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Lighting Controls Podcast
With Greater Power Comes Greater Responsibility with Kyle Hemmi
00:51:44
Why are lighting controls still such a tough sell? Kyle Hemmi from CLEAResult joins the podcast t...
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- [00:00]
Kyle Hemmy
The opinions expressed are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the sponsors, advertisers or presenters. Advertising does not imply endorsement by the sponsors and presenters.
- [00:16]
Podcast Host 1
Hey guys and welcome back to the Lighting Controls Podcast. We have another fantastic guest for you today. But before we jump into the conversation, let me take a minute to remind you. Today's episode is presented by the lca,
- [00:27]
Podcast Host 2
the Lighting Controls Academy and it's financially supported by the national association of Innovative lighting distributors or Nailed. Check out our website lightingcontrolspodcast.com Got all of our episodes and a whole lot more including information about the NAILED lsc. If you want to learn about getting certified in lighting controls but also huge shout out to our sponsor for this episode. We cannot do this without your support MaxLite and your C Max lighting controls platform. If you're unfamiliar with with the brand MaxLite or the lighting controls platform, C-Max, I highly recommend you go to MaxLite.com CMax to check it out because it's a really interesting innovative solution for lighting controls and they're really trying to stay ahead of all of the changes that are happening in lighting and lighting controls. They're trying to provide a very versatile system that really hits on a lot of the issues that are happening in especially the rebate side side of things. But it's a patented USBC port they have on their controls ready fixtures that allows you to just quickly swap in and out product or even just kind of lay in the foundation and then decide later on what you want for your lighting controls to do. And they can go from basic all the way up to networked lighting control solutions. It's really worth checking out. So go to maxlite.com CMA X to learn more. But let's get into the conversation. So today we have Kyle. Kyle, do you mind just giving us a quick breakdown on who you are and what you do?
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Kyle Hemmy
Sure. Kyle Hemmy I work with clear result in essentially the utility energy efficiency implementation space. Started out in distribution, electrical distribution, did that for about eight years, went and did some graduate work, came back to save the world and have essentially over the past 22ish years been working in this space. You know, didn't like most people, didn't originally get started in lighting. I was an automation specialist but we ended up doing a lot of pulse start metal halide projects and so headed up to a couple of manufacturer trainings and then when I came back and got into the energy efficiency space, the first question I got was anybody know anything about lighting? Because Lighting has been a staple for energy efficiency programs for the better part of, you know, those two decades. So yeah, seeing some changes now. So a lot more focus and energy now on the control side and even into the integration space. You know, as we see lighting activity slow a little bit as things get changed out, the led, you know, there's a little bit less for the programs to do on the, on the fixture lamp side of things. So less, a lot more energy and focus on the control side. So that's where I spend most of my space, my time. Been doing a lot of broader strategic energy management work. But that experience with H Vac, large air handlers, refrigeration, et cetera, you know, really merges in nicely with this push towards lighting and H Vac integration. So that's, that's been interesting and, and helpful. But yeah, going on around 30 years overall, so just trying to bring that experience, trying to get people up to speed, trying to get, you know, more and more momentum behind controls and, and some of these other efforts.
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Podcast Host 2
Well, so, I mean, thanks for coming on. I mean, it's great to have people like you who have all of this experience and visibility to areas that we don't necessarily have. And so, you know, from your perspective, what are you seeing are the major friction points for lighting controls adoption?
