What is CPF's impact on LED sales?

Having a quick look at the member list, seems to bring a total a bit short of 8,000 members. Plus some lurkers, let's put that at 10,000.

If every single member bought 2 flashlights using cutting edge LEDs from a single manufacturer eg Cree, that would bring the total guestimate to 20,000 parts.

Hardly what a part manufacturer would call a major impact. Are CPF members over-estimating the impact of Cree on Philips Lumileds? Sure the Cree XR-E LED are stacks brighter than LuxIII, but how will this affect the majority of users? Superseded parts don't disappear off the suppliers list overnight like some have made the comparison to Intel PC cores. Parts have a much longer life span than PC cores.

Sooooo, while Fenix may do well by adding Cree LEDs to the product lineup, it may be unwise to ditch Luxeon altogether. For one thing, Lumileds are probably playing catchup as we speak. For another, Cree may strike a major production problem and may not be able to supply the market, forcing a fall-back to Luxeons.

It seems to me that CPF has an over-inflated ego regarding the impact on LED sales...? Or am I completely off the planet with this assessment...?

(In no way is this post intended to belittle, slight, insult or anything of the sort. It is just tactless blunt me speaking. )

I think you'd be surprised at who posts here, and who reads these threads. CPF discussions have inspired, motovated, and impacted the industry in countless ways.

jur said:

...It seems to me that CPF has an over-inflated ego regarding the impact on LED sales...? Or am I completely off the planet with this assessment...?

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I totally agree with you there. CPF is a small group of people who share a common interest but CPF has very little impact (in my opinion) on LED sales. Those "in the know" in the industry have probably known about the Crees, Lumileds, the _fill_in_the_blank_. The largest consumers of these things get advanced product notices (usually under non-disclosure) and most have known about each manufacturers roadmap for sometime, long before we get our hands on the early samples. There is no doubt there is some impact but not as large as some here would like to believe.

I could not have said it better....

+1 CM

I guess a lot of us live in our own happy little world, at least I know I do.....now where did those little black and yellow pills go....

Ryan

Having a quick look at the member list, seems to bring a total a bit short of 8,000 members. Plus some lurkers, let's put that at 10,000.

OK


If every single member bought 2 flashlights using cutting edge LEDs from a single manufacturer eg Cree, that would bring the total guestimate to 20,000 parts. Hardly what a part manufacturer would call a major impact.

Agreed


Are CPF members over-estimating the impact of Cree on Philips Lumileds?

I don't know. Did somebody say something about that?


Sure the Cree XR-E LED are stacks brighter than LuxIII, but how will this affect the majority of users?

I think price may be more of a driver


Sooooo, while Fenix may do well by adding Cree LEDs to the product lineup, it may be unwise to ditch Luxeon altogether.

Isn't that for Phoenix to decide?


For one thing, Lumileds are probably playing catchup as we speak. For another, Cree may strike a major production problem and may not be able to supply the market, forcing a fall-back to Luxeons.

I don't know what's happening in the industry either. I'm not worried about it.


It seems to me that CPF has an over-inflated ego regarding the impact on LED sales...? Or am I completely off the planet with this assessment...?

I missed the part where I was supposed to be driving the industry. If I thought about it, I would assume they consider us, not just handy [size=-1]Guinea pigs, [/size]but [size=-1]Guinea pigs[/size] who will actually pay them to run experiments on us. Sweet, no?

another +1 CM
Well said.
Norm

It is solely because of Flashlight Reviews, with a HEAVY dose of CPF thrown in for good measure that I bought **FOUR** SL Luxeon 4AA lights, and a PT Apex.

I can't comment on how CPF denizens affect industry, but I think that just like early adopters or "techies" in various other fields of interest, those who frequent this board have a tremendous impact on others when the subject turns to portable candlepower.

I turned my brother in law on to the current generation of 1W, 3W, etc. LEDs - so there's at least an impact from me outward.


BB62

I'm pretty sure it has an impact, as a CPF enthusiast blasts some special light in front of his/her buddies and their eyes get big - Wowee! Lookit that! At least that's what happened with me.

I'd say CPF has a minor impact on major companies like Philips who already have established channels of distribution worldwide. If you do lighting for home, industrial, automotive etc ALL OVER THE WORLD.... a small forum is unlikely to impact your sales.

A smaller company may come up with a better and yet cheaper product but sometimes their reach is limited due to barriers to entry, limited marketing budget, distribution network issues etc.... eventually they might give the big boys a run for their money, but it'll take time and probably some big help.

But CPF seems to a be a rather major impact for Asian manufacturers trying to break into the US/European markets. I'm not saying they can make a profitable business solely based on CPF (I'm sure they make decent pocket change though), but it does seem to open doors if the word spreads.

highorder said:

I think you'd be surprised at who posts here, and who reads these threads. CPF discussions have inspired, motovated, and impacted the industry in countless ways.

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Manufacturers lurk these forums for ideas, product feedback and to keep an eye on their competitors, it doesn't mean we are a big percentage of their customers. That's just ridiculous and pretentious.

This site is the top non-manufacturer search hit for "cree xr-e". That's how I found it. In fact there's little other information on the web.

Jur: yours is an interesting analysis.

While the CPF "core" is only 8,000 members, I suspect that the Lurker universe may actually excede the CPF membership. Certain anecdotal evidence suggests that we have many watchers (spies) in the industry who use CPF as a listening-post.

