Jon S. Fernández
Who’s writing this?
Hi! I’m Jon, and I’m part of LILAK, a project dedicated to creating rechargeable lamps for the home. As a lighting expert, in recent years I’ve become increasingly focused on energy-related topics, trying to understand what the future of lighting might look like. And everything suggests it will be very different from what we know today.
Having backup devices at home and making energy storage easier at different scales will be essential if we want to maintain the way we use energy in our daily lives.
If you’ve ever had a power outage that lasted more than an hour, you already know what it feels like to be left in the dark for a while. But do we really understand why failures in the system happen, and what we can do to prevent them? If, like me, you’re interested in these topics, stay around and take a look at the content we’re creating on this blog.
What will you find on this blog?
On this blog, we will talk about lighting, energy and power outages in a clear, practical and easy-to-understand way.
We want to explain how the power system works, why outages happen, what role batteries play, how the grid is changing and what solutions exist to make a home better prepared.
We will also write about emergency lighting, rechargeable lamps, autonomy, design, efficiency and anything else that can help you understand why having your own source of light at home can be much more useful than it might seem.
We see ourselves more as inventors than entrepreneurs. With LILAK, we want to create a different kind of product: a home lamp that is not only beautiful, but also useful when things stop working as they should.
About Lilak
The idea behind LILAK is simple: to have a beautiful lamp at home that fits naturally into your everyday life and is also ready to work when the power goes out. Not a flashlight lost in a drawer. Not a camping lamp you only take out in an emergency. A real home lamp, with a rechargeable battery, designed to be used every day and to help you when you need it most.
We are a multidisciplinary team of three people, with experience in product design, lighting and the development of practical solutions to real problems. In fact, our electronics engineer has more than twenty years of experience designing emergency lighting systems. So we are not talking about emergency lighting only from a theoretical point of view; it is a field we know well.
Why LILAK?
Because we believe the way we use energy at home is changing. The power system has been evolving for years, especially with the growth of renewable energy. Renewables are essential to reduce pollution, but they also work very differently from conventional energy sources.
Renewable energy depends on variable factors, such as sunlight and wind. That is why energy storage, batteries and backup resources are becoming increasingly important. Power grids are already adapting to this reality, but it also makes sense to have small, practical resources of our own at home.
We are not talking about turning your house into a power station. We are talking about something much simpler: having a small reserve of light that is always available.
We are also seeing more extreme weather events in areas that used to be relatively stable. If you have ever experienced a strong storm, you probably know that a power outage is often one of the most common consequences. And when that happens, many homes do not have a solution that is truly ready to use.
Most lighting solutions we have at home are not designed for power failures. They work perfectly while there is electricity, but when the grid goes down, all we can do is wait for the power to come back.
Some friends have told us more than once: “That’s what flashlights are for.” And yes, fair point. But let’s be honest: do we always have them close at hand? Do we know where they are? Do they have battery when we actually need them?
That is where the idea for LILAK comes from.
A lamp that is already part of your home, with a rechargeable battery and ready to keep providing light when the grid fails.
It is not a flashlight you cannot find when you need it most. It is a lamp that is already there.
And then comes the second common comment: “Rechargeable lamps already exist.” That is also true. But after looking at many of the options available, we found that most rechargeable lamps for the home offer very limited lighting. They may be useful for creating atmosphere, but not necessarily for doing basic things such as reading, cooking, moving around the house or handling an urgent situation comfortably.
Our idea is different: to create lamps that provide enough light for everyday tasks, with a carefully designed look and a real backup function.
And because we want the lamp to be able to provide light even in situations of extreme need, we are also working on self-charging systems using a dynamo. As the saying goes, it is better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.
Who is LILAK for?
LILAK is for people who value practical, well-designed solutions to real problems.
For people who do not want to wait until they are left in the dark to realise they needed an alternative.
For people who believe that a good product should not be hidden away in a drawer, but become part of the home.