Irondale, AL
Background
The Mercedes-Benz dealership in Irondale was experiencing major problems with their old floodlights.
With help from their free Light ARchitect app from Cooper Lighting Solutions, the team came up with a clever solution that worked so well that the customers hired the same team to retrofit their Birmingham luxury vehicle dealership.
Challenge
The old LED floodlights at the Mercedes-Benz dealership lot were failing. Water had gotten into them, and they were blowing out with alarming frequency. The original manufacturer tried replacing the damaged LEDs, but the problems continued.
The dealership owners contacted Alabama Power (AP) for help and to discuss the owners’ requirements, including the strict approval process of the engineers affiliated with Mercedes-Benz.
Solution
Emily Breaseale of AP and Josh Durr from SouthCon travelled to Irondale ready to get to work. To make designing the lighting go faster and easier, their tablets were loaded with the Light ARchitect lighting simulation app from Cooper Lighting Solutions.
Josh was actually sitting in his own car at the dealership lot as he used the mobile Light ARchitect app to create a new lighting design that replaced the existing floodlights with area lights. Using the dealership’s existing poles and new USSL Maxx 333-watt area lights from the Cooper Lighting Solutions Streetworks brand, Josh was able to achieve the lumen levels necessary using half the wattage the dealership used before.
With his device and Light ARchitect, Josh was able to create a full-color visual representation of his lighting design to show the customers.
“I could even turn the lights on and off on my tablet screen to give the customers a better idea of just how much illumination they could expect,” said Josh. “Light ARchitect helped us close the deal.”
Emily added, “Once we had approval, Light Architect was even able to export the lighting design directly in Fulcrum – AP’s GIS mapping software. That spared the AP engineers a site trip to audit all the locations. It greatly sped up the project’s timeline.”
Results
Light ARchitect is the lighting simulation app that makes lighting design as mobile as you are. It lets you virtually place light fixtures directly in the space. Augmented reality helps you bring your lighting designs to life. And not least of all, Light ARchitect is easy to use.
The owners were so thrilled with the results of the Irondale dealership’s new LED lighting, it wasn’t long before they invited the same team to come back and retrofit the old metal halide lighting at their Birmingham dealership.
Before and After Photos
Before
After