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Kyle Hemmy
Yeah, I wish I, I could say that they're different, you know, than they were kind of at, at the inception. I remember we, we ran our first controls only program back around 2016, you know, right when this whole NLC QPL thing was kind of happening. And so there weren't a lot of products in the marketplace. A lot of vendors were struggling to get product out the door around that time frame. So, you know, it was a real struggle just getting product. And then it was a struggle educating the market and kind of getting customers and contractors comfortable, but also making sure the incentives are there to kind of make the value proposition, you know, strong enough to incentivize that. And again, you know, not much has changed. You know, there are a lot of regions where incentives because of rates and because of where, you know, costs for electricity and, and that are, you know, there's, they're not able to offer like huge incentives like we saw in the Northeast, Northwest and a few other places where you can just kind of really put your foot on the scale and, and create a value proposition that delivers paybacks and the, you know, the six month, 12 month time frame, you know, and so we're still struggling to, you know, make that value proposition whole, you know, we still have resistance with your traditional lighting maintenance type contractors and, and escos that, that make up the bread and butter of, you know, the engine behind programs. So we're still not seeing all of them get on board. Customers are resistant. You know, they want, they want lights that turn on and turn off and, and provide light for the most part. So convincing them of all the additional benefits and flexibility of controls is, you know, an uphill battle. And if it has a, you know, three, four plus year payback and, and so there's still a lot of work to do just to get contractors comfortable so that they're pricing it competitively and not, you know, trying to cover them, cover the extra installation costs that, you know, may be perceived, that may be real in some cases, but, you know, there's still a lot of resistance and you know, codes really haven't been, I would say that impetus. Granted, there hasn't been a ton of activity in codes in the vast majority of the U.S. you know, we see pockets, you know, where they're really pushing the envelope in the Northeast and the Northwest California. But those other pockets are right, you know, a few of them are still batting with, you know, Ashrae 2007 or 2010 or, you know, really getting out there, you know, but, but not, not many like in that ASHRAE 2022, IEC 2024 type ballpark. So, and even then on the retrofit side, you know, you don't see a lot of teeth I guess kind of on the, on the, you know, on the kind of the regulatory code enforcement side of things that, you know, are really, you know, checking like where 50% of my systems change out were. And so, you know, we just don't see a lot of activity on the code forcing a lot of activity on, you know, the retrofit side of things. Obviously new construction is a little bit different and programs are set up to kind of capture that. But yep, yep, still a lot of uphill battles. And then yeah, if you want to talk to them about integration, you know, they're just, we're struggling just to get enough folks out there that understand the value proposition of lighting, can handle it can do proper, you know, control narrative sequence, you know, specification and setup. There just really aren't. If there's a handful of those people in each market, there's, there's often nobody, you know, in a lot of these markets, especially as you get more rural, that that can do, you know, true integration with H VAC systems. So excited about some of the stuff that's happening on the Bluetooth side with that, but we can talk about that a little bit later.
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Podcast Host 1
So, based on your experience, Kyle, where, what just starting with the customers, what is sort of that biggest hurdle that you're seeing with customer adoption? Is it strictly for some people an ROI payback? Is it, you know, fear of adoption from previous failed efforts? What, what is the biggest hurdle you're seeing with customers?
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Kyle Hemmy
Yeah, I would say the biggest hurdle is cost, you know, because that, that's one that everybody's looking at. And again, if you don't align the incentives, you know, with, you know, a competitive bid, it's just not going to add up in most, most markets. So again, that's kind of like a filter. So if it doesn't pass through that portion of the filter, then you don't even get to the point where, you know, you're really able to talk about the value proposition and what it means. And you know, as you get into smaller medium sized businesses, you know, they're trying to keep the lights on, you know, they're trying to get employees paid. And, and it's that same person often that's doing that, that, that is tasked with taking care of these systems. So they're, they are hesitant, there is a lot of resistance and putting in something they don't understand. And you know, those experiences that may have had with, you know, your, your standard standalone type, you know, wall vacancy or, or ceiling mounted dock sensor, you know, some of those experience do live. It only takes a couple of bad experiences, you know, to kind of drown out, you know. Yeah, lots of good experiences because as you know, the good experiences. What, what is a good experience in lighting? It's, it's, it's often nothingness, it's often,
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Podcast Host 2
you don't notice it, you don't know
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Kyle Hemmy
it's there and it's doing what you want. So you don't register the, the, the 2030, you know, 363 good experiences you had that year. But those two days that you had a problem with that ox sensor or that switch, those stand out in your mind. So it's a hurdle.
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Podcast Host 2
We are dealing with a huge amount of confirmation bias in our industry when it comes to whether lighting controls work or not. And it's almost like we need to have a flawless entry when we're trying to show somebody the capabilities of lighting controls. And so, you know, what are the most common issues that you hear about that, the bad experiences that people have had?
