CI · AV · Lighting · Southern California
Less than 10% of CI dealers are actively in landscape lighting. Most of the homeowners who have it hate it. Both of those facts are opportunities — but only if you show up with something better than what they've already been burned by.
Here's a useful way to think about this: every remote, every keypad, every app — the thing the client uses to trigger the experience you built — is yours. When it creates the best experience of someone's life, that is your credit. When something goes wrong on the other end of that button, that is also yours. Not legally, necessarily. But in the client's mind, completely.
Bryan Viga, who oversees the HK CI channel, made this point at a dealer training and it did not need a lot of elaboration: the outdoor lighting is on the other end of the client's button. Right now, if what's on that end is corroded, faded, falling over, or just ugly from 8 AM to sundown, and your name is associated with the system that controls it — you are already in the outdoor lighting business. You are just in it passively, and passively in this category means absorbing the blame without the margin.
The better position: be in it intentionally, with a product worth defending, and have the conversation before the builder or landscaper has already installed whatever was cheapest at the supply house.
Bryan Viga spent a year on the road before he brought HK into the CI channel. Not pitching — studying. He sat down with architects, interior designers, builders, electricians, landscapers, and luxury homeowners, coast to coast, and asked them about their experience with landscape lighting.
The homeowner conversations were the most revealing. The consistent findings: products corrode or break, creating an annual maintenance expense. The same fixture goes into a $250,000 home and a $25 million home — no one asks the homeowner what they want, they just put in what the landscaper had on the truck. Homeowners are unhappy with how the fixtures look during the day but feel they have no alternative. And when given the option to invest in quality and design, luxury clients say yes — they simply have never been presented with a choice.
The poolside story: during a walkthrough on a DMF project in California, Bryan stepped outside with the homeowner, the designer, and the builder after spending hours discussing indoor lighting. He asked the homeowner about her experience with the existing exterior lighting around the pool area. Her response, paraphrased with the volume turned down: she had hired three separate contractors over the years. None of them could get it right. The fixtures corroded, chipped, blew over. She couldn't understand why something that looked adequate on day one turned a different color within a season. And no one had ever asked her what she wanted it to look like. At the end of that conversation, she was ready to redo the whole thing. She didn't need to be sold — she needed to be asked.
HK stands for Hiroshi Kira. This matters for a specific reason: the CI channel has not had a landscape lighting brand with a real designer story. Every brand can show you a beautiful nighttime photograph. No brand until now has had a principal designer with the credentials to make architects and interior designers care.
Hiroshi came to the United States and worked under Henry Dreyfuss — one of the most influential American industrial designers of all time, the person who designed the Bell Model 500 telephone, the Hoover vacuum, and the American Airlines identity. He spent years developing his understanding of design before entering the landscape lighting space. In 1986, he designed one of the first architectural accent lights ever made. His thesis: flood lighting on objects wasn't the right answer. Light needed to be channeled with precision, like a brush, not spread like a paint roller.
His first company, Lumiere, ran for twenty years before he sold it to Cooper Industries. After the sale, the design community pushed him to come back. He started HK. Every piece in the residential collection was originally custom-designed for a specific designer or application, one at a time. The product library exists because of decades of solving real design problems for real projects, not because someone sat down to spec a price point.
His design philosophy, in his own words: "I am creating a paintbrush to draw light effects and art on a landscape canvas." This is not marketing copy. It is how he actually approaches the work, and it shows in the details of every fixture in the line.
The industry's standard approach to landscape lighting advertising: show a beautiful night photo of a lit property. That is not differentiation — every brand can do that on day one. The question nobody is answering is what it looks like at 2 PM on a Tuesday, when the client's guests arrive, when the landscape designer is walking the property with the architect, when the client is sitting by the pool in the daylight and the fixture they're looking at is an eyesore they chose to live with because they thought they had no other option.
Hiroshi's three requirements for HK residential products were non-negotiable: one, the light must be channeled with precision (performance). Two, the fixture must endure without maintenance or degradation (quality). Three, the fixture must look intentional, designed, and beautiful during the day (design). These are the three pillars. A fixture that satisfies all three can be placed visibly, near luxury finishes, in coastal environments, without apology.
The positioning implication: HK is not asking the client to accept an eyesore that looks good after dark. It is asking whether they want a fixture that looks exceptional in both conditions — and it is the first brand in the residential landscape category that can credibly make that offer.
Solid billet aluminum means carved from a single piece of metal — not cast, not stamped, not assembled from sheet stock. Anodized and powder-coated. The weep holes in the fixture body are symmetrical and designed to channel water out cleanly. The screws are concealed. The edge detail that runs around the fixture body is machined into the billet — it is not applied, it is carved. HK ran a salt fog test comparing their aluminum fixture to a competitor's brass version and photographed the results side by side. The comparison is on the website. It is not subtle.
