LED Lighting for a brighter future!

Lux LONDON-- ‘There’s no doubt about it.’ This was the emphatic answer of Hoare Lee’s Dominic Meyrick a tLuxLive on Wednesday, on a discussion panel tackling the question of whether the light switch is dead. You have to award him full marks for passion – and for consistency, Meyrick made the same case at the International Lighting Fixture Design conference last July. Don’t call the priest just yet. Once again his view faced opposition, this time no more vocally than from GOOEE’s Simon Coombes. ‘Definitely not,’ was his assessment, ‘there’ll always be a need for a fallback, a tactile device on the wall.’ ‘Because you grew up with one,’ Meyrick chimed in. ‘It’s nurture not nature.’ On that point they could not agree, but it highlights the underlying question: to what extent do users want or expect automation? Here the panel were quick to draw analogies, from gas heating to automobiles, and, inevitably, smart devices. ‘Mobile phone interfaces come and go, but we expe...

Professor Herbert Plischke wants lighting companies to take more responsibility for how their products affect the human body Lux LONDON-- From manufacturers to wholesalers, the lighting supply chain needs to start measuring and explaining the non-visual impact of its products on end users. That’s the view of Professor Herbert Plischke, of Munich University of Applied Sciences, who told delegates in a packed session at LuxLive of the growing body of evidence to suggest that the right light – at the right time – can stabilise hormonal rhythