Boston company hopes to bring its HCL to the mass consumer market

A Boston-based vendor of LED bulbs designed to help people sleep and wake has purchased portions of a failed Florida lighting company in hopes of integrating the bulbs into the line of consumer lamps it acquired from the defunct group, and of gaining access to the major retail outlets that the company had been using.

The acquirer, Lucidity Lights, has been offering its Brilli brand of LED bulbs through its own “bebrilli” online website, providing a blueish light for morning stimulation and a reddish one for nighttime relaxation. The lights deliver on the general principles of human-centric lighting (HCL), also known as circadian lighting, in which artificial light mimics the changes in the natural daily wavelength patterns of the sun.

Lucidity now hopes that its pickup of Hialeah, FL-based Evolution Lighting’s consumer business will open a path for the bulbs to the likes of Walmart, Amazon, and Lowe’s, which have been carrying lamp brands that were part of the Evolution stable now belonging to Lucidity.

Those brands include Ellumi, Cresswell, Catalina, Tensor, and Alsy. Lucidity envisions providing those products — such as the Catalina desk lamp (pictured) – with the Brilli bulbs included.

“Brilli’s wellness bulbs and health-oriented light spectrum offered in Evolution lamps and fixtures is an exciting proposition for retailers and consumers alike,” said Lucidity CEO Scott Almquist.

While Lucidity is at the moment in early human-centric lighting talks with major retailers, the company’s founder and chairman John Goscha sounded confident that it will finalize deals, noting that “consumers will be able to buy advanced wellness lighting via major eCommerce and brick and mortar retailers.”

Privately-held Lucidity, founded in 2010, declined to reveal the price it paid for Evolution’s consumer business. It did not acquire the commercial side of Evolution, aimed more at office lighting.

Evolution was owned by Florida private-equity firm Boyne Capital, until Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce foreclosed on a loan to Boyne in March. Evolution, which had already been struggling with its commercial line, ran into more difficulties as the coronavirus pandemic hit its supply chain in China and led to retail shutdowns.

Boyne had itself purchased Evolution out of bankruptcy back in 2010, when Evolution was called Catalina. Boyne changed its name to Evolution.

Lucidity has raised about $90 million in venture funding since its founding. It has absorbed about 40 Evolution employees. Former Evolution CEO Cory Meyer now serves as president at Lucidity, working with Almquist and Goscha.

The human-centric bulbs come in single wavelengths. The frequency is not adjustable, but the bulbs are dimmable. One school of thought in circadian lighting maintains that the brightness is more of a determining factor than the spectra, although not all experts agree. One company, Circadian ZircLight, recently said it identified the precise range of blue wavelengths responsible for circadian impact.

Human-centric lighting competitors across the commercial and residential sector include Signify, Acuity (teamed with Circadian), Healthe, Chromaviso, and others.

A recent LEDs Magazine survey showed that lighting for health is a burgeoning application for the lighting industry. Many early implementations have been in the healthcare field, such as at the ACC Care Center in Sacramento, CA, and at Copenhagen University Hospital’s Righospitalet, where Chromaviso provided the specialty lighting.

MARK HALPER is a contributing editor for LEDs Magazine, and an energy, technology, and business journalist ([email protected]).

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