This is what changes
when your agency reps Sage.
You stop watching specs lock in central battery emergency lighting from the one rep in your market who carries the line. You start writing those specs. Your principals stop hedging when the architect asks "what about Sage?"
Architectural-grade central battery,
available to the agencies who've been losing without it.
Patent-protected. UL 924 listed. NFPA 101 compliant. Signature Series made in the USA and Buy American Act compliant. The brand that lets your engineers stop hunting for an answer at the edge of every project, and your reps walk into the design review with a code-bulletproof system already on the page.
Emergency lighting used to be a checkbox. That changed.
Bug-eye heads dotting a $40M lobby ruin a project. Lighting designers got specific about emergency. Recessed. Concealed. Architectural. Most emergency-lighting brands could not deliver. They were industrial, not designed. Sage CB Fixtures answer directly: low-profile, recessed, surface, and pendant fixtures designed CB-native.
One system powering an entire building, monitored from a single dashboard, eliminating the per-fixture battery replacement schedule, moved from data-center / hospital / mission-critical into commercial spec. Once the architect's lighting consultant has seen one work, they spec it on the next project.
NFPA 101's monthly 30-second test on every fixture, UL 924's testing requirements, increasingly local code expectations around fault notification have turned remote diagnostics from nice-to-have into a competitive requirement.
Every market with active commercial construction has architects writing CB-monitored emergency into specs the local rep cannot fulfill unless that rep carries the line. In most markets, exactly one agency does. That's the gap Sage fills.
Your specifier opens with code. Sage closes with code.
Engineers and specifiers expect a brand to know NFPA 101 inside and out. Sage does, and answers all of these by design.
| Code requirement | Threshold |
|---|---|
| NFPA 101: minimum egress illumination | 1 ft-candle average on path of egress |
| NFPA 101: uniformity ratio | 40 : 1 (max to min along path) |
| Local code variations (some cities) | 0.1 ft-candle minimum anywhere in the egress space |
| NFPA: monthly test | 30-second illumination check, all fixtures, every month |
| NFPA: annual test | 90-minute full-burn battery integrity verification |
| NFPA 7.9.2.3: single-circuit failure | EM activates in the affected zone even with utility power elsewhere |
| NEC: generator startup gap | 10-second max acceptable dark period before EM activates |
| UL 924 | All Sage equipment UL 924 listed |
Three competing ways to deliver code-compliant EM. Sage is the right answer for the spec-driven work where the agency wins on craft.
| Integral battery packs | Sage Central Battery | |
|---|---|---|
| Battery footprint | One battery per emergency fixture, hundreds per building | One system powers the entire building's emergency lighting |
| Maintenance | Per-fixture testing every month; replacement on a rolling 5-year cycle | Centralized testing; one replacement event per cabinet; low-voltage swap (no licensed electrician required) |
| Specification posture | Generic / commodity: competes on price | Architectural: competes on design, compliance, total system cost |
| Economics on the reference design | 111 battery locations to test and service | 2 cabinets · 37× lower decade upkeep · 2.4× lower ten-year total |
| Line-voltage inverter | Sage Central Battery | |
|---|---|---|
| Real-estate footprint | Refrigerator-sized floor unit, 600+ lbs, dedicated mechanical-room space | 24″ × 30″ wall-mounted cabinet |
| Battery proprietary lock-in | Brand-locked replacement on every 5-year cycle at manufacturer's price | Standard lead-calcium, sourced locally from any commercial battery distributor |
| Service window | Factory-authorized tech required for diagnostics + battery work | Building's own maintenance team handles routine service |
| Economics on the reference design | $55,327 day one · $9,520 decade in proprietary battery sets | 35% to 50% lower day one · 7× lower decade upkeep, and no crossover ever |
| Emergency generator | Sage Central Battery | |
|---|---|---|
| Code role | Backs the entire building's electrical load, required for life-safety beyond EM | Backs egress and life-safety lighting only, a dedicated EM layer |
| Cost / complexity | Six-figure capital + fuel storage + emissions inspection + ATS coordination | Capital orders of magnitude lower; no fuel, no emissions, no ATS coordination |
| Code gap | 10-second startup gap can violate NEC without supplemental battery support | Activates instantly; no startup gap. Sage rides the generator cleanly in the same code framework. |
The agency that brings Sage closes the spec.