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Kyle Hemmy
I mean there's the typical kind of my lights went out, you know, when I Didn't want them to go out. Sure. So, you know, false triggers, You see the, the full run of the mill things like again, I had a couple projects like earlier in the year where switches weren't pairing properly. So, you know, that one stands out in my mind and they just didn't have, you know, proper control over their lights. You know, daylighting can be, can be a challenge, you know, especially in retrofit scenarios if they're not properly set up, you can get some disparity between groups, etc. That creates kind of an awkward feel. So that's one that I've, I've bumped into a lot. But you know, it's really kind of on that, on that occupancy side. And then I would say, you know, perhaps not completely related to the control aspect of it, but it's too bright, it's not bright enough. And in our business where you're shifting from one technology to another, there's so much that's changing. And it could be the color temperature that's really triggering this feeling that they have that something's not right. And again, if you're not, if you're not watching that lumen package, if you're not, you know, a lot of the products that go out the door now are, are color and water. It's selectable. If you're not getting it in that right lumen package for a particular application, you can, you can overshoot. You know, I still walk into offices that have 60, 70. I saw one the other day that was 80, 80.1. I remember it. 80.1 foot candles on a desk.
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Podcast Host 2
Wow.
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Kyle Hemmy
Just a little, just a little bit too much. You know, even for our, the visually impaired, it's just a combination of things. And yeah, for them, again, they just know that there's too much light, there's not enough light. It feels different, it feels weird or it's, it's acting strange because it's turning on and off or. So again, there's, there's lots of potential failure points. Some are directly related to the control, some are indirectly related because maybe it did get task tuned properly.
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Podcast Host 2
Right.
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Kyle Hemmy
But a little bit of everything. But you know, in terms of the horror stories or bad controls experiences, the one that pops up probably the most is just false triggering and, you know, occupancy sensors, not, not doing what they're supposed to be doing.
- [15:34]
Podcast Host 1
Well, you know, it's funny. We are creatures of habit, right? So you mentioned it being too bright or too dim. And a lot of times, or even like you said, Color temperature. It may have been that someone was sitting in their office with what might have been the inappropriate color temperature the whole time. And then you do this retrofit and you drop the lumen package down because it was bright before. And you adjust the color temperature to something that is more in line with what they should be doing in that space. But you get someone who's been working in that space for so long and they were so used to that that now they don't like the new setting they've been put in and they feel like they have no control over this at all. Even if they have dimming capability, they now have zero control over this environment. And that can sometimes lead to, you know, people having what they feel is unfortunately a bad experience. So I guess the human factor here is so important. You know, we're all so used to lighting controls and understanding it and knowing that these things take time sometimes to get right. It's never going to be perfect day one. Right. We tell people that all the time. Live with it for a month. Write down every issue you have, we'll come back, we'll reprogram, we'll adjust with you. It's never going to be right day one. But how do we explain that to people to start to get more people to buy in, Understand that it is a leaving a living, breathing entity and it is never going to be perfect on day one.
- [17:03]
Kyle Hemmy
Just like you did. Yeah. You know, when I work, I go out and I do a lot of training, you know, with our, our individual program teams and outreach teams all the time. And I mean, to some extent, I mean, I like to lead with the flexibility of these systems, especially when you have a control system present, just as, you know, and, and that's a good lead in with the contractors that are doing the work and also the outreach people when you're talking to customers and, and again, lead, like you said with, look, these systems are flexible. You know, we want to, we're going to try to, and then collect the necessary information, like have that conversation beforehand. So it's not just, you know, what do you have and what am I going to put in?
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Podcast Host 1
It's.
