced today that it has received U.S. Patent 8,319,452, issued November 27, 2012.

The patent is for the company's Lumensmart™ technology, which will vastly simplify and extend control of LED lighting by allowing LED luminaires to auto-detect and adapt to common lighting control protocols DMX, RDM, DALI, and 0-10V over a wired network.

Lumensmart™ will be implemented across Lumenpulse's extensive product portfolio and will be made available in the future to third-party manufacturers. The technology is part of the company's effort to accelerate the commercial adoption of LED luminaires by reducing costs and complexity of LED systems while increasing the flexibility and energy efficiency associated with retrofit projects. Earlier this year, Lumenpulse received a patent for Lumentalk™ technology, which provides a method of intuitively reading a traditional analog TRIAC dimmer in a digital fashion, enabling digital control of LED lighting over existing AC power lines to maximize savings on costs and energy.

Currently, the four different lighting protocols—DMX, RDM, DALI and 0-10V—add complexity to specifying and installing the right luminaire, while manufacturers have to stock and manage separate LED drivers for each protocol. Because Lumensmart™ works with all four control protocols, it vastly simplifies the specification process since lighting designers and electrical engineers no longer have to specify the exact protocol used by the luminaire.

Lumensmart™ will also increase the flexibility of controllable LED systems because the luminaires will be able to adapt automatically to any control system. Designers can specify and order fixtures without having to worry about potential changes to the control solution that would otherwise necessitate a recall to the factory to effect a hardware change.

"The future of lighting is all about how we control light in the digital era," said Greg Campbell, Lumenpulse CTO and EVP of Engineering. "At the moment, the barrier to elegant and intuitive lighting controls is due to the fragmented nature of available technologies. We are commercializing Lumensmart specifically to increase our ability to control lighting, which is the key to capitalizing on all of the energy saving opportunities that digital LED systems have to offer."

"We believe that lighting controls could be far more widespread if only their specification, installation and use were made simpler. Lumensmart is a very significant step in the right direction," said Lumenpulse President and CEO François-Xavier Souvay. "Lumensmart simplifies things for designers and electrical engineers, who no longer have to specify the protocol used by the luminaire. And Lumensmart simplifies things for manufacturers, who no longer have to stock and manage separate LED drivers for each protocol. Lumensmart brings us one significant step closer to achieving a simple, seamless approach to lighting controls." 

Lumenpulse currently has 25 patents pending for innovations resulting from the company's intensive investment in its R&D strategy. Lumensmart™ is one of a number of innovations developed to accelerate the adoption of controllable LED lighting systems and enable smart energy savings.