Exclusive interview with Hua Haode: Reinventing oneself and technological iteration to meet new opportunities are indispensable

▪ Existing manufacturers in the LED lighting industry are exploring new tracks, and this is also an area where Huahold is currently investing and has released products

▪ Huahold has brought unique LED driver technology advantages in the fields of LED outdoor road lighting and LED plant lighting applications, and can provide excellent reliability with "normalized" integrated product design, while allowing users to quickly realize the advantages of cost reduction and efficiency improvement

With decades of experience With experience in the LED lighting drive power supply industry, Chen Hao has witnessed market changes and technology iterations. Today, as Huahold's deputy general manager responsible for the company's business and brand market strategy, Chen Hao shared with LEDinside how Huahold has met the challenges of strategic transformation and how it has won a place in the highly competitive market through its unique technological innovation advantages.

Chen Hao believes that LED drive power supplies based on the "normalized" design concept will become the choice of many users, allowing LED lighting manufacturers to quickly respond to the market, reduce internal management costs, and achieve refined management while also meeting intelligent needs.
Deputy General Manager of Huahold Electronics Chen Hao

Reinventing ourselves and meeting challenges for strategic transformation

Chen Hao introduced that Huahold was established in 2011 and initially focused on the North American market, starting with LED indoor commercial lighting (including LED panel lights and LED tri-proof lights) driving power supplies. After years of development, with its excellent technology and high-quality products, it has gained a firm foothold in the fierce competition and achieved good results in the North American market.

However, with the gradual popularization of LED lighting technology and the gradual increase in LED penetration, competition in LED commercial lighting has intensified. Because the threshold for LED indoor lighting drive technology is too low, many start-up companies have participated. Drive power supply companies have also fallen into full competition. The market share has continued to move closer to leading big brand companies, while small and medium-sized enterprises have survived in the cracks. The advantages it once had were gradually weakened, profit margins were compressed, and Warhold faced unprecedented challenges.

The management team of Huahold had a profound insight into the changes in the market environment, realized the urgency of transformation and upgrading, and decided to carry out major transformation in product and market strategies. "We have made clear the direction of transformation since the end of 2016, gradually shifting from the indoor commercial lighting field with thin profits and low output value to the outdoor high-power lighting field with higher profits, higher technical entry barriers and strict product performance requirements. This transformation has allowed us to find new growth points in the market." Chen Hao explained. After two years of accumulation, by 2019, Huahold has established a firm foothold in the high-power lighting market.

At present, Huahold's main business is concentrated in the two major sectors of outdoor road lighting and plant lighting. It also continues to make efforts in the fields of industrial lighting, landscape sign lighting, fishery lighting and other fields. To this end, Huahold has increased its investment in technology research and development, and gradually expanded its market share by improving product experience and customer trust. “We insist on using our own brands,” Chen Hao emphasized: “This is not only to enhance the market influence of the brand, but also to ensure the high quality and technological leadership of our products in the increasingly complex global market.” 3 position," Chen Hao said proudly, "As early as 2021, our revenue in the field of plant lighting has reached 90 million yuan. From September 2023 to June 2024, plant lighting has ushered in a small climax, and business orders have surged. The performance of this sector has made the greatest contribution to the company. "This is inseparable from the company's sensitivity to technological innovation and market demand.

According to TrendForce research and observation, plant lighting has experienced a transformation from "small and refined" to "big and powerful". At the current stage, LED driving power supplies for plant lighting are mainly high-power above 600W, mainly used in indoor gardening, vertical farms, plant factories and other fields. In the past, its power range was mainly concentrated in 100W to 600W. However, with the professionalization and large-scale production of commercial plant users, higher optical density or wider illumination area is proposed for plant lighting, so higher power has become an inevitable trend.

At present, 800W to 1500W high-power driving power supplies are gradually becoming mainstream. The application of this high-power driving power supply enables plant lighting fixtures to have a wider illumination range and higher light intensity, thus improving the growth efficiency of plants and reducing production costs. In addition, plant lighting LED solutions are also developing towards full spectrum, using spectrum adjustability to achieve on-demand lighting for different plants at different growth stages.