- [17:59]
Kyle Hemmy
Yeah, what do you have? Oh, let me take a light reading and actually see kind of where you're at foot, candle wise. Let me make note of the color, temperature and kind of how it's, it may vary from space to space to space. You know, basic. You know, again, you've got a big warehouse, you go into the office, you know, it looks more like, you know, the warmer Color temperature. And you go out into the warehouse, it's, it's, it's, you know, cooler color temperature. Like, you know, Webster's background's a little bit on the cooler side there. So you make note of that. You have those conversations. I like. I mean, contractors are doing this naturally because just from a supply side, having wattage selectable, color selectable products gives them some flexibility. They can put, you know, one product in a truck and they can probably take care of most of those needs. So having that, having that discussion, asking the customer like we're seeing X, you know, on the foot, candle front, how does it feel to you? Do you feel like it's too bright or not bright enough? You know, what, what have you, what have the other occupants said, you know, how do they feel and get a good feel for, you know, how they feel about their space? And then, you know, if they're perfect, if they like it just like that, then you try to replicate that and then utilize the settings to kind of tweak things as needed. But, you know, I mean, it really is about having that conversation. You're not going to be able to keep everybody happy. Often we're talking to the decision makers or the maintenance manager or the owner, and we have to start there, you know, but there are 10, 20, 50 other occupants in the room, and we try to get a feel for that. Gather as much information as you can.
- [20:02]
Podcast Host 2
Well, I imagine there's, there's still some lost in translation there too, because, you know, I just had a conversation recently with somebody who was convincing me that LEDs were too bright. And it turned out that her experience was that she was dealing with cool color temperatures the entire time. And so brightness in her mind was color temperature, which is a common conflation that people make.
- [20:27]
Podcast Host 1
Yep.
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Podcast Host 2
So I imagine that it's hard to kind of tease out when you have 50 people in a room what they're talking about.
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Kyle Hemmy
Yeah, that term in particular is, is problematic. You know, in the training I just did last week with our program team, we had that pause moment where I said, well, what do you mean by brightness? You know, because brightness can be associated with those cooler color temperatures. And, you know, there is a perceived brightness as increase as color temperature does rise, you know, regardless of the light level. But I have a slide I like to use, which, you know, kind of starts, you know, at 80%, you know, 20, 2500 Kish. It moves, you know, up, up the gradient to 90%, you know, in that 3500, and then it bounces over here at full power. And if you're pulling both those levers, you know, at the same time, you can really have an impact. And, and just being able to see that on the screen and seeing that dramatic difference and with minor changes in overall light level going from 80 to 100% is not that big of a change. It really is. Yeah, the color temperature really plays a big role and function in there, you know, especially if you were. Your surfaces are amenable to gravity, you know, you have those lighter color surfaces, you know, but even any service you know will pick up differences going from 2500 all the way up to like 5000. But yeah, it's, it's a lot, It's a lot talking to our outreach staff. It's a lot talking to your typical lighting contractor even just to grasp, you know, the overall, you know, basic. What are pretty basic design elements but controls, color selectable wattage, selectable LEDs have kind of opened up Pandora's box. Whereas before, you know, they would go in and put, you know, 28 watt lamps where there were 25 watt lamps, and they were, they would just change to that one available product. But now.
- [22:56]
Podcast Host 2
So, I mean, it sounds like the best solution, at least at this level. You know, when we're talking about specification grade, we're talking about the ability to really, you know, pre select and, you know, diagnosis and provide something that, that really meets the needs. But in this kind of environment, it sounds like giving more flexibility is a much better key instead of, you know, we've heard a lot of people talking about education. I think that's still important, but I think it's not just education, but it's also the tools that we're giving to people to be able to provide adequate lighting for spaces and adequate controls. So I think, you know, maybe something that, that we need to evaluate is how we are providing controls and what tools those are being like, what tools people are able to utilize in this environment.
- [23:52]
Kyle Hemmy
Yes. And just understanding the, the reality that you're not going to have a designer or even an installer with adequate design experience, that they're going to be able to take that customer through a proper design or specification process. This is, you know, one for one, get them some light, get in.
- [24:22]
Podcast Host 2
Yeah.
- [24:23]
Kyle Hemmy
Get out. And so it's the training process to kind of emphasize why it's important. It's giving them some basic design understanding and elements to just put in their toolbox. And then it's like you said, familiarizing them enough with those settings and the dials that they can Turn to kind of maybe not get it perfect, like museum grade, you know, design quality, spec quality, class A office quality, but get it closer than what it would have been without any of those tools and any of that training and understanding. But it's. There's still a, you know, a significant void or lack of that design, overall design expertise. And then likewise, there's an unfamiliarity with how to turn all those dials within a control system. The switches, they get, you know, low, medium, high, you know, 3,000, 3,000, 500, 4,000. That's pretty straightforward. So build off that and just know that the controls on top of something like that or controls where you don't have color wattage selectable really give you the ability to, you know, at least dial in the proper light levels.
