Are lighting launches slowing down?

For many years, LED lighting were the hottest items in reefing.

Tiny garage start ups went toe to toe with giant corporations to design and build an LED light that could sustain corals and replace existing technologies like metal halide and fluorescent.

And in the end, it worked, with hundreds of thousands (if not millions,) of people around the world growing corals under LED. It was an industry step change, and one that fuelled intensive rivalry as companies battled over whose was the brightest, the most controllable, whose had the best spectrum, and the best pop.

But now I think its slowing down. And with companies like Reef Factory going under, AI merging with EcoTech, then with Neptune systems, who then collectively distributed Maxspect, and now Red Sea buying D-D, that intense competition for market share isn’t there as much any more.

Mobile phones

I think there is a comparison to be made with mobile phones here too. Now everyone’s mobile has a decent camera, decent reception, can stream videos and social media, so now the incentive has gone to keep buying newer models that can do things that current or previous models can’t.

I’ve just upgraded my mobile after seven years. I only did it because the battery died on the old one, and although the new one has tiny improvements in battery life, speed and camera, it does nothing that the old one couldn’t do, and there lies the problem.

Now all skimmers can skim, all wavemakers can move water, and all LED reef lights can grow corals.

There will always be a tiny number of people saying that nothing was as good as halide or T5, but in the UK, bringing them back in large number is never going to happen, chiefly because of the running costs, but as someone who was there all those years ago, I still remember all the issues like heat, glare, lack of control, and definite lack of pop.

That’s pretty much everything we all want, and are used to now, with LED. And running metal halide or T5 and LED, is not the same as just running them on their own. That’s cheating.

With Black Friday and Christmas coming up this used to be the time of year when manufacturers would flex their new lights, and everyone would flock to buy the “most advanced LED aquarium light ever made,” but now the suspense, build up and frequency of big lighting launches are all gone.

Kessil haven’t launched anything since the marginally improved A360XE in May 2024. And the EcoTech Radion G6 has been with us since May 2022. Aqua Illumination launched the Hydra Edge in February 2025, Red Sea ReefLED G2 at the same time, D-D the Spektrum in December 2025, and ATI the Straton X in March 2026.

The Straton X did break the mold, but there was a time when that many lights would have launched in one year, and every company had a nailed down two year upgrade and new product launch. So what’s happened?

Apart from the mobile phone tech status quo comparison, manufacturing costs haven’t ever come down from COVID. Chinese manufacturing is now way more expensive, currencies weaker, and with less market competition the lighting companies that are left are concentrating more on reducing costs on their side, versus taking a gamble on revolutionary new lights.

The new Orphek Natura iCon Max looks insane. I like how they are still striving for the brightest light with the best spread, spectrum and penetration, and if you still crave POWER! The $1300 price tag won’t put you off either.

I’m still amazed how many LEDs aren’t waterproof, or even moisture proof. When a distributor tells you your light is knackered because its been kept in a moist environment, a part of me dies because collectively, those lights have not been designed properly, or for the fundamental factor of aquariums – moisture.

I laugh at “wireless” aquarium products, connected to dozens of cables in a big rat’s nest in the cabinet, and I crave fresh eyes to look at all aquarium products from “silent” airpumps (how are they allowed to say that?) to 240 volt heaters dangling where they can get smashed and we put our arms.

Why, when we know which presets grow corals, do we let users alter them to something which could grow them less? Why don’t we fix output, spectrum and control so that all they have to do is say what time of night they want the lights to go out, and everything else is taken care of for them.

And why aren’t all moonlight capable lights automatically set to induce coral spawning?

Maybe artificial intelligence will create the next step change in lighting from design to control.

All I know is that its been a long time since a lighting launch really got me excited. And they used to get me excited all the time.