About Us
We're Huckleberry Lighting, a family owned, DIY permanent holiday lighting solution for your home or business. With years' experience with addressable RGB lights and LED lighting, electrical engineering, and home automation, founder Craig Thompson sought to create an affordable permanent light system available to the masses as a DIY product -- something he, family, and friends could afford and install themselves to improve the outdoor aesthetic of any home or building. In December 2021, not completely satisfied with current offerings or commercial installation companies' prices, we set out to engineer the best permanent lighting system on the market, and Huckleberry Lighting was born.
Meet the Team
Craig Thompson
Craig is an electrical engineer with experience in LED lighting, addressable RGB lights, and LED science and technology. He spent four years running a hardware engineering company, where he engineered multiple rare colored LEDs and sold them to universities, hobbyists, and large corporations. He was able to create these LEDs through different combinations of metal and phosphor doping of Epistar LED emitters, which causes a Stokes shift, producing longer wavelengths of emitted light. Eight of his rare colored LEDs are still available through the hardware company Craig founded, Addicore LLC.
After selling Addicore, Craig worked at a technology company in Lehi, Utah. The company moved into a new building where the illuminated building signs were installed and configured incorrectly. After the CTO approached Craig and asked if he could fix it, he fixed the lights and enabled the company to fully control both the color and brightness of the sign. That Christmas, he made the building signs festive by making holiday color patterns on the sign. By the next holiday, another neighboring tech company had their sign themed for the occasion. Over time, additional companies were programming their signs for holidays as well, and so started the battle of signs in the Silicon Slopes tech community. If you find yourself driving along I-15 in Lehi, Utah during the holidays, enjoy the colorful building signs!
Outside the professional realm, Craig is a born and raised Montana man who now living in Utah still enjoys the outdoors, fly fishing, beekeeping, skiing, sailing, making chocolate from scratch, building LEGO®, DIY electronics, 3D printing, and flying a Cessna 172. He is often found tinkering and building in his home “lab” or spending time with his wife and daughter.
Michelle Thompson
With degrees in geology and professional experience in ecommerce and business, it only made sense that Michelle further diversify her resume by learning what she could about LED lighting and helping Craig launch Huckleberry Lighting. Though she'd never claim to be the brains behind the system, she's helped work through many issues and has helped get Huckleberry up and running. When not spending time with Craig and their daughter, she enjoys skiing, baking, playing cello with the community orchestra, hiking, and being outside.
Aaron Norris
Aaron Norris is an electrical engineer by degree, and a creator and designer at heart. His interest in electronics and engineering started early in life, highly influenced by his father and grandfather. In high school he participated in LAAE, a high schooler led program that designed, built, and raced a fully hydrogen powered car which placed first in class in the 2007 Shell Eco Marathon. His love of hands-on engineering only grew from there. He has worked in multiple different disciplines and industries, from oil and gas to IT and home security to parts supply for hobbyists at Addicore with Craig.
In his free time, he likes to do much the same as what he does at his day job: design and prototype new products and trinkets. He loves to find reasons to design 3D printed parts, and you'll find lots of printed parts in his house. From the custom Wi-Fi mount on the wall, to the 3D printed ornaments on his Christmas tree, you are never far from something custom made and designed by Aaron.
Aaron, a native of California, now lives in Eagle Mountain with his wife and kids. When he's not working, spending time with his family, or creating, he loves to ride his road bike. He will often challenge himself to go farther, higher, or faster than he's ever been before; pushing himself to the limits to see where he can improve and how he can be better. Aaron believes in constantly improving yourself and your designs.
The Challenges
Like most small businesses, we ran into our share of challenges.
First, we wanted a 48V system to minimize power injection points across your house, but had to stay under 50V to allow for easy installation without an electrician.
Second, we wanted each light equipped with dedicated warm white LEDs. This creates the best looking and brightest architectural lighting without your lights looking blue. This allows you to get the most out of your system-- these aren't just holiday lights!
Third, we wanted to design a control box that could reliably send long distance signals down hundreds of feet of wire. No more installing multiple control boxes in inconvenient or unsightly locations.
Last, we wanted to create a system that anyone could install. Our goal is to also save you thousands of dollars on installation fees, but still have lights that look sleek and professional. We designed a system that requires as few tools as possible, and with tools that you may already have on hand. Our aluminum tracks are easily cuttable and bendable with simple hand tools.
However, the challenges were worth weathering to bring you the best DIY permanent lighting solution on the market. Craig partnered with another electrical engineer friend, Aaron, to help engineer and design a system that met our vision and expectations. We're happy to present our 48V system that allows you to install without an electrician, supports 300 feet of lights in one run, and without additional power injection points. Each light contains three warm white LEDs (2800K) and 3 RGB LEDs, making it one of the brightest available. Additionally, our LEDS are focused through individual lenses, creating an appealing beam of light. Our powder coated aluminum tracks are durable and resistant to regular wear, chipping, and scratching, and are easy to work with and install on your house or business. We hope you enjoy your lights as much as we do.