As BB62 implies, there is also the issue of us Flashaholics' cumulative impact upon our individual circle of friends and family. Though not easily measured, that also suggests a much larger market.

A parallel example of this syndrome is found within the firearms issue. The National Rifle Association total membership (yep, the eeevil NRA) is approximately 4 million + members. That's only about 6% of all U.S. gun owners. However, certain very savvy congressmen have told me that the "intensity factor" (i.e., sharp tech. knowledge + keen awareness + unshakeable ideology = Passion) of that particular demographic cohort dramatically magnifies its impact upon the greater voter base at the ballot box -- and, hence, resulting political policies.

So, while CPFers may technically constitute a relatively small "cutting edge" niche of the Illumination Tool market, our potential impact upon product development and refinement is likely disproportionately greater... thanks to our cumulative intensity over time.

I don't think the impact is pure numbers but what we are that counts. Just as the overclockers of the world praised the AMD Athlon and Athlon64 which spread the word of an alternative to the P4, so does CPF do the same thing.

Big numbers just from CPF? Well, it does help the small manufactuers but the giants don't notice. The big part is word of mouth by a bunch of leading edge (bleeding edge?) techies that screw around with flashlights Just as overclocking techies are to computers, CPF is to the flashlight business. We create a buzz and companies probably check in on us to see if their designs work well. Yeah, not exactly beta testers but PAYING testers for their lights. Nice info to know considering it is free for the taking.

I don't see Cree stock skyrocketing because of the XRE and the mania sweeping CPF... but it is an indicator of things to come.

BentHeadTX said:

I don't think the impact is pure numbers but what we are that counts. Just as the overclockers of the world praised the AMD Athlon and Athlon64 which spread the word of an alternative to the P4, so does CPF do the same thing.

Big numbers just from CPF? Well, it does help the small manufactuers but the giants don't notice. The big part is word of mouth by a bunch of leading edge (bleeding edge?) techies that screw around with flashlights Just as overclocking techies are to computers, CPF is to the flashlight business. We create a buzz and companies probably check in on us to see if their designs work well. Yeah, not exactly beta testers but PAYING testers for their lights. Nice info to know considering it is free for the taking.

I don't see Cree stock skyrocketing because of the XRE and the mania sweeping CPF... but it is an indicator of things to come.

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I think your comparison with the overclockers is way too exaggerated. The flashlight public is like a grain of sand in the Sahara desert compared to CPU/Overclockers/games enthusiast market. PC Overclockers/modders/gamers area a vital part of the Entertainment industry, they are everywhere, even in a small town in Morocco or Turkey you can find a a big club or community of PC modders. While this flashlight obsession is represented by small community of "rich" people of the first world, mainly in the USA (90%) and some in Western Europe, and that's a fact. How many online communities dedicated to flashlights are on the internet? 2 or 3, all in English with CPF being the largest by far. You can find an Overclocker's community in Farsi language!

For the rest of the people on this planet, and even for the average joe in America, a flashlight is a tool and maybe they will a buy a new one on every 5-10 years. They don't care about throw,flood, Type III, tint, new LED, regulation et cetera. Having said that, I believe CPF is a valuable source for feedback and ideas to these big manufacturers lurking here, but it will never impact overall sales because we just aren't that big nor are flashlights as vital as computers in modern life.

Well said, CM.
I know people who have no clue what a LED is; we are a poor sample group for determining what the "general public" does.

I live in Malta and it's a very small country and at this point i think i am the only Maltese flashaholic that is crazy enough ( or passionate enough ) to spend so much money on several expensive flashlights as well as build my own expensive ones.
However i have also been distributing LED flashlights ( cheaper ones ) in Malta for the past couple of years or so with success.
I was the first to introduce LED's in Malta and for the first year or so i was the only one distributing led flashlights to the general public in good quantities, i even managed to convert the Malta police force to LED. after that i suddenly have 6 main competitors distributing LED flashlights.

So my point is that even though i did not personally buy thousands of LED's i have reached out and influenced many others ( including my competitors ) to do so, and probably none of them visit CPF. And i'm pretty sure there are many other CPFers that have done the same. we may have bought only 20,000 but we may have influenced the sales of 2,000,000.

CPF helped to influence me to invest in some Cree stock.
Wall Street is bearish on the company right now,
but with the XR-E being adopted by Fenix, other manufactuers are likely to follow.
That can only be good news for Cree.

Guess if a flashlight is sold in major stores...not much impact. If their primarily sold over the internet we have a huge impact. Their probably only a few thousand active members. But every day there probably a hundred differant lurkers...never join...not that interested. Just want to buy a light...and they do. So in this thought...365X100...and thats probably low. Also just looking in a drawer next to my computer a count 15 lights...but I have way more than that...and I`ve given a lot away. And I don`t consider myself a big buyer... just an average CPF`er.

Edit:If your looking at Led manufactures...less and less...as they find there way into cars, home lighting and..........

Ken

That's just ridiculous and pretentious.

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well, I had been into the whisky...

I wonder if my estimate of 8000 members is way too high... taking a quick look at the top lot of threads, there are perhaps up to 50 views per post... 50 is a looooong way away from 8000. Most of the 8000 would be 'old and dead'.

My initial post was due to remarks like "when the music stops Lumileds will be the only ones standing". And was made with regard to LED sales, not flashlight sales. I'm sure Fenix watch CPF like a hawk.