Defying the Elements: The Impact of Climate Change on Outdoor Lighting and Audio Design

Rising tides and extreme temperatures are impacting coastal living, and outdoor living in
general, more than ever before. Having lived and worked in South Florida for decades,
the team at Coastal Source has experienced the environmental shift firsthand. Mother
Nature is a powerful force and the increasingly harsher elements unfurled along the
coastline and beyond are putting a strain on outdoor living.

Landscapes, exterior housing materials, and technologies are enduring significant wear
and tear, and consumers now recognize the need for more resilient solutions to mitigate
the damage. This includes exterior light fixtures and loudspeakers. Products
engineered, designed, and manufactured to withstand the elements are more important
than ever to ensure outdoor living spaces look and sound their best. It's time to come to
terms with global climate change and adjust our selection and designs of outdoor
technology accordingly.

Understanding the Environment

It’s impossible to develop solutions to problems without first understanding exactly what
you’re dealing with. Unless you’ve lived through a hurricane, tidal surges, and torrential
rainfall, it’s difficult to grasp the severity of the situation and formulate a plan to battle
these extreme conditions. Before you can develop products to outwit the weather, you
must first determine how salt water, humidity, and high winds wear away at speaker
housings and light fixtures; analyze how these conditions impact performance and
reliability and learn when and where to expect maintenance and repairs to occur.

Having operated design, installation, and manufacturing businesses focused on outdoor
living in South Florida for decades, D’Asign Source, the parent company of Coastal Source
and its outdoor living and environments department has seen and done it all. Based on
our vast experience catering to the high expectations of luxury homeowners, a deep
respect for the coastal climate and landscape, and an understanding of the unique
challenges encountered by systems integrators and designers, we know which
materials, technologies, and designs work in wet, windy, and salty environments and
which don’t.

Over the years we’ve evolved our design and manufacturing approaches to align with
climate change and sustainability practices. We put our products through the wringer
before they make it to market by testing their resilience and endurance in the field and
inside salt and UV chambers.

Born Out of Necessity

We saw the proverbial writing on the wall decades ago, when our design installation
team at D’Asign Source struggled consistently to find products that could handle the
harsh coastal weather without continual maintenance and repair. Revisiting projects, as
we all know, eats into precious time and resources. We knew we needed better, higher-
quality outdoor light fixtures and speakers and pleaded with our vendors, to no avail.
As a result, Coastal Source was born quite literally out of necessity. Since then, what
once was a niche market has skyrocketed into one of the fastest growing segments of
the integration industry. Monetizing this market opportunity for our partners is now our
next great opportunity. Lighting and speakers that are built to last and perform reliably in
severe outdoor conditions pave the way to greater partner sales and profitability.

D’Asign Source still functions as our living research and development laboratory. When
our integrators encounter challenges or identify a need as they design and deploy
outdoor lighting and speakers, we know immediately about it and go to work to develop
a solution. These observations have enabled us to stay one step ahead of climate
change and the competition with efficient, effective R&D. It’s one thing to design
products that meet certain performance specs; it’s quite another to innovate based on
what’s necessary in the field.

Innovative Designs That Dodge Damage

We’ve tested and seen our outdoor light fixtures shine brightly underneath a flooded
yard and speakers stand up to extreme heat. Still, there’s always a chance that
something will malfunction. Rather than toss out and replace the entire fixture, we’ve
created new lighting lines which allow integrators to detach a module containing all the
technology and circuitry from the fixture, which stays intact. A new module snaps back
in place, which streamlines maintenance and reduces waste. As new modules are
introduced, they can be added to keep the system up to date, performing optimally and
defying the elements.

Meanwhile, our speakers feature a unique field-tested sealed enclosure to prevent
water, moisture, and dirt from seeping into the circuitry but with strategically placed,
protected vents to ensure optimal audio performance. You get all the advantages of a
sealed cabinet without the typical audio compromise.

Materials also matter, and through rigorous testing in the field and in the lab we’ve
determined the ideal composition to withstand heat, moisture, and other outdoor
elements. Conditions are growing more intense every day, so we keep a close pulse on
our designs and selection of materials. For example, brass, extruded/machined
aluminum, and specialty composites resist corrosion better than other materials like the
commonly used and inexpensive cast aluminum, so we elect to build our products with
these superior materials that truly Defy the Elements.   

Furthermore, to combat heat build-up that occurs naturally when speakers are exposed
to high temperatures and sunlight, we’ve developed a unique internal heat-syncing
technology that allows the internal heat generated by the speaker drivers to be
efficiently conducted to the outside environment. Based on our own thermal analysis, it
works, and has the potential to double the lifespan of outdoor speakers.

Sustainable technology for sustained outdoor performance

Even though the climate may be unkind to us at times, we remain steadfast in our
sustainability and eco-friendly design objectives. Our plug-and-play installation
architecture combined with the use of recyclable materials and low power consumption
ensure that our outdoor lighting and speakers are as green as possible.

Weather patterns will continue to shift; so too will high-quality entertainment from the
inside of a home to the outside. These two significant trends are fueling the demand for
more durable, high-performance outdoor lighting and speakers. Coastal Source rises to
the challenge through comprehensive and consistent field- and laboratory testing to
ensure the products you install today can take on whatever Mother Nature throws at
them.

By Franco D’Ascanio, Coastal Source Co-Founder and CEO