Recently, a nearby city converted its intersection lights to Cooper Navion LED fixtures. These fixtures replaced 200, 250, and 400 watt HPS, mostly GE M-400As. After about a year of being in service, (installed in 2020) most if not all have began to have premature issues. These issues include lumen depreciation, color temperature shift, or total failure.

It’s not just one city that has had problems with Navions, another city installed a handful (installed in 2019), and all have had similar problems since the first few months of being installed, turning from a crisp white to a dingy yellow tone. The Navions have become so dim and underperforming to the point where the old HPS fixtures seem much brighter and deliver better performance. The case with the Navions has become very similar to Leotek’s E-cobra. In comparison, the old lights were 200 and 250 watt HPS, whereas the Navion LEDs seem like they’re equivalent to a 100 watt HPS.

I’m starting to question the quality of Cooper products, as I’ve seen Navions installed in 2016 prior, and those seem to have had minimal issues and are more reliable, so it appears that this problem effects models made from 2019 onward. I’m curious to know if others have witnessed similar issues with newer Cooper products.

Rancho Cucamonga has Navions at their intersections, installed in early 2018, that also have the same problems. They have the Verdeons for all the city-owned poles, and those have been holding up a lot better. No visible color shift that I can see, so far I've only seen three Verdeons out. I've seen few more failures with the Navion.

Yeah those Navions suck. The Verdeons in Old Town Maine are holding up just fine, I haven't seen how good the Archeons are. It's probably because SMD LEDs tend to have more problems than COB LEDs.

Also Detroit also used Navions in some areas so maybe they'll have a second round of major failures.

WSDOT is using Navions, and I've noticed color shifting in the older models. The older models are 4000K and the newer ones are 3000K. Haven't noticed color shifting in the 3000K models yet. I have noticed a few failures when the driver goes out.

I’d be curious to know, if the situation were to get significantly worse to the point more cities have problems, could it lead to litigation. I’m sure the fixtures probably have some sort of warranty and Cooper could replace the defective fixtures, but still to have LEDs fail within a year is obviously a problem.

It’s more than just Navions, even Archeons aren’t exempt either. A nearby city installed hundreds of these fixtures on city owned light standards, and more than a few dozen didn’t even work after installation. Even after a few months of being in service, many of the defective Archeons still don’t work. To be fair it could be some other issue (prehaps defective photo controls?) but since these fixtures haven’t been fixed in months, it appears to be something more significant.

Most blame driver failure for the flickering, when the issue is just low voltage to that light. 

Well, things appear to have gotten worse with the Navions. Drove through Cypress tonight, and saw a pair where the LED blocks these have appeared to be shifting a pale purple color from a dingy greened-out white color. They originally were 4000K. These fixtures are a little over a year old, all failing citywide at signalized intersections. I see potential litigation against Cooper in the horizon. Meanwhile the old glaresheild M-400As they had replaced lasted decades. These fixtures are complete junk.

Well, things appear to have gotten worse with the Navions. Drove through Cypress tonight, and saw a pair where the LED blocks these have appeared to be shifting a pale purple color from a dingy greened-out white color. They originally were 4000K. These fixtures are a little over a year old, all failing citywide at signalized intersections. I see potential litigation against Cooper in the horizon. Meanwhile the old glaresheild M-400As they had replaced lasted decades. These fixtures are complete junk.

If those fixtures have a warranty (many LED luminaire manufacturers include pro-rated a 10-year guarantee) then they will have to honor it. Otherwise litigation with Cooper would be the alternative if they do not.

They should be under warranty, based off the poor performance of the fixtures I’m sure the city is probably looking at doing that process.

Isn't Cooper owned by Signify now? I wonder where does the Cooper brand stand in terms of what segment it's marketed towards (entry level, mid range, high end). It's also possible that the quality suffered post Signify acquisition.

Yeah like Joe mentioned, I think 10 years is a typical warranty for LED luminaires.   

Yeah they were bought out by Signify. I thought Cooper was somewhat mid-range but I’m not totally sure.

Weird, most Cooper fixtures here are holding up fine.

Weird, most Cooper fixtures here are holding up fine.

The defective ones could be part of a bad batch. That happens nowadays with just about everything.

*Update 5/19/22*

I proudly like to present that the issue had gotten worse. More Navions are dimming out or failing completely, turning purple, and just downright suck. The city isn’t even warranty replacing them so far, as Siemens has started spot replacing them with Leotek GC1s as they totally fail.
 

They should just use Verdeons instead. Those are far better. The GreenCobra series has gotten better over the years, but I'd still say the GC1 is the worst model.

How are the Archeons holding up?