One of the first product lines from SGM since its acquisition by Golden Sea in 2025 is the POI range of outdoor luminaires. Developed from scratch in just 12 months, the range is an impressive new addition to SGM’s architectural lighting family. Here, David Morgan takes a closer look.

Companies, like people, travel along many different paths during their lives. Some companies continue under the same family-based ownership over many generations while others rapidly pass through a variety of different owners and geographic locations.

SGM falls into the latter category. Having been founded in Pesaro, Italy in 1975, the company built its early reputation on a colourful catalogue of disco-era products – illuminated dance floor modules, smoke machines, and lighting controllers. After changing Italian ownership in 2009, SGM was restructured in 2012 under former Martin Professional founder Peter Johansen, who relocated the company to Aarhus, Denmark, and relaunched it as SGM A/S – decisively shifting its focus toward advanced entertainment and architectural lighting.

The company’s next major turning point came in August 2024, when it was acquired by Golden Sea, a Chinese lighting manufacturer, in a deal that coincided with SGM’s 50th anniversary in 2025. Under Golden Sea’s ownership, SGM has retained its Aarhus headquarters, R&D team and Danish operational identity, while benefiting from the backing of a much larger global manufacturing group.

Golden Sea has group sales in the region of $170m and has around 1,600 employees across the world. The group also includes Ayrton, the entertainment lighting company based in France that was acquired in 2017 as a small company and has grown steadily under Golden Sea ownership.

It is now run by a new management team headed by industry veteran Jessie Lilly, who also previously worked for Martin Professional, as well as Speirs Major Light Architecture and Lumenpulse. SGM has rationalised both entertainment and architectural ranges, and is in the process of developing new and revamped luminaires for both markets. Willem De Plus is responsible for architectural product management with the initial stages of all new product development being undertaken in Denmark. Once the design approach is resolved, then the Golden Sea team take over production engineering through to launch.

The first result of this revamp is the POI (Permanent Outdoor Installations) range for the architectural market. It is understood that the range was developed from scratch in 12 months, which is an impressive achievement and underscores the resources available within the Golden Sea group.

The POI range includes wide wash, narrow beam and linear luminaires, all based on the same 45mm diameter colour mixing lenses, multi-chip LED RGBW light engines, and driver systems. Some of the lenses have been developed in house, while others are industry standard components from LEDiL.

The wash light luminaires all share a rectilinear aluminium die cast construction with five sizes ranging from the smallest single 15W light engine in a square format 88x88mm up to the largest 250W in a rectangular format 280x470mm incorporating 32 light engines. Two larger sizes are shown on the website as being under development, with the largest 850W luminaire size using active cooling and incorporating 36 light engines. Beam angles range from 10° up to 100° with elliptical options of 10×60° and 60×10°. Lumen output ranges from 421lm, with all LEDs on full power, for the 15W size up to 11,822lm for the 250W size.

The narrow beam luminaires all have a circular profile aluminium die cast construction, and also have five sizes ranging from the smallest single 15W light engine with a 90mm diameter up to the largest 250W size with a 372mm diameter incorporating 30 light engines. The standard beam angle is 7.5°. An external optical film accessory modifies the standard beam angle up to 80° and also includes elliptical distributions of 7.5×40° and 7.5×60°. Lumen output ranges from 407lm, with all LEDs on full power, for the 15W size up to 10,192lm for the 250W size. The add on beam shaping film reduces the output by 10-12% depending on the type.

The linear grazers, which are a reworking of the i1 Linear luminaires that I reviewed here in 2023, now incorporate the same 45mm colour mixing lenses and multi-chip light engines as the wash and beam types. The original versions used single colour light engines with non-colour mixing lenses.

The smallest grazer runs at 25W with five light engines and constructed from a 87x84mm aluminium extrusion with die cast aluminium end caps. The largest current size runs at 100W, delivers up to 3,630lm with all LEDs on full power, and has a length of 1,220mm. Beam angles range from 10° up to 60°, with an elliptical lens 10×60°.

The samples I was given to test all performed well and produced well blended colour light output across the spectrum despite showing some colour separation at close range. The luminaires are well detailed and robustly built. It is understood that up to 60% of the ADC 12 aluminium used for the die cast housings is made from recycled material. SGM luminaires are designed for easy dismantling at the end of life to fit into a circular economy model.

Although the Beam and Wash POI range do not have a particularly strong visual identity and share a similar design approach to a number of other high quality architectural lighting brands, the luminaires do incorporate a number of innovative technical features that sets the range apart.

The most intriguing feature is branded DryTech, and is a patented active dehumidification system where any moisture that ends up inside the luminaires is removed by an electrolysis-based dehumidifier made of a solid-state polymeric ionic membrane between a porous anode and a porous cathode.

Equally impressive is that each luminaire is factory-calibrated and uses an algorithm to produce consistent white and colour mixes for combinations of luminaires. All luminaires set to a specific colour will match as the system adjusts the colour mix without the need to manually adjust colour levels. Although only 3000K and 4000K white options for the RGBW array are offered, the SGM software allows the mixed white colour temperature to range from 2000K up to 10,000K using DMX control.

Rather less innovative technical features which are available from other manufacturers include a dynamic thermal control system and a colour boost system that dynamically maximises the light output, depending on the mix of whites or colours up to the thermal and electrical capacity of the luminaire. This feature is also available from some high-end drivers.

The development of the POI range is an impressive technical and organisational achievement. I look forward to seeing the project results in the years ahead.

www.sgmlighting.com

David Morgan runs David Morgan Associates, a London-based international design consultancy specialising in luminaire design and development and is also MD of Radiant Architectural Lighting. Email: david@dmadesign.co.uk Web: www.dmadesign.co.uk