The corrosion warranty is lifetime and includes coastal environments. Not a three-year limited warranty with asterisks about salt air. Lifetime, coastal, in writing. This is a material claim backed by material reality — the choice of billet aluminum specifically addresses the failure mode that luxury homeowners keep describing: things that corrode, chip, and patina unexpectedly in coastal conditions.
Every lens in the residential collection has a hydrophobic ceramic coating. Water spots, debris, and grime shed from the lens surface, keeping light output clear and consistent over time. This is a manufacturing decision that nobody requires HK to make and that most competitors do not make. It exists because Hiroshi decided that keeping the light perfect was worth the production step.
Every fixture is fully assembled, custom-configured to order, and pre-tested before it ships. No boxes of components to assemble on the driveway. No hoping that whoever assembled it in the field did it correctly. The fixture arrives complete, tested, and ready. Lead time: two to four weeks, down from the twelve to fourteen weeks that custom bespoke fixtures used to require.
HK did not launch a thousand-SKU catalog. They launched the fixtures that cover the vast majority of residential projects and committed to developing the rest alongside the dealers who are actually using the line. Everything comes in black and bronze. Everything comes in 2700K or 3000K. Lamps are included in the fixture price — which matters when you're comparing quotes because most competitors sell the fixture body and lamp separately.
The 08 is the small fixture: around 200 lumens, best for smaller trees up to ten feet in height. The 11 is the most frequently specified — in a smaller body than most lamp-based competitors, it performs in the 30–80 foot illumination range and goes on trees, architectural elements, and plants that need real output without the bulk. The 16 is the full-capability version, including a variant with an integrated lamp and an adjustable glare shield that moves between 14° and 70° — you can adjust the light shape in the field, not just the aim. That glare shield won an award at CEDIA.
The adjustment mechanism is worth understanding: HK removed the click-stop positions that every other brand uses. Click stops put you at a predetermined angle — if the right angle for your application is between two clicks, you're approximating. HK uses a continuously adjustable mechanism with a lockable screw. You aim it exactly where the light needs to go and lock it in place. The lockable base screw at the bottom of the fixture handles the rotational position — if the fixture is threaded into a ground stake and needs to be aimed at an angle, you loosen the screw, rotate to aim, and lock. Three seconds, no tool change.
The flood was designed in collaboration with Jan Moyer — widely considered the most accomplished landscape lighting designer in the country. She had specific fixtures made for her work by Hiroshi for years. The residential flood is the translation of that commercial relationship into a product accessible to the CI channel. The fixture can cut light off precisely at the edge of the illuminated area. If you want to light a wall without spilling light onto the ground, the optic design gives you that control. The shape of the housing itself gets attention from people who have been in landscape lighting for decades — the reaction at the HK training is consistently "you finally made a floodlight that looks good."
The most popular pathway is the 180° single-direction bollard — clean, minimal, available in black and bronze. The dual-direction version is worth knowing: it illuminates in both directions off a single fixture, which creates a design element on the ground rather than just a path guide. HK positions these turned sideways, with the light running alongside the path as a feature line rather than on top of it. The effect is architectural rather than utilitarian.
The 360° pathway bollard covers all-direction illumination. The sharp-angle elbow version handles narrow geometries where standard bollards read wrong. All pathways in the same color temperature and finish as the rest of the HK installation — no compromise on visual consistency.
This category was driven by dealer requests. Bryan Viga heard it from every dealer he traveled with: "I need step and marker lights, and that's where I could double or triple the sale on every job." So they built it: one-inch aperture, 150 lumens, solid brass body (underground applications), drive-over rated in two versions. Five designs shown at CEDIA, three ready to ship in Q1 including 360°, 180° drive-over, and a path-in-wall version. The four-inch version with 15-degree post-installation adjustment follows.
Every step and marker is identical on the inside. If the installed version needs a different beam treatment — add or swap a glare shield — you pull the fixture, change the insert, drop it back. Infrastructure stays in the ground. The inside of the fixture changes.
HK made a deliberate decision not to create proprietary infrastructure. No proprietary wire — use the gauge and type you want, including Coastal Source wire if that's what your install team prefers. No proprietary transformer — HK sells 150W and 300W stainless units with nine-volt-to-fifteen-volt taps, surge protection in both directions, and an astronomic time clock option, but if you have a transformer preference, use it. Universal threading that is the same as standard landscape speakers — the same stakes and mounts you're using for outdoor audio work with HK fixtures.
