Most lighting projects do not lose money on the fittings. They lose it in the control layer: a controller nobody specified properly, a gateway that speaks one language, a commissioning visit that quietly becomes three. From 27 to 30 October 2026, QALIUM is at booth 1E-C40 at the Hong Kong International Lighting Fair, Autumn Edition, with the range built to take that weight out of a project.
The control layer is where budgets drift
Control is rarely the line item that kills a budget in one go. It moves in small amounts. A spare controller for a zone nobody mapped. A second gateway because the first one only talks to its own parts. A day of cabling that was never in the quote, and a programmer who has to be flown in for a change that should have taken twenty minutes.
Lock-in is the quiet driver behind all of it. When a system only works with its own components, every later change carries a premium, because there is only one party who can quote for it. A new tenant, a refit, a single luminaire swapped on the third floor: each becomes a purchase order instead of a task.
None of this appears as one bad decision. It appears as a pattern, repeated across projects, that everyone in the chain has learned to price in before the tender even goes out. The result is a control layer that costs more than the design intent behind it ever required.
That is the problem QALIUM was built around. Our position is simple. Control should be protocol honest, documented well enough for the next person, and extended without replacing what is already on the ceiling.
What is on the stand at booth 1E-C40
VELA 4 and VELA 32. Wireless DALI controllers, four and thirty-two channels. Same protocol our industry already specifies, without the bus cable running back to a riser. VELA 32 is the one to look at if you are controlling a floor plate rather than a room.
CHROMA 5. Five-channel PWM for colour and full-spectrum scenes. The useful part is not the colour mixing on a demo board. It is that a lobby can hold one look at ten in the morning and another at eight at night without a member of staff at a switch panel.
SOLUM L. A 0-10V dimming controller with an integrated relay, two channels. The relay matters on retrofit work, because it lets the controller fully isolate a circuit rather than leaving drivers idling.
NEXO 4A and TACTUM 4. A BLE switch interface with four inputs plus one, and a self-powered four-button switch that needs no battery and no cable. Between them, existing switch positions can stay exactly where the client expects them.
PORTA and IRIS. The gateway that carries monitoring, scheduling and BMS integration, and the sensor range that feeds it. This is where a control installation turns into something a facilities team can actually run.
Wireless by design, not wireless as an add-on
The distinction is worth stating plainly. Some systems are wired systems with a radio bolted on for convenience. Ours is wireless from the architecture up, which is why commissioning can be done entirely over the air and why installation runs up to 40 percent faster than a comparable wired scheme. Fewer cable runs, fewer containment routes, fewer trades waiting on each other.
There is a second benefit that rarely appears on a quote. A wireless control layer can be designed and priced without waiting for the electrical drawings to be final, because it does not depend on a cable route. On projects where the control package is the last thing specified, that changes the shape of the programme.
It also decides who can work on the system afterwards. A protocol honest design means the next contractor, or the client's own team, can pick it up without asking us for a password, a licence or a permission slip.
Refurbishment: work with what the building already has
Refurbishments are where most control plans meet reality. The wiring is old, the switch positions are fixed by the interior, and the client wants new scene buttons working before the handover date.
This is the case we built the interface range for. NEXO 4A sits behind the existing switch plate. TACTUM 4 is self-powered, so it can go on a wall with no first fix at all. SOLUM L handles the 0-10V drivers that are staying. Nothing gets ripped out to make the new control work, and nothing gets bought twice.
Documentation that survives the handover
A control system is usually commissioned well and handed over badly. The scenes work on the day. Then the file arrives, and it does not match the ceiling.
QALIUM ships BIM ready assets and full documentation with the range, so the specification survives the people who wrote it. The test we apply is simple: could someone who was not on site understand this system within an hour, six months from now? If the answer is no, the handover is not finished, and the building will pay for that in callouts.
Who this is for
Lighting designers and specifiers who want the control layer to hold the design intent without a proprietary argument attached. Contractors who want the installation to be shorter and the commissioning to be predictable. Facilities teams who inherit the result. The range is used in luxury hospitality, high end retail, commercial fit out and luxury residential work.
QALIUM is made by lighting designers for lighting designers. That is not a tagline about taste. It is a statement about what we refuse to specify.
Visit QALIUM at the fair
The Hong Kong International Lighting Fair runs from 27 to 30 October 2026 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. QALIUM is at booth 1E-C40, with the full range live rather than on a spec sheet, including a working CHROMA 5 scene change and a VELA 32 commissioning demonstration.
The stand is set up so you can put your hands on the hardware rather than watch a slide.
If you are planning a project with a control package still open, bring the drawings. We would rather look at your building than talk about ours.
Let's meet at the fair. Book a thirty minute slot at the stand and we will keep a quiet corner of the booth free.
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