- [25:58]
Podcast Host 1
Yeah. And I would say, man, it really speaks to the role of the lighting designer here, right? Like bringing in someone who can assist you with your design and help you understand color, temperature and all of that. And not every project has the money for a lightning designer. And I, I understand that, but that doesn't mean you can't bring in the right people. There are. The reps are always available. There are plenty of people who you could bring in, even if it's a. For a single visit at likely no cost, because they're going to assist you with the product selection and they're hopefully going to see the sale from that. So they're going to come in as part of that team. So whether you're the contractor or whoever, you know, there's no reason you can't engage the. Your local distributor or the rep and bring them in to assist you with your design. And I think, unfortunately, the big box stores have played a big part in some of the issues that people have. Right. The general. Everything is. It's cool white, warm white. There's a lot. Oftentimes you can't find all the CCT information on the lamp boxes. You get cool white, warm white. And now everything is fixture and color selectable. And people don't necessarily know what they're looking for. They could do so much of a better job. Just simple, you know, on the. This color temperature is ideal for X, Y or Z. This is ideal for this or this. I can't tell you how many kitchens I walk into. And they have white cabinets and white subway tile, and they put in 2,800 or 3,000 Kelvin lamps because they like warm white through their entire house or through their entire office and space. And then you go, yeah, but your white cabinets are yellow like did you not? Your white tile is yellow. It's, they're supposed to be white. And so just understanding those things. So knowing that, you know, a lot of this unfortunately does stem from those sort of things. How, you know, how do we make sure that people understand that there are these additional resources out there to them that they, you know, if they don't have the money for a designer, they can engage with very easily at probably minimal to no cost.
- [28:03]
Kyle Hemmy
Yeah, in essence, that's kind of my job. That's what I'm doing day in and day out. So I can't get, we can't get, like you said, a designer on every job, but we can get, as you mentioned, just leveraging that supply chain, leveraging the manufacturers, leveraging their agencies who are in essence the horsepower in any given market. That's where the bulk of your lighting professionals reside. Within the larger kind of agencies. There are some distributors and other organizations that have that area of expertise and we're going to bump into designers on some of the bigger projects. And so we leverage those, we take advantage of those to have those contractors kind of learn and see that. But everywhere else it's about trying to pair the experts in the market up with your bread and butter horsepower, lighting trade allies in that market and training, training, training, training, training. So I see the lighting supply chain as, as that training channel. It's, it's trying to get the message out, trying to work with those individual contractors, work with them, at least work with them on one project and, and so that they can see through experience. It's, it's better than trying to beat it into their heads over a two hour training class, you know, outside of that space. So it's leveraging that, that supply chain, those experts as a vehicle to train and educate and try to pull up that understanding, pull up that level of knowledge. And then programs kind of have that role too. So building that into your program budget, making sure there's money in there for training, making sure there's money in there to have more engineers go out and work with your trade allies on individual products projects, going out and checking kind of pre and post, you know what those outcomes are, getting feedback from customers. Maybe there's a couple of trade allies you need to work with a little bit more because we've had a couple of bad outcomes. So, you know, training, training, training, qa, QC feedback surveys, and then training and training some more to address the problem areas that are popping up. And again, each market's different. Each group of trade allies, each program's Different. Each state is different. I mean, if you could, yeah.
- [30:52]
Podcast Host 2
If you could put a number to how many hours of training would be an average for a group to be able to kind of go from lack of awareness to being able to at least provide some level of quality service, what would you give for a number?