The retrofit implication of this is significant. Because HK uses no proprietary connections, threading, or wire, you can go into an existing property with competitor fixtures installed and upgrade the visible part — the fixture — without touching the infrastructure. Unscrew the old fixture, cut the wire, re-terminate with Lightshrink, screw in the HK fixture, aim it, lock it. If the transformer is adequate and the wire is the right gauge, the retrofit is a one-visit operation. You are not requiring a demolition project to create an upgrade conversation.
Wire nuts in outdoor landscape lighting are how things stop working. Moisture infiltrates, corrosion forms, continuity degrades, the client calls, the maintenance tech shows up with no idea which connection failed. HK uses Lightshrink — every fixture ships with two crimps and two heat-shrink sleeves included — and it has been the company's connection standard for decades of commercial work.
The process: strip both wires, place in the crimp, apply the crimp tool — it does not release until the crimp is correctly set. Slide the heat-shrink sleeve over the connection, apply heat. The silicone lining inside the sleeve liquifies and flows around the connection, sealing it air-tight and water-tight when it cools. Direct burial. The connection is done. If you need to extend or shorten later, cut it and do the same thing again. Everything you need arrives with the fixture — the only thing you need to add is a heat gun, which every install team already owns.
HK sells bags of Lightshrink in multiple sizes for different wire gauges, including a version that handles bundled or heavier-gauge connections. If you want to run 8-gauge trunk line and tap fixtures off it — which eliminates voltage drop concerns for any realistic run length — the Lightshrink has a size for that connection too.
Most landscape lighting brands make you start with a full installation — design the entire property, run the wire, install the transformers, commission the system. That is a full project that requires a full skillset and full client commitment. It is not how most dealers start in a new category.
HK's retrofit capability — universal threading, no proprietary infrastructure, system-agnostic design — makes a genuine crawl possible. You walk into an existing project where the client is unhappy with their outdoor lighting. You look at what's installed. You unscrew a competitor fixture, attach an HK fixture, and the client sees the difference. That is not a landscape lighting project. That is a fixture upgrade, completed in an afternoon, with immediate visible impact. No design package required. No new transformer. No new wire. Just a better product replacing a bad one in a space the client already has.
The demo kit is $500. It includes the most popular HK fixtures with quick-connect leads pre-installed so they work off the included battery pack or power supply without running any wire. Bryan Viga offers additional fixtures at half of dealer cost to round out the kit with whatever makes sense for your market. The $500 entry is the only thing standing between you and having the right product in your hand for the right conversation.
Every DMF interior lighting design that comes through ByDesign includes a complimentary HK outdoor design if you want it — including jobs that were already quoted without one. The HK design team takes photos, video, aerial imagery, and a scope call. They have a Nearmap license — thirty times the resolution of Google Maps satellite imagery, with seasonal variation, so they can see a property in winter and summer — and they use everything at their disposal to produce a complete outdoor lighting plan.
The design fee is $1,000 flat — and it is credited back when you hit $5,000 in product. HK's average order is around $20,000 and growing. No one has paid for a design review. The $1,000 threshold exists for projects where the design does not produce a sale. In practice, it is essentially a free service.
The portal handles everything. Select the fixture category, choose the color temperature, beam spread, finish, height, lamp type, accessories, and stake — HK builds and pre-tests that exact configuration for you. No guessing about assembly. No dealer assembly required. Pricing is transparent per component. Freight is included on orders over $2,000.
The close that works on every project:
"You've invested a lot in this interior. Right now, at sunset, all of that disappears. Let's talk about what it looks like when you drive up at night — and what it looks like at 2 PM when your guests are arriving."
On retrofit:
"We don't have to change the wire, the transformer, or anything underground. We just swap what you're looking at every day for something you'll actually like looking at."
The HK facility is in Thousand Oaks, CA — less than an hour from most of the Southern California market. The April 21–22 retreat starts at HK headquarters (2151 Anchor Ct) at 1:30 PM for a facility tour, then moves to Oak Canyon Ranch in Agoura Hills for the training event and overnight. The full agenda: why landscape lighting, the HK difference, product overview with Lightshrink demos and watertight connection comparisons, transformer wiring and layout best practices, new product showcase, Q&A, wiring strategies, fixture aim and optic adjustments. After dinner, the group splits into teams for a nighttime product layout exercise on the Oak Canyon Ranch property — the teams design and execute their own outdoor lighting approach, then present it. The format is competitive in the way that actually teaches things.
Dinner, drinks, and overnight at Oak Canyon Ranch are included. Checkout Wednesday morning at 11 AM. This is the kind of event where dealers who didn't know where to start in landscape lighting come home with a product in their hand, a technique in their muscle memory, and a story they'll tell clients. Contact Evan to confirm your spot.