Real-project economics on the two configurations agencies see most often. The dollar values are project-specific; the order-of-magnitude advantage repeats.
The reference design: 87 relayed emergency fixtures + 24 exits, fed from two Keystone cabinets. Every battery serviced by the building's own team at low voltage instead of a licensed electrician per fixture.
Full worked comparison →The inverter never leads: behind on day one, further behind every year after. Same centralization, modern architecture. No crossover, ever.
Full worked comparison →111 locations × 11 monthly tests a year is what the code calendar actually costs a facilities team. Sage tests itself on a 28-day cycle and writes the report. Full line-by-line math available on request.
77 products. 5 categories. Front of house and back of house.
Architects choose Sage CB Fixtures for design reasons. Engineers choose Sage Luminaires for compliance reasons. Both end up in the same building, and both ship under one Sage purchase order.
Mini (100 W compact cabinet), Keystone (1000W cabinet, 9-circuit local circuit monitor included, satisfying NFPA 7.9.2.3 per branch). UL 924 listed.
Wall-mounted in mechanical / electrical rooms, or anywhere the architect has 24″×30″ of wall. The Mini needs 16″×12″.
One Relay line, six variants (RLY-1 through RLY-6). Modules that convert any standard LED luminaire to emergency operation. Programmable 5W–60W per fixture.
In-fixture or driver-side, on the relay-converted general-lighting fixtures. Sage's engineering picks the relay per fixture per project.
Including Aspen, Obsidian, Onyx, Orion, and Phoenix. Recessed, surface, and pendant fixtures designed CB-native.
Front of house, architect-spec'd. Lobbies, corridors, public-facing volumes.
Including Atlas, Basalt, Cypress, Ember, Hawthorne, Reed, and Willow. Architectural general-lighting fixtures that pair with Sage Relay.
Front-of-house when the architect cares; back-of-house when the engineer just needs compliance.
Including Jasper, Luma, Opalite, Rowan, Cove, and Vista. Exit signs, combo exit plus emergency units, and the self-luminous families. On the central battery, exit signs need no local circuit: low voltage from the cabinet powers each sign day and night, so every branch circuit drop at the exit locations leaves the electrician's scope.
Egress paths, exits, public corridors, anywhere code calls for marked emergency lighting.
Keystone (KEY) cabinets ship with the ASA (Active Shooter Alert)ordering option, the capability Alyssa's Law states require. When triggered from a wall switch or WiFi activation, every dedicated emergency fixture and exit sign flashes. No additional sensors, wiring, or fixtures are required. It is an ordering option on a system already going in, and it is there when a K-12 job asks for it.
Most brands give a customer a PDF. Sage gives a customer a toolkit.
Available at sageem.co, no login required. The specifier's first interaction with Sage is using Sage to do their job. Nothing else in this category does that.
Type any competitor part number → instant Sage equivalent.
A specifier with a competing product already drawn in gets the Sage SKU in one click. Substitution friction collapses.
Egress coverage from generic space inputs.
Reps walk into the meeting with a defensible recommendation, not "we'll get back to you."
Generates a full CSI Section 26 specification.
One button. Sage is now basis of design.
Branch-circuit voltage-drop + load math pre-configured for Sage CB.
Engineering questions answered in 90 seconds during the call, not three days later via email.
How the monitoring works on the reference design: the 28-day test cycle, circuit-level fault reporting, and the compliance record it builds.
Post-install: this is how the building owner manages the system. Maintenance contract for the life of the install.
Ceiling height + space type + architecture preference → Sage product recommendation.
Pre-qualifies the conversation.
Engineer / firm logo stamp + project name on every Sage spec sheet.
Submittal packages come pre-stamped. Engineers stop hand-editing PDFs at midnight.
Every Sage feature is also a sales lever.
Sage establishes a Base Price; every dollar above it on each invoice is yours. No agency split. No cap. The industry-standard manufacturer cut on rep overage doesn't exist at Sage.
Every Sage system ships with the full interactive monitoring dashboard and its compliance reporting at no additional cost, on every design. The exception is a government or similarly air-gapped project, where the building's own network rules decide. Pitch the building owner a real-time facilities tool, not a monthly PDF. Most CB competitors charge for monitoring or don't have it at all.
Your agency gets a portal under its own name: the presentations, the full document set, spec sheets, and project uploads in one place, for every person on your team. Nothing to request from us and nothing to keep a copy of. It is the whole line, current, wherever your reps are working.