- [31:11]
Kyle Hemmy
I don't think there's a number in terms of that first training, because I think this is an iterative process. And if you don't connect the classroom with the field and allow them or give them the ability or kind of force the issue to where you're saying, when we go out and do trainings, I mean, like anything beyond a half day and your typical contractor is they're checked out, they're thinking about their projects, you're gonna lose them. Sure. So I would say kind of a, it's, it's about a half day up front, you know, maybe three and a half to four hours of kind of intensive. Let's get these basics out of the way. And then it's kind of working with them in the field, making sure that you connect that to actual projects and making sure you get your outreach person out with them. Because when you're training, they're coming up with ideas and they're saying, oh, I've got this, you know, outpatient hospital type facility or I've got this school district, I'm working. Can you come out with me? And let's, let's, let's talk through this and let's apply some of these principles. But then I have, I think you have to bring them back for like another half day for, for part two. Now let's, let's, let's bring this all back. Let's, let's talk about what you've learned and let's take it one step further because four hours, I mean, you're probably just trying to get the nomenclature, you're trying to answer those brightness questions. You're trying to just get the basic stuff out of the way and give them the foundation, and then you need to connect it with the field and then you need to bring them back and reinforce it with at least like another half day training. But ideally they would get a good three, four days, you know, but not a lot of people are gonna carve out that time or carve out that budget necessary to do that. But that would be ideal.
- [33:18]
Podcast Host 1
So, so training is something we talk about a lot on this show. And, and you know, you made me think, is it, are we doing a bad job in general as an industry with training Are we not providing enough resources to people or are we over complicating it? Are we neglecting those initial four hour sessions to really give people the basics, the level one upfront? Are we just looking at people saying here's a two day, three day, four day class, come learn everything. And we're just completely overwhelming them to a point that they're, this isn't for me, it's too much, I'm scared of it. So do we need to take a step back and simplify things to engage people and get them involved first?
- [34:02]
Kyle Hemmy
Yes. I realized there were two questions and
- [34:08]
Podcast Host 1
there were, it's all good,
- [34:12]
Kyle Hemmy
but I don't think we're doing enough first. So the magnitude of the problem, the magnitude of the void or the shortage is so large that we could spend half our time out there just doing training and not sales. But the reality of the situation is most lighting professionals are out there spending 95 plus percent of their time selling, right?
- [34:45]
Podcast Host 2
Yeah.
- [34:45]
Kyle Hemmy
And only a small, very small, and then that's just a small percentage of a small percentage of the workforce that actually has that goal and function. So no, I mean for the most part I think we're undershooting and we're just trying to go in there and we bring in a demo kit and we show them for 30, 40 minutes and then we sell them the rest of the time. And we're not really focusing on what their needs are or what they, they really need to know or even checking with them. Like we even, are we even on the same page with this understanding of brightness and you know, do you have access to IES recommended light levels for all these spaces? Do you know the difference between this space and this application, this task, what age has to do with it, yada yada, yada. But so I think undershooting most of the time, I, I, we don't have enough resources out there and then sometimes we do go out and we over complicate it and we try to shove too much down the throat of someone who's not quite ready for it. But you know, the, the experience I had with the nail training not too long ago, I think that was just right. I mean those people were ready for it. Those people were able to absorb two or three days of training and they were the people who needed it and could go out and do that. It was well suited to their needs. But I think we miss the base. A lot of times we have kind of these one size fits all and that's not just at the association level. Like if you Go to the individual manufacturers. It's kind of a, a one size fit all. Here it is, it's on my website, you know, but is it someone's job, Is it everybody's job to train? I think it is an 80, 20 rule. Like we think about things where we're supposed to spend like 60, 70, 80% of our time planning to get a good 20% delivery. If we're not out there getting people on a level where they can make decisions and good design decisions and apply the product, we're kind of setting ourselves up for failure. A lot of times we want to sell a lot of that product, but if we're putting it into the hands of someone and not giving them the tools they need to properly apply it, we may be cutting into our sales. So, you know, maybe we need to spend at least 10% or 12% or 15%. That little bit of extra effort up front will pay dividends over time. It's like what I think about when we're working with a specific lighting trade ally in a program. I can build them up now and granted it may take me 10 hours or 12 hours of my time, but as soon as I get them out the door and they're out there doing work for the program, they're the horsepower, they're the engine. And if they're doing a 10% or a 15% better job on the next 85 projects that they do in the program, that's a win. They just saved me. Otherwise I would have been spending 20, 30, 40 hours of my time kind of fixing or cleaning up or trying to go out and get more projects. But it's really spending that upfront time necessary to get people where they need to be and the understanding because they're gonna, and it's the same for a customer. You're getting them up to speed. They're gonna go out and do more and more projects. They're gonna go out and do, you know, more and more wings or more and more schools in their school district. But taking the time to really work with them and have that good experience up front, that's, that's where we really seen the most success. From a control standpoint. It's really working closely with one or two, like what I would call kind of champion controls contractors. And once they get it, once they fully understand it, once they get really comfortable with it, they go out and drive like a lot of extra, you know, a lot of additional projects. You know, they're doing 60, 70, 80% of their projects with controls as opposed to 6, 7 or 8. And so we need to take that capacity, workforce development perspective here because we are, we're trying to go too fast, we're trying to sell too much too, too early. And we, we've kind of left a lot of people stranded back here on the boat dock that aren't quite ready to take that step. And that's both on the, on the contractor side and the customer side to an extent.
