Big on design, but not on DIY? These easy-to-mount pendant lights are for you
Gantri’s new pendant lights are easy on the eyes and (relatively) easy to install.
Pendant lights are great for bringing concentrated light to a space, but installing them can be a real pain.
Now, San Francisco-based Gantri, the company behind an array of at-home lighting innovations like wfh task lights, 3D-printed and plant-based fixtures, is releasing a collection of 13 pendant lights with this challenge in mind. The collection utilizes an entirely new, easy-to-install mounting system, which the company hopes will solve all your light-hanging hang-ups.
Gantri’s pendant lights, which retail for between $298 and $498, are being launched at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair from May 19 to 21 in New York City. They’ll be available exclusively on Gantri’s website.
Lights in the collection include the “Cora,” a spherical, sculptural light by German lighting designer Simon Schmitz that’s topped by a dome, and the “Gulp” by Seoul-based industrial design studio BEBOP, which was inspired by the shape of a liquid droplet being drawn up through a straw. The “Gota” (Portuguese for “drop”), was designed by industrial designer Heitor Lobo Campos and is similarly inspired. The light’s shade looks like the top half of a water drop.
But the Gantri team’s biggest takeaway from the user research phase had less to do with aesthetics and more to do with the brass tacks of pendant light design: they are difficult to install.
“There’s no easy way to hold this pendant close enough so you can wire it by yourself,” says Zachary Rotholz, Gantri’s director of product, of the light mounting process. That means that, up until now, wall mounting has typically been a two-person job: One person holds the light to relieve the weight stress, while the other person wires the light itself.
Gantri designed its patent-pending mounting mechanism to make the cumbersome installation process typically associated with pendant lights a thing of the past. Using Gantri’s system, the user screws a bracket into the electrical junction box (which houses all the electrical wires) to hold the weight of the light while it’s being wired. Then, the installer can use a slideable hook that hangs on the bracket to more easily adjust the length of the light cord.
Now, a two-person job is built for one, and in just a fraction of the time. “What typically would take 15, 20 minutes only takes five,” Rotholz says.
The company hopes its pendant lights will change how people think about overhead lighting and make it easier for people to customize their living spaces with light that’s cozy and warm rather than overly harsh.
While Gantri initially intended the pendant lights for renters, they discovered that the core customer base is actually broader, and includes homeowners and commercial customers. So they got the lights certified, clearing the way for professional electricians to install them, too, though the process is still easy for weekend DIYers.
“We worked really, really hard to make it so that anybody can feel that they can assemble a pendant,” he says. No IKEA-level relationship tests required.
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