Send any project and Sage engineering analyses it, whether or not Sage is getting the spec. A layout, a fixture schedule, a set of drawings: the answer comes back either way. Your team gets a technical read on live work without spending a relationship to get it.
The design deliverable, the photometric study, and the per-SKU documentation land in the basis of design together. When the substitution request arrives, the specifier is defending a design Sage already computed, not a preference. That is what makes a Sage spec hard to unseat. Active Shooter Alert is a Keystone ordering option, specified by line item where Alyssa's Law applies.
Sage luminaires ship with the relay pre-installed for new construction. On renovation the relay converts LED luminaires that are already in the building, in the field or upstream at the fixture manufacturer. The same system answers both, so the line does not sit idle between ground-up cycles.
Any dimming or lighting control system, with zero coordination. The Relay sits after the LED driver, so the control system never touches the emergency path. Your reps stop losing weeks to the controls contractor on emergency scope.
Sage's engineering team performs the egress photometry, picks the right relay per fixture per project, and provides schematic wiring diagrams as part of the relationship. Your engineers don't have to.
When a contractor pushes for a cheaper alternative mid-construction, Sage hands you the spec-defense file: code-citation cross-reference, performance-equivalency analysis, CSI Spec Writer output. Substitutions become hard to win against Sage.
Sage uses standard lead-calcium batteries available from any commercial battery distributor. Pitch building owners zero proprietary lock-in. Inverter brands force them back at premium pricing on every 5-year replacement cycle.
24 of the 77 products are the Signature Series, Sage-manufactured and Buy American Act compliant. Federal, state, municipal, and school-district work with public-money origin requirements is answered out of the box, with per-SKU BAA documentation from the submittal generator and a BAA filter across every specifier tool. A set of Signature products additionally carries Build America, Buy America (BABA) certification for federally funded infrastructure, including the central battery system core. It is marked on their spec sheets and filterable on the site. A public-works category your agency can walk into with paperwork in hand.
NEC requires emergency lighting active within 10 seconds. Generators have a startup gap that risks non-compliance without supplemental support. Sage activates instantly. Pitch life-safety engineers a clean code answer.
Floor-standing inverters take a refrigerator's worth of mechanical-room real estate. Sage takes one wall. You walked into a meeting and gave them their square footage back.
Seven pillars Sage answers.
Every pillar reduces a line item that competing systems leave on the project. The agency that brings Sage to the spec brings a smaller bill of materials, a code-resilient design, and an operating relationship that follows the building.
| Concern | Sage's answer |
|---|---|
| Compliance | NFPA 101 · NEC · UL 924 · NFPA 7.9.2.3: every Sage CB system built to meet code by design, not by accommodation. |
| Performance | 1 ft-candle average · 40:1 uniformity · 90-minute runtime standard (extends to 2-hour where AHJ requires) · ≥87.5% battery threshold · all guaranteed, all monitored. |
| Design | Sage's engineering team performs the egress photometry and provides schematic wiring diagrams as part of the design-assist relationship. Your engineers don't have to. |
| Maintenance | Standard lead-calcium chemistry, locally sourced, completely non-proprietary. Self-testing standard. Low-voltage battery service: the building's own team can swap (no licensed electrician required). |
| Environmental | Battery-disposal liability dropped by orders of magnitude. EPA-compliant pathway via licensed disposal centers, fewer instances per decade. |
| Monitoring | Sage Live interactive dashboard, included at no additional cost. Real-time fault notifications. Compliance audit trail for AHJs. |
| Switching / building controls | No ALCRs required. No Life-Safety ATS. No dual branch circuits. No factory-authorized service window. Simpler installation, lower total system cost. |
From this brief to signed agreement,
three meetings.
Most agencies sign within 30 days of the principal call, once territory and commission terms are clear.
Walk the dashboard at sageem.co live, talk territory, answer questions. No commitment.
Bring 2–3 active projects from your pipeline. We model the Sage revenue together using the specifier arsenal on your real projects. Concrete numbers on your work.
Standard manufacturer's-rep agreement. Territory locked, line activated, Partner Asset Pack delivered, your team trained on the specifier arsenal, your first project pipeline reviewed.
Right fit? Territory open?
Winston Caraker · VP of Sales, Sage Em · owns agency relationships. Direct contact for every active Sage agency.
winston@sageem.co · 512.578.5871 · sageem.co