- [39:40]
Podcast Host 2
Yeah, yeah. Well, we're almost out of time here and, and I think that this really, it hits on a great message for our industry because of the fact that there's a lot that's going on in our industry and we, like you said, we do kind of charge forward without making sure everybody else is, is on board. And so I'm just going to try to package this, this conversation that we had here because I think it's, it's critical for people to understand the problem we're having. And really the, the problems with lighting controls, like you said, haven't changed. It's still the same issues, false offs, daylight intensity values not correct, people having a perception of incorrect color, temperature, brightness or inaccessibility to the switches in general. So I think, you know, we still have those issues. So the fact that we still have those issues that have always been here means that we really haven't corrected the core issue of lighting controls from a end user standpoint. Now granted, we've certainly done a lot of innovation and false offs are less frequent. But, but again, it's that confirmation bias. Once it happens, that's it, you've lost the opportunity because of that mistake. And sometimes it's, you know, really sloppy, gross negligence almost where, you know, somebody puts a PIR only sensor in a bathroom at the entrance. And I actually just had this experience and took a picture of it. It was a wall box sensor, PIR only for an entire shared restroom. And, and the lights clicked off on me while I was using it. So, you know, these still happen on a regular basis. And part of that issue is knowledge education. But the other thing is the tools available to the people we're trying to educate. So trying to give them the resources. I'm sure that that wall box sensor had been used a million times in other places. And the contractor just went, yep, this is perfect. I've used this again and again. It's tried and true. And yeah, it probably is fine for 90% of the time and then that 10%. Okay, well, sucks to be you, but you know, having better accessibility, better tools for those people to really utilize alongside that education. And I think again, to your point, education is not sufficient alone. And so yeah, we could have a 10 day long training available, but who's going to sign up for that? Who's going to actually take the time to dedicate their, you know, unbilled time to take that. But also, you know, we need to have that sort of practicum baked into education. We need to give people the opportunity to really test out what they learned and then come back and reinforce and learn more. And so I think those two things we really do a disservice of. We don't, you know, we do a lot of education, we like to dump knowledge onto people, but we don't give it to them in an accessible way that works for them. We give it in an accessible way that works for the instructors. And so I think something that we could do a lot better is meeting people where they're at with education and helping and kind of facilitating rather than instructing. And you know, I think if we have the right tools and the right education, from what you're, you're saying, we can absolutely go back and help those people who got left behind and bring them forward and maybe even address some of these issues that have always been, and kind of help people look at lighting controls with less of a, you know, disgruntled feeling and more of a, I mean, ideally an indifferent feeling would be best because if you don't have an opinion about your lighting controls, then they're probably working just fine. So, you know, I think ultimately we need to get end users to that point. Excite is great. I have nothing against excited. I would love if everybody was excited. But you know, that's why I have a job, because it's very few people who get excited about lighting controls. So. But yeah, I mean, having people like you out there helping move that needle, at least, you know, we do need that education. But I think again, we need to do a better job of just improving how we educate and what tools we use in that education.
