wireless lighting – Gantri has launched three Helia-based wireless light lines and a digital manufacturing platform letting other designers build their own versions.
A restaurant menu illuminated in the dark became the spark for a new wireless lighting push, and now it’s moving beyond a single product into an entire platform that other designers can use.
Ian Yang. who leads lighting company Gantri. said the idea started with a simple observation: the small wireless lights often used in restaurants can make reading menus easier. but they remain limited.. Yang characterized many of these lighting options as dim and too small for what he sees as a more fully developed. residential-grade experience.. His business instinct was to treat that gap as a design opportunity rather than a compromise.
This week. Gantri rolled out three new wireless lighting product lines alongside a new digital manufacturing platform designed to let designers create their own take on Gantri’s wireless light concept.. The move centers on Gantri’s Helia system. a modular approach to the internal components of a wireless light—an architecture intended to be flexible enough to fit many different outer shell designs.
Gantri designed the new lines in collaboration with the design studio Ammunition. and the partnership builds on years of work together.. The Helia system’s core elements include a battery, customizable LED modules, a touch-sensitive control, and a charging puck.. The structure is designed so the “guts” can be tucked into a wide range of housings. including those imagined by other designers—rather than locking wireless capability to one fixed form factor.
Ammunition director of industrial design Achille Biteau described how the modular system is assembled into a 3D-printed enclosure with components routed to where they need to go.. In practical terms. that means the same internal platform can be reused across many exterior concepts. potentially enabling hundreds or thousands of different designs without reinventing the electronics each time.
The collaboration dates back to around 2018. with earlier discussions about wireless lighting design taking shape over roughly the following three years.. Founding partner Robert Brunner said the early focus was on mobility and the way charging has become part of daily life for many consumer products.. Meanwhile, he argued, lighting has lagged—often tied to cords or fixed wiring into walls and ceilings.
That mismatch is the reason portable wireless lighting became a compelling product concept to Ammunition and Gantri.. Brunner pointed to a friction point: lighting devices require charging and maintenance in ways that people are not accustomed to when compared with other mobile products.. The design challenge. as the partnership framed it. was to allow lighting to go where it’s needed and reduce the extra hassle that comes with charging lighting products.
To stress test the approach. Ammunition developed 10 prototype lamps spanning three product lines. intended to show how flexible the Helia system can be.. Those prototypes range from task-style lamps to reading lamps. a taller floor lamp. and a restaurant-style tabletop lamp built for the specific use case of reading menus in dim conditions.
Charging is a key part of the design story.. Instead of using a plug-in standard such as USB-C. the system relies on a pin-based contact method that lets the battery unit sit directly on top of a small puck-shaped charging interface.. The experience is meant to resemble placing a glass on a coaster.. With up to 10 hours of battery life. the design goal is that a lamp can be moved around during a day or evening. then return to its charging spot overnight.
Beyond the product launches. Gantri is also offering the technology to other creators through Gantri Made. a newly launched digital manufacturing platform.. The platform allows the specs for the Helia system to be integrated into new designs that Gantri can manufacture on behalf of participating designers.
Brunner said the purpose of Gantri Made is to create a platform that is flexible. fluid. and capable of producing unique outcomes for different designers.. He added that much of the preliminary work is handled up front. which lowers the barrier for turning an idea into something physically manufacturable.
Gantri Made uses a pricing structure that includes a flat fee charged to designers for using the service. along with a cut from every sale.. For smaller designers, that cost may be justified by speed and manufacturing leverage.. Brunner argued that using Gantri’s established approach can dramatically reduce the timeline from concept to an actual product—potentially enabling lights to reach the market in a few months instead of taking a year.
Yang framed the broader ambition as making design relevant to more people while helping designers and design brands bring ideas to life.. He said the company’s direction depends on continuous product innovation and a larger variety of design concepts—paired with the ability to manifest those concepts quickly and at lower cost.. In that sense. the new wireless lines and the Gantri Made platform together aim to make wireless lighting not just a single product category. but a scalable way to build many kinds of lighting products faster.
Gantri Helia wireless lighting digital manufacturing platform portable lamps Ammunition design product innovation