One of the first major product lines to emerge from SGM since its acquisition by Golden Sea in 2025 is the POI range of outdoor architectural luminaires. Developed from scratch in just 12 months, the new range represents an impressive addition to SGM’s architectural lighting family. Here, lighting designer David Morgan takes a closer look at the company’s evolution, its new ownership, and the technical capabilities of the POI series.
Companies, much like people, travel along many different paths throughout their operational lives. Some businesses continue under the same family-based ownership across multiple generations, while others rapidly pass through a variety of different owners and geographic locations as market demands and financial landscapes shift.
SGM firmly falls into the latter category. Having been originally founded in Pesaro, Italy, in 1975, the company built its early reputation on a colourful and vibrant catalogue of disco-era products. These early offerings included illuminated dance floor modules, smoke machines, and specialised lighting controllers that defined an era of club lighting.
After changing Italian ownership in 2009, SGM underwent a significant restructuring in 2012 led by former Martin Professional founder Peter Johansen. Johansen relocated the company to Aarhus, Denmark, and successfully relaunched it as SGM A/S. This move decisively shifted the company’s strategic focus toward advanced entertainment and architectural lighting, laying the groundwork for its modern identity.
The company’s next major corporate turning point occurred in August 2024, when it was acquired by Golden Sea, a major Chinese lighting manufacturer. This acquisition neatly coincided with SGM’s 50th anniversary in 2025. Under Golden Sea’s ownership, SGM has successfully retained its Aarhus headquarters, its dedicated research and development team, and its distinct Danish operational identity. At the same time, the brand benefits immensely from the substantial backing and resources of a much larger global manufacturing group.
Golden Sea boasts group sales in the region of $170 million and employs around 1,600 people across the world. The broader group also includes Ayrton, the high-end entertainment lighting company based in France. Ayrton was acquired by Golden Sea in 2017 as a small enterprise and has since grown steadily under its parent company’s ownership.
SGM is now run by a new management team headed by industry veteran Jessie Lilly, who previously worked for Martin Professional, as well as Speirs Major Light Architecture and Lumenpulse. Under this new leadership, SGM has rationalised both its entertainment and architectural product ranges, and is currently in the process of developing new and revamped luminaires for both markets.
Willem De Plus is responsible for architectural product management, overseeing the initial stages of all new product development, which are undertaken in Denmark. Once the overarching design approach is fully resolved, the Golden Sea team takes over production engineering, guiding the products seamlessly through to their official market launch.
The first tangible result of this comprehensive revamp is the POI—standing for Permanent Outdoor Installations—range tailored specifically for the architectural market. Industry observers have noted that the entire range was developed from scratch in just 12 months, an exceptionally fast turnaround that underscores the immense technical and manufacturing resources available within the Golden Sea group.
The POI range includes wide wash, narrow beam, and linear luminaires. Notably, all of these models are based on the same 45mm diameter colour mixing lenses, multi-chip LED RGBW light engines, and unified driver systems. Some of these specialised lenses have been developed entirely in-house by the SGM team, while others utilise industry-standard optical components sourced from LEDiL.
The wash light luminaires all share a rectilinear aluminium die-cast construction, featuring five distinct sizes. These range from the smallest single 15W light engine housed in a compact square format measuring 88 by 88 millimetres, up to the largest 250W variant in a rectangular format measuring 280 by 470 millimetres, which incorporates 32 light engines. Furthermore, two even larger sizes are currently shown on the company website as being under development. The largest of these planned luminaires will run at an impressive 850W, utilising active cooling and incorporating 36 light engines.
Beam angles for the wash range span from 10 degrees up to 100 degrees, alongside versatile elliptical options of 10 by 60 degrees and 60 by 10 degrees. Lumen output scales accordingly, ranging from 421 lumens—measured with all LEDs operating at full power—for the 15W model, up to 11,822 lumens for the 250W variant.
In contrast, the narrow beam luminaires all feature a circular profile aluminium die-cast construction. Like their wash counterparts, they are offered in five distinct sizes. The smallest utilises a single 15W light engine within a 90mm diameter body, while the largest 250W size features a 372mm diameter body incorporating 30 light engines.
The standard beam angle for the narrow beam series is a tight 7.5 degrees. However, an external optical film accessory can be applied to modify the standard beam angle up to 80 degrees, while also providing elliptical distributions of 7.5 by 40 degrees and 7.5 by 60 degrees. Lumen output for this series ranges from 407 lumens for the 15W size up to 10,192 lumens for the 250W model, with the add-on beam shaping film introducing a modest reduction of 10 to 12 percent in light output depending on the specific filter used.
The linear grazers represent a thoughtful reworking of the i1 Linear luminaires that were previously reviewed in 2023. These updated linear fixtures now incorporate the exact same 45mm colour mixing lenses and multi-chip light engines found in the wash and beam variants. By comparison, the original legacy versions relied on single-colour light engines paired with non-colour-mixing lenses.
The smallest linear grazer runs at 25W utilising five light engines, housed within an 87 by 84mm aluminium extrusion complemented by die-cast aluminium end caps. The largest current size operates at 100W, delivering up to 3,630 lumens with all LEDs running at full power, and spans a length of 1,220 millimetres. Beam angles for the linear range span from 10 degrees up to 60 degrees, alongside an elliptical lens option of 10 by 60 degrees.
When examining physical samples provided for testing, the luminaires performed admirably. They produced well-blended colour light output across the entire spectrum, despite exhibiting some minor colour separation when viewed at very close range. The luminaires are exceptionally well-detailed and feature robust mechanical construction. Significantly, up to 60 percent of the ADC 12 aluminium utilised for the die-cast housings is derived from recycled material. Moreover, SGM has designed these luminaires to facilitate easy dismantling at the end of their operational lifecycle, aligning neatly with circular economy principles.
While the Beam and Wash POI models do not possess a particularly radical visual identity—sharing a clean design approach similar to several other high-quality architectural lighting brands—the luminaires successfully incorporate a number of innovative technical features that set the range apart from competitors.
Perhaps the most intriguing technical feature is branded as DryTech. This is a patented active dehumidification system designed to combat internal moisture. Any moisture that manages to find its way inside the luminaire housing is actively removed by an electrolysis-based dehumidifier. This system relies on a solid-state polymeric ionic membrane positioned securely between a porous anode and a porous cathode.
Equally impressive is the factory calibration process applied to each luminaire. Every unit uses an onboard algorithm to produce consistent white and colour mixes across combinations of multiple fixtures. When multiple luminaires are set to a specific colour, they automatically match one another as the system dynamically adjusts the colour mix, removing the need for technicians to manually calibrate colour levels on site. Although the RGBW array currently offers only 3000K and 4000K white options, SGM’s proprietary software allows the mixed white colour temperature to range fluidly anywhere from 2000K up to 10,000K under standard DMX control.
Other notable technical features, while also available from select other high-end manufacturers and advanced drivers, include a dynamic thermal control system and a colour boost system. The latter dynamically maximises light output based on the specific mix of whites or colours, pushing the fixture right up to its maximum thermal and electrical capacity without risking damage.
The development of the POI range stands out as a remarkable technical and organisational achievement for SGM under its new ownership structure. It will be fascinating to monitor the project results and market adoption of these fixtures in the years ahead.
David Morgan runs David Morgan Associates, a London-based international design consultancy specialising in luminaire design and development, and is also Managing Director of Radiant Architectural Lighting.
