You wouldn’t buy a Super 8 movie camera for your family, would you? No. You’d likely buy a digital camera or use your smartphone. So, why would you buy outdated lighting technology? Unless you have a specific application that requires high pressure sodium, or you enjoy wasting energy, you probably wouldn’t. Lighting technology is constantly advancing, and new products are always replacing lower performance, high maintenance and energy-hogging products. Embracing the spirit of advancing lighting technology, Access Fixtures lighting specialists compiled a list of the 5 products you probably won’t be purchasing in 2015.
Osram Sylvania Induction Wall Packs
Induction lighting has similar benefits to LED. It is energy-efficient, has product longevity of about 
100,000 hours and high CRI. What is the problem then? While it is a great product, it is a day late and a dollar short. LED wall packs took off before Access Fixtures had the chance to promote induction wall packs with Osram Sylvania induction components. All the attention is on LED and people don’t want to hear about an alternative technology. It like Sony pushing BetaMax when the world was adopting VHS.
High Pressure Sodium Bollard Lights
Using high pressure sodium lamps (HPS) in bollard lights was a no brainer. HPS was the industry 
standard being fairly energy efficient, long life and low cost. The main drawback was extremely poor color rendering, 20 CRI, which was in many instances an acceptable tradeoff. Now, it makes more sense to use LEDs in bollard lights, LEDs reduce energy use by 70% to 80%, have a 2x to 3x lifetime, and have CRI of 70+. Oh! With falling LED prices, the cost is close to the same. Purchasing an HPS bollard light is like buying a flip phone when you could have a smartphone for the same price.
High Pressure Sodium Decorative Street Lights
In the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a man with a cart yells “bring out your dead,” while a 
hapless soul being put on the cart exclaims, “I am not dead yet.” HPS is making the same claim. For decorative street lights, energy-efficient and long-lasting screw-in post-top LED retrofit lamps are easy to install in existing fixtures and do not require a ballast. LED naturally saves energy, has a longer life, provides superior color rendering, and specified with a low Kelvin temperature can even cast a warm light.
400w Metal Halide High Bay
Producing more light at a higher efficiency, LED high bays are becoming a cost-effective alternative to 
metal halide high bays. Today a 126w LED high bay has a light output equivalent of a 400w PSMH while using only 32% of the energy. Even better the LED luminaire is rated to maintain 70% of initial lumens over 100,000 hours while a PSMH has rapid lumen depreciation and PSMH last only 15,000 hours requiring maintenance. Purchasing a 400w PSMH high bay luminaire would be like buying a black-and-white TV simply because you enjoy watching black-and-white movies.
T12 and T8 Lamps and Ballasts
T12 is dead. Really. T8 lamps and ballasts are losing relevance. Historically, when the lamps and/or 
ballast stopped working or the flickering became intolerable the easy answer was to replace the lamps and ballast. Today twoT8 LED retrofit tube lights cost about the same as two brand name T8 lamps and a ballast. Even better, while the T8 lamps and ballast would have used about 64 watts, the T8 LED retrofit tube lamps would use only 38 watts. Replacing old lamps and ballasts with the same old same old, is like buying a computer with a floppy disc drive. You won’t do it.
What lighting products are best for your application? Contact an Access Fixtures lighting specialist.