Fossil uses Solais' SSL technology to enhance retail watch displays

The Solais VioLight technology uses multiple LED channels to deliver retail lighting with what the company calls color-enhancing technology.

Solais Lighting, a subsidiary of PowerSecure International, has announced that stylish watch-maker Fossil will use the Solais VioLight color-enhancing LED technology for retail store lighting. Solais supplied several Fossil store projects in 2014 and said that the solid-state lighting (SSL) technology will be deployed in all new stores going forward.

Fossil is known for its watches and has evolved to selling a variety of accessories and clothing alongside watches in its growing fleet of retail stores. Enhanced LED-based lighting allows such retailers to increase sales through better product presentation. "We love the crisp, clear way that VioLight [fixtures] light our space, produce a sharper visual and make our product pop," said Amanda Ceja, procurement manager for store design and development at Fossil.

The Solais and Fossil news was released several weeks back, but we wanted to look further into the details before writing about it. The VioLight name and the claims of enhancing the look of retail goods made it seem likely that Solais was using LED or light-engine technology from Soraa or Lumileds. Soraa makes LED lamps and light engines based on violet LEDs with a three-phosphor mix that the company says enhances whites and colors. Philips Lumileds seeks to serve the same application via its CrispWhite chip-on-board LEDs that include a mix of standard blue emitters and other emitters with a chromaticity nearer the violet range.

We asked a Solais representative if the VioLight products use such a readily-available color-enhancing technology. The spokesperson said that Solais had developed its own approach using a proprietary, multi-channel, light-engine design with a mix of different LEDs. The company would not reveal further details beyond saying that VioLight can "fine-tune the effect to the desired light output."

At the moment there is little about VioLight on the Solais website beyond a blog post published last October. Apparently the company will offer VioLight as an option across its product line of directional LED replacement lamps and track heads.

"With its outstanding color saturation and ability to broaden the recognized color palette under the color spectrum, VioLight technology registers not only all of the primary colors but the pastels as well, turning on hues in Fossil watches and leather products that hadn’t stood out under standard LED technology," said Sam Newberry, PowerSecure Lighting’s senior vice president of sales. "Available in 17W, 1450-lm, 22W, 1850-lm and other versions, the families of LED fixtures incorporating VioLight technology additionally feature Solais’ exclusive Luxiance active-cooling technology to support superior life, light output, and performance while being fully dimmable."

"Our watches look great under glass with VioLight [fixtures] lighting them and our designers love the new lighting layout, color, and brightness," said Fossil's Ceja. "These products didn’t really pop under our old lighting, but VioLight technology defines colors and details in their truest sense, drawing attention to the products."