E-Paper
We are developing products in India, for the world: BenQ’s JC Pan & Rajeev Singh
The new ScreenBar Halo 2 priced at ₹17,490, is designed to mount any PC display or an Apple iMac, for accurate and evenly spread illumination that doesn’t reflect off the screen
Little do we realise, the table and study lamps that we use today are still rooted to the original Anglepoise lamp, also referred to as the Type 75 prototype or the four-spring lamp, patented in 1932. At the time, constant position stability and functionality for reading use cases defined engineering rationale. Screen reading and computing devices, two significant elements of our work days, aren’t exactly covered by these common lamp form factors. Technology company BenQ has been trying to solve this conundrum for years, a pursuit that started with the WiT lamp launched in many countries in 2015. At this time, for the corporate workforce that likely includes you too, the company’s ScreenBar line-up of products attempts to reduce screen glare, reflections and inconsistent lighting that leads to eye strain or worse. The latest addition to that line, the ScreenBar Halo 2 priced at ₹17,490, is designed to mount any PC display or an Apple iMac and provide accurate downward illumination that doesn’t reflect off the screen and is evenly spread across the workstation.
In a conversation with HT, chief product designer at BenQ Smart Lighting JC Pan and managing director at BenQ (India & South Asia) Rajeev Singh talk about how they envision smart lighting to go beyond just illumination but with a distinct wellness and lifestyle element, how user preferences are changing, and developing products in India, for the world. It is a technological step forward, underlined by the full-spectrum LEDs that underline the BenQ ScreenBar Halo 2 which also has enhanced backlight coverage for the area behind your computer display to soften the contrast edge, with two distinct advantages — they don’t have the harmful blue light akin to conventional LEDs, and can follow the tonality of sunlight through the day. Not surprising, since eye care is a standard feature across BenQ’s extensive computing display and home as well as entertainment projector product lines too. Edited excerpts.
Smart lighting is no longer just about illumination—it’s becoming an experience. How do you define this new era of smart lighting, and how will BenQ balance intelligent design, with utility and well-being?
JC Pan: I must say that is a very cool question, because I speak with a lot of people about something similar, including users, because sometimes they expect technology can do more. One can imagine intelligent lighting in any way possible. But we believe experience is more important than technology, and utility is more important than technology. The tech is just to serve us. For instance, many smart lighting brands talk about connectivity, which means they connect the lamp to an ecosystem. It’s good, but the most important thing is not about the connectivity. It’s about the feeling and whether it can transfer to very precise engineering.
For example, the uniformity of the light throw. The light metre can detect how much the light will deliver, but the whole experience is not just about determination. I’ll give you an example of auto-dimming which itself is not so complicated — you need a sensor to detect the environment. But the difficult part is the algorithm. Your lamp knows the brightness of the room, but how should it deliver to compensate for the light for the user? You cannot always deliver the same light. Normally, 500 lumens is the standard. Our light can detect that it’s 200 lumens at the moment and the room is much brighter, and will deliver that extra 300 to make it 500 lumens. So it’s a good experience. But if you are in an environment, it’s less than 300 lumens and if you deliver too much, people feel the contrast. In a dark room, we don’t deliver 500 lumens but somewhere around 300 lumens. This is not based on any theory but on our test and research. What I want to interpret is, technology is used to serve people, but you need to know the real need of people.
How would you define the wellness aspect to potential consumers? And in that sense, would you say smart lighting will go through a similar challenge before people actually understand the advantages?
Rajeev Singh: When we started this journey with the conversation about vision and eye care 7-8 years ago, the struggle was significantly more because people were trying to understand, but they were not able to relate or believe. Today, the same messaging has become easier to explain because people are experiencing these problems. When we talk about problems such as eye dryness, high fatigue and more from regular screen usage, a lot of us are actually facing one of those problems. And therefore, they will connect that, and wonder whether it is at least possible to minimise this. It cannot be eliminated altogether, but it can be minimised to a great extent.
Therefore, this conversation is becoming much easier now. And it’s being appreciated by many. Our data shows us that people have started looking at eye care features when they need to buy a monitor, and actively check whether these features are there or not. For many years, we have been including these capabilities as default across our own monitors.
Definitely, from an India market perspective, it will take some time for mass awareness. Till now, we were limiting this product availability only to online sales, which is Amazon and our own website. But now we have decided to expand into premium retail with the new ScreenBar Halo 2 in more than 50 stores to start with across India. This is where the product will be on live demo, as well as available in stock. When a user actually sees this product working, the understanding about the whole concept and the beauty about this technology, evolves to a different level. We believe this will make people much more interested.
There is a sense that BenQ is positioning not just as a product brand but as a lifestyle enabler. What does that shift mean internally for product design, and therefore the user experience?
JC Pan: The product, the ScreenBar Halo 2 that we have launched today is very special within the BenQ product line because it connects to the lifestyle aspect directly. Monitors and projectors have their own elements because you need a big panel, and except for the big panels, designers can do very few things. But for them, designers have a lot of things that can do and can be called lifestyle, and easily fit in your home decor. Products should not only perform, but also look beautiful.
We have the best engineers, and we use advanced technology such as light tracing in projectors. Actually, it’s too much for them to design as well since it’s a very high tech, very precise simulation. We know if we only leverage our engineering capability, we will not make a good ScreenBar or any product, because everything must exist in your home environment, no matter if its a screen, a light bar, or a children’s lamp. We work with the best designers in the world, and not only do we not stick to any specific design house, but try to find one that best fits a particular product in our line.
For example, for the kind of tech product the ScreenBar Halo 2 is, we found a design company in Chicago (the company’s name is MINIMAL), because we feel American design companies are more capable with a technology product. But for our PianoLight which is a more aesthetic product, we went with a design company in Warsaw, Poland. This is the way we try to balance, try to make our products. It may be a technology product, but it’s also a lifestyle trigger.
Rajeev Singh: It is important to emphasise that it’s always about defining the utility first, followed by design, and not the other way round. A design will always be a very integral part of the overall package, but utility has to be there. That is something that cannot be compromised, and then we look at the best possible design. Form follows function, pretty much.
As the lines blur between lifestyle and productivity devices, what’s your long-term view of BenQ’s portfolio evolution over the next few years?
Rajeev Singh: We have just started India specific product development. Until now, all the products that we were selling are from our international portfolio. Only recently we started product development, which is specific to India. We have started taking a lot more feedback while developing our products specific to the India market. Our new series of coding and programming monitors is an example of that. We have launched a new series called the RD series. This has been developed of course for the worldwide markets, but it is purely developed by taking feedback from Indian coders and programmers. We had a GW series coding and programming monitors which were monetarily entry-level products.
We took very specific input from those users in terms of what else would you like to have, and the features they thought were missing. Based on those inputs, we developed the new RD series, which adds new technology and features that customers want, but again, always function first. Another thing that we are working on right now and the product is finally yet to come out, is a portable presenter phone. Here also, we have taken feedback from our existing portable projector users in India and collected relevant input about what they would like to have further. Right now this product is under development.
