LED Drivers Enabling Smart Lighting Features

LED lights are now the main technology used to illuminate residential, commercial, automotive and industrial settings, and require drivers to ensure their optimum performance. To keep up with trends in the lighting industry, developments in LED drivers have resulted in compact designs with high power density, enhanced reliability and long operating life span. In recent years, inroads in improving efficiency further and enabling automation in lighting have built up interest in smart drivers.

Some technologies that have been introduced include NFC programming for LED light output adjustment, and occupancy or presence sensing through PIR or radar method. The latter feature can help realize energy savings in partially used spaces such as meeting rooms and storage areas, which could exceed 50 percent, according to Power Electronics News. These innovations are additions to the ones currently used such as Bluetooth, and dimming methods DALI, analog and PWM.

In China, a leading LED driver manufacturer, Moso Power, has released five series of smart designs. The X6E-D supports DALI-2 dimming and NFC current adjustment. For outdoor LED lights, it has low- and high-voltage output features and a wide power range spanning from 75 to 240W. The U7, which is an upgraded version of the U6 series but also compatible with DALI-2, has added IoT capabilities, which include power calculation, breakdown diagnosis, real-time checking, and data collection and transmission during operation.

Other Chinese suppliers have also been pursuing R&D and production of smart LED drivers.

The advantages offered by smart LED lighting have been fueling this sector’s growth. Widening adoption of the technology led to a market size of $6.33 billion in 2022, which is expected to climb to $15.88 billion by 2025, according to Qianzhan Industrial Research Institute. This will likely boost demand for smart LED drivers in the next two or three years.

Growing LED driver market

The LED driver industry, in general, has seen steadily growing, a trend that will persist in the near future. From $7.45 billion in 2022, it will increase to $34.85 billion by 2030, at a CAGR of 21.28 percent, according to Precedence Research.

China is the largest production base for the category, accounting for more than half of global shipments. The country’s total sales value is projected to rise to $7.07 billion by 2028 from $5.081 in 2021, according to 168report, a specialized market research company in China.

Based on this upbeat outook, many Chinese manufacturers have been increasing their output by about 10 percent, with a number building new factories as well, according to companies interviewed by Global Sources.

Shenzhen Sosen invested $58.67 million in a 20,000sqm facility in Zhongshan, which was completed in late 2022. The factory is equipped with 10 high-power LED driver production lines and will be capable of turning out 12.15 million units every year.

Hundreds of LED driver suppliers

There are hundreds of LED driver manufacturers in China and more than 70 percent are small and midsize domestically owned enterprises. Key industry players based there include Mean Well and Inventronics.

A number of factories are found in Shenzhen, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Guangzhou, Xiamen and Fuzhou, although there are also companies based in Suzhou, Changzhou and Ningbo.

Most Chinese companies also offer power supplies for the communications, medical and automotive sectors, with LED drivers representing between 30 and 80 percent of their export shipments. Many are confident that volume for overseas markets will increase by 10 percent in the months ahead and through 2024.

China-made LED drivers

Widely available LED drivers from Chinese suppliers are constant-current and constant-voltage types with a rated power of 3 to 500W, power factor of 0.95 and efficiency of over 80 percent. They include dimmable variants based on 0 to 10V, DALI, TRIAC and PWM technologies and water-resistant units with an IP65 to IP68 rating for outdoor applications.

Across types, these power supplies are designed with built-in protection from overcurrent, -load, -temperature risks and short circuits. They comply with industry safety standards such as UL, cUL, CE, CSA, FCC, ETL, TÜV and RoHS.

The main inputs used in manufacturing LED drivers include ICs, MOSFETs, transformers and other passive components, and PCBs. ICs and passive components may come from foreign providers as required.

IC costs rose in the past 12 months, forcing most suppliers to raise their prices slightly. In the coming months, the situation may improve and keep quotes at current levels.

The products in this gallery have been handpicked by our China market analyst for representing current trends in LED drivers from Chinese makers.