Established in 2005, Stratas manufacture high-end light fixtures handcrafted at our workshop in Berlin.
Since 2012 we are proud to work with Xicato LED modules, providing excellence, bringing efficiency, reliability, without compromise of colour rendering.

Compact but powerful

Stratas provides a complete range of lights fixtures, track spotlight and wall washer, pendulum spot and soft light and ambient light, each of them designed to be compact and discreet while keeping a design continuity.

Our main focus in design is to combine the exceptional quality of Xicato LED modules with our high quality approach of functionality and a clean aesthetic. The awareness of the advantages that quality light serves, the effects and influences good lighting achieves in diverse settings and living situations. These are the topics that make us appreciate Xicato highly as a partner.

Each Stratas product works as a carrier to communicate the quality of Xicato modules in each particular form of illumination. Stratas is defined by quality craftsmanship and attention to detail in every step of development. From inception to realisation, each Stratas lighting object is hand manufactured and tested ensuring full reliability at the highest possible quality.

Precision plays an integral role in the way in which Stratas products are created, making each lighting fixture perfect for a large range of settings. Each piece is contemporary and minimal while being easy to use and highly adaptable. Fusing expertly crafted lighting with a unique approach to design has made Stratas unparalleled in its class.

STRATAS – Made in Berlin

Why Xicato LEDs?

Tungsten lighting, even though it has improved over the years – like halogen, it remains a technology from 1904 with very poor efficiency: 1.9% (12.6 Lm/W) to 3.5% (24 Lm/W). Other technologies, like mercury vapour and metal halide have much better efficiency but terrible light quality and generate a lot of UV, which must then be filtered out to protect artworks. Fluorescent tubes have good efficiency, but produce too much UV. They are not suitable as spotlights and it’s rare to find any with good colour rendering.

With about 80 Lm/W for the Artist series, Xicato has allowed us the possibility of designing an efficient spotlight without compromise of light quality, an even better light beam than tungsten and significantly less UV generation.

Besides this, all other lighting solutions (aside from tungsten and LED) contain mercury, a highly pollutant chemical element. Stratas fixtures are completely free of mercury and are ROHS compliant. They simply last longer than any other light source, saving to throw out bulbs with mercury every month.

Unlike most other LED manufacturers, Xicato LEDs achieve 98 CRI from R1 to R15, within 1 x 2 MacAdam, and 50,000 hrs colour and lumen maintenance. Meaning that, even after thousands of hours of operation there will be no decrease in light or colour difference between any two Stratas fixtures.

Another advantage Xicato provides is a lot of power into one single LED chip, where other track fixtures sometime use a combination of several lower power LEDs, producing multiple shadows, the light beam of Stratas fixtures are adjustable in a wide range angle while preserving clean light and smooth shadows.

With all the benefits of Xicato LEDs, Stratas fixtures are the perfect product for gallery and museum lighting or anywhere the light quality must be of a high grade in a discreet fixture.
A long lifetime and reduced energy usage, Stratas light fixtures are of enduring benefit, save energy and maintenance for at least 5 years is not necessary.

Importance of colour rendering.

Light is natural – and our way of perceiving it, is in a continuous spectrum from around 390 to 700nm.
This perfect spectrum can have a different colour temperature. Tungsten, for example, is close to sun quality, just warmed up at lower temperature than to have descent lifetime. Tungsten fixtures have a colour temperature between 2800 K and 3200 K. Our eyes in combination with our brain is able to adjust our vision according to theses colour temperatures.

The problem with colour perception appears when the light is not a continuous spectrum following the black body colours temperatures. This is why we use the CRI (Colour Rendering Index) to quantify the quality of the light to restitute proper colours. Bad CRI light sources don’t actually have a full spectrum, but an association of colour rays, or some blocks of rays that are weaker, which all together give the feeling that we see all the colours even if we can’t.

These poor CRI lights may be suitable for many everyday applications however, to have a proper perception of colours which have been meticulously chosen, like paint hues, pictures, prints, high end products… a good CRI is indispensable.