Savant and USAI Lighting hosted Azione members today on the first day of its two-day “NYC Lighting Experience & Training” at the Savant Experience Center in SoHo, New York. The event, attended by approximately 22 Azione members, covered some lighting basics, product offerings from Savant and USAI, and a look at the suite of Savant Tools and Control Apps.
“Savant is our second largest vendor, and we have a cherished relationship that is moving us into a category I am tuned into,” said Richard Glikes, president of Azione Unlimited, to open the session. “Lighting is a natural progression for us. Business is going to get tough, and we have a lot of competition, so we need to focus on the thing the big boys in the internet can’t take away from us — physical things such as designing and installing lighting systems.”
Angela Larson, VP of sales operations for Savant, echoed Glikes’s sentiment, explaining that Savant invested in a partnership with USAI — and technical integration into its products — “to give integrators a business model so they can get lighting into their services.”
Larson also pointed out how far lighting has come in recent years. “Lighting was a static experience in someone’s home – that is no longer the case,” she said. “That makes the control of these fixtures all the more important.
“Think about the idea that customers, clients, and lighting designers are thinking about wellness,” she added. “We used to sell convenience and entertainment — to think that we can sell wellness to our clients is an interesting thing.”
The first presentation after the introductions came from USAI Lighting’s director of residential sales Steve Glenn and product manager Greg Barrett. Glenn gave some background on USAI, including that it is a privately owned company that has its products locally designed in New York state. Because they do their own design, they are able to accommodate custom needs in-house.
Barrett then gave a rundown of the key terms to know in working with their product lines — including Classic White, Warm Glow, Color Select/Tunable White, and Infinite Color+. He also gave a “Light Matters” demo that showed the differences in dimming capabilities and warmth light can — or can’t — provide.
He also showed some of USAI’s products, and said that, “Every fixture is designed to allow access from below the ceiling, and is designed with maintenance and inspection in mind.”
Next up was Ian Roberts, director of education for Savant, who showed some of the tools that integrators can use to alleviate some of the pains of spec’ing and ordering lighting fixtures. Savant Tools, which is available on its store website, is designed to help integrators easily spec fixtures. Roberts created a new room as part of his presentation to show how easy it was to navigate the screens and end up with easily shared spec sheets, installation documents, and ISE files, which are needed if you are doing a photometric study.
The day also included a walk though of Savant’s control apps and a tour of the Savant Experience Center.
