Shining a Light on DMF

Hands-On with DMF's iX Series Small Aperture Fixtures, DID M Series Square Housings, and Tunable White Light Modules

- Jeremy Glowacki

Touring DMF’s headquarters building in Carson, CA, in mid-August, provided an impressive glimpse into just how much the lighting fixture category has grown in significance for the custom integration channel. The tour aslo offered a closer look at the company’s CEDIA Expo 2022 product introductions: the iX Series Small Aperture fixtures, DID M Series Square Housings, and Tunable White Light Modules.

Lighting fixtures are still a relatively young product category for professional integrators. Although more and more members of the channel are designing lighting layouts and specifying and selling fixtures, many more are still not yet comfortable with a category that was once the exclusive domain of certified lighting designers, electricians, and builders.

That’s why my in-person facility tour of one of the more well-established lighting fixture brands in the channel was particularly effective in showing just how committed these companies are to the smart home market.

DMF’s presentation to the home tech media began with a welcome from COO Michael Danesh, who told the story of how the company had been founded 30 years ago by his parents Mark and Faye after Mark, an engineer, immigrated from Iran to escape political turmoil. Since that time, the company has grown to four different countries and 200 employees.

Two members of leadership team come from companies that are much more familiar to the traditional custom integrator. For example, Senior VP Andy Wakefield is a veteran of lighting and shades control manufacturer Lutron, VP of engineering Rushi Kumar held lengthy tenures at Lutron and Crestron. While, others, such as National Sales Director Residential Systems Mike Libman, and iX Series Lead Engineer George Saad may be less familiar to those not already working with DMF but are already veterans of DMF.