ERDI TECH LTD exhibited at the 2026 Shenzhen photonics exhibition (COIE) from 9 to 11 September, meeting OEM teams, integrators and distributors at booths 8C01 and 8C02 in Hall 8. Over three days the stand ran as a working technical desk rather than a display case: visitors spent their time on module selection, interface questions and integration constraints for 1535 nm eye-safe laser sources.
What was on the stand
The booth carried the product families that ERDI builds around its Er:Yb glass microchip technology:
- 1535 nm laser rangefinder modules — the LRF0305C class of compact, low-mass units intended for UAV gimbals, EO/IR payloads and handheld optics.
- Laser target designators — the LDR20K1 family, shown alongside its control and interface documentation.
- 1535 nm eye-safe laser sources — the ER series from 100 µJ up to multi-millijoule energy levels for ranging, LiDAR and industrial sensing.
- Optical waveguide sights, thermal/red-dot hybrid sights and smart aiming systems — the sight-side product line presented on the wall panels.
Because the modules are usually integrated rather than used stand-alone, most conversations started with the host system and worked backwards: available volume, mass budget, supply voltage, interface, and the target and atmosphere the ranging channel has to work in.
Who came by
Traffic split into three broad groups. Integrators working on uncrewed platforms wanted to know what an eye-safe 1535 nm channel buys them over a 905 nm design in terms of atmospheric transmission and safety margins at the same aperture. Survey, industrial-inspection and security teams asked about minimum range, beam divergence and how the module behaves at short stand-off distances. Distributors and regional partners were interested in portfolio coverage and lead times.
A recurring theme was documentation. Buyers increasingly want a controlled drawing and connector definition before they commit to a design slot, not after. Several meetings ended with an agreement to exchange mechanical and electrical definitions for a specific model so the customer could run their own tolerance and thermal analysis.
Meetings at the technical desk
The most productive conversations happened at the table, where a laptop, the module wall and a tray of samples could all be in front of the customer at once. That format suits a product line like this: the question is rarely “what is your best module” and much more often “which of these will fit in my envelope, and what do I have to change in my optics to use it”.
For visitors who brought a live requirement, we were able to work through energy budget, receiver bandwidth and timing on the spot, then point at the specific model in the range that matched. Where the requirement did not fit an off-the-shelf part, the discussion moved to OEM integration support.
Eye-safe 1535 nm, in a crowded hall
There is a practical argument for 1535 nm that is easier to make in person than in a datasheet. The wavelength is absorbed before it reaches the retina, which changes what is possible in a system that has to be operated around people, and it sits in a band where atmospheric transmission and eye-safety margins line up well for long-range work. At a show floor with this much foot traffic, that distinction also made the sample case a popular stop — visitors wanted to see how much packaging the eye-safe source actually needs.
What we took away
Three days of enquiries confirmed the pattern we see in the inbox: demand is concentrated on compact, low-mass, eye-safe modules that can be dropped into an existing optical and mechanical envelope, with documentation good enough to design against. Two things follow from that for the rest of this year.
- Definitions first. Controlled drawings, connector pin-outs and interface notes need to be available early in the conversation, not at the purchase order stage.
- Application engineering is the product. A large share of the value we add is helping a customer work out which module fits their optics, and what they need to change to make it fit.
Next steps
If you stopped by booths 8C01/8C02 and we owe you a drawing, a model recommendation or a quotation, those are being worked through now. If you did not make it to Shenzhen this year, the same conversations can happen over a drawing set: tell us the platform, the envelope and the range you need, and we will come back with the module that fits and the integration notes to go with it.
Contact the ERDI TECH team at sales@erdicn.com, or start from the 1535 nm compact laser sources and OEM solutions pages.