- [44:32]
Kyle Hemmy
Yeah, it's even more important now because to some extent, yes, the problems are the same, but we're actually providing them with more tools or more weapons. So there's an even greater danger with additional flexibility, with additional power becomes greater responsibility. So there's even more of a need, more of a mandate that we need to take to go out there because these systems are more powerful, they can do more things, but you can also point them in the wrong direction and come up with even worse outcomes because there's so many more dials and settings and things like that. So we need to again make sure we arm them, start slowly work with them and really go on a journey with them hand in hand. You gotta look at it that way. You gotta have that picture almost like a, maybe a bad analogy, but like a, a child, like walking with them through their adolescence into those teenage years where they're gonna do some crazy stupid stuff and then over here finally getting them into adult and they're out there on their own kind of delivering these projects. But we need to be thinking about each and every one of our from a program standpoint, each and every one of those trade allies that participate in our program. And there's another kind of mandate or important aspect. As saturation starts to happen and these lighting contractors see fewer and fewer projects, we're also, you know, on our end trying to help them see the future and see the possibilities of increasing their service levels or changing their business models to something that's going to be compatible with the future state. You're just not going to see that many projects. So what can you do? You know, back in the day you used to have lighting service contracts where you go back out and you would group a lamp or well, probably don't need to go out and group re lamp. So can I help, you know, keep those controls properly commissioned? Can I go in and regularly address just like an H vac contractor comes in and changes the filter, make sure the condensate line is cleared out. Do that with your lighting control system, do that with your lighting systems, Be that. And then as we move into this integration and all those other benefits and everything, it's going to happen. It's a very slow process that's moving very slow, especially with the headwinds we're seeing right now in the industry. But thinking about that, working towards that as a business, thinking about that as a business model and building those capabilities again, taking yourself in an integration sense, taking yourself from childhood into adolescence, into adulthood in a 3, 4, 5 year time frame, when these things are likely to start getting more traction and you can start building business models around those types of services and moving from say just a lighting contractor to a full blown energy services contractor or a full blown service provider on some of these other fronts like security or whatever it is you, you feel like you want to get into or move into. So we've got that mandate, we've got that, we've got to be that impetus, at least programs, industry professionals, we've got to be the there to kind of help those folks through their own specific journey. And if, if they're not successful, we're not successful to a great extent. So there, there are our employees like our customers, not just directly, but they may just be our internal customers, etc. But we have to help them succeed. And in turn, that'll, that'll help us and our respective organizations succeed as well, if they're successful. Yep.
- [49:05]
Podcast Host 1
Well, Kyle, and thank you so much for your conversation today. It's been absolutely fantastic. And you've reiterated the fact that we need to do a better job with training as an industry and we need to think about simplifying things and taking it back to basics. You know, I mean, even if you think about some of the simplest things, forget the entire building, interior, building, exterior. More oftentimes a lot of larger cities have mandates and have, you know, laws requiring what is required for the types of lighting, color, temperature, et cetera. But there are a lot of smaller cities and areas where they don't. And we see a lot of glare bombs, a lot of wall packs, so different color, temperature from building to building, a lot of really dark spots, really bright spots, shadow area. Like there's just, there's so many differences. And so just doing a better job of getting to the general public and providing these simple resources which could be as easy as going around to these different, you know, sort of market areas and saying having these sort of free, it could be an hour, right? One hour training on types of exterior lighting and things like keeping it really simple, but engaging with them to train them on how understanding color, temperature, intensity, perceived brightness, you know, how to properly install the lighting so you're not blinding everybody as they're driving by or walking down the sidewalk or there's so much more that we can be doing. And you really just sort of reiterated that to us that as an industry we do a pretty decent job, I think, about professional continuing education, but not breaking it down to the end user and really bringing it back to the beginning. So thank you for really driving that home for us today. Really appreciate your time. I will. I will close this out and remind everyone. Today's episode is presented by the lca, the Lighting Controls Academy.
- [50:55]
Podcast Host 2
And it's financially supported by the national association of Innovative Lighting Distributors. Or nailed. Check out our website, lightingcontrolspodcast.com got all of our episodes and a whole lot more, but also huge shout out to our sponsor for this episode. We cannot do this without your support. CMAX Lighting Controls platform from Max Light. It is an excellent resource if you're looking for those tools to learn about lighting controls and get, you know, your projects done quickly and easily is an excellent way to tap into that. So check it out. Max L I T E.com Cmax they have a whole lot of information on there. It's worth checking out. But thanks for joining us. And Kyle, thank you. This was an awesome conversation.