In addition, more and more LED plant lighting fixtures are equipped with smart functions, which can flexibly and dynamically control and adjust the spectrum according to the different growth cycles of plants. At the same time, the design of lamps is also more inclined to modularity and multi-functionality to meet the spectrum required by various environments and different crops at different growth stages.

In addition, simple installation and transportation costs are also key considerations for users. These changes in lighting products also put forward new requirements for LED drive power supplies and control systems, including functions and physical forms of products. For example, the current LED plant growth lamp market is mainly export-oriented. From the perspective of a lighting company, in order to save the shipping and packaging costs of lamps, Huahold has specially developed a slim R2 non-isolated driver. This thin strip power supply can be built into the brackets on both sides of the plant growth lamp. For the lamp, it can be understood as a hidden design.

According to Chen Hao, integrating different spectra to meet the needs of various plants throughout the entire growth cycle is the mainstream demand of the current market. This is also the source of the demand for full-spectrum plant growth lights, and the requirements for dynamically allocated spectrum intelligence and achieving refined management are ultimately transformed into requirements for driving power.

In compliance with the development of the product market, in 2024 Huahold released the non-isolated thin strip R2 series and multi-channel output H2E series driver products based on full spectrum solutions, with a power range of 800W-1200W.

The H2E series is a multi-channel output constant current source designed for full-spectrum solutions. It has one main channel with a power of 800-1200W and 1-2 auxiliary channels. It solves the problems of complex internal wiring, high cost and difficulty in centralized control of traditional solutions, and achieves a breakthrough from discrete to integrated. It solves the industry's pain points and realizes independent programming, control and dimming of each output, and supports non-synchronized and non-full-time work of each group, such as individually controlling 660nm red light or 730nm far-red light or 330nm UV. Another new product is the non-isolated R2 series mentioned above. It adopts a hidden design and achieves an integrated design through the side frame installed on the lamp. The lamp is not visible and the power supply is not visible, which can save the packaging and transportation costs of the power supply.

In the field of outdoor road lighting, the "normalized" design of LED drive power supplies is also fully reflected. "LED constant current drive is currently the mainstream of market demand. There are three working modes of power supply, namely constant voltage, constant current and constant power. Generally speaking, including in the field of LED lighting, there are mainly constant voltage or constant current working modes for different application scenarios. The traditional LED driving power supply is not adaptable. Different power supplies need to be developed for different application scenarios, different working modes, and different parameters. This has brought many problems to power supply and lighting companies. Typically, it requires secondary research and development, secondary certification, and is difficult to scale. Production, the existence of fractional inventory, and the inability to prepare large quantities of inventory and respond to the market in a timely manner have always been problems that have plagued the development of power supply companies. I have been a product manager for many years and have been wondering whether I can use the idea of ​​the limit method to design a standardized "universal power supply" that can be used in different scenarios, can work in different working modes, and can customize parameters to achieve strong adaptability of the power supply. Slowly, the "normalization" concept based on the "limit method" was originally proposed and formed, and this design concept was implemented in 2 For the F1 series outdoor road lighting driver products launched by Huahold in 2022, I will later define a name for this product called "dual-mode driver". This concept provides a new design idea for the development of high-power driving power supplies in the industry." Chen Hao responded. I think the "normalized" design of LED driving power supplies is also a future development trend." Chen Hao added.

Expand the synergy between the domestic market and the global market to achieve steady performance growth

Although the international market faces uncertainty in the political environment, Chen Hao is still confident in the potential of the domestic market. He pointed out: "The domestic market is the largest single market in the world. With the acceleration of urbanization and people's pursuit of quality of life, the demand for LED lighting continues to grow. We will use the domestic market as an important test field for our technology application and product promotion, and use this to expand the global market. At the same time, we will set our sights on the European market and plan to simultaneously develop products suitable for the European market."

In the future, Huahold will firmly grasp the LED outdoor road lighting and The two major advantages of LED plant lighting drive the power supply business segment. At the same time, it actively deploys landscape advertising light boxes and fishery lighting fields to expand new market space and provide new growth points for future development. "Our goal is to meet more customer needs and achieve steady performance growth through continued technological innovation and market expansion," Chen Hao said in the end.

Editor: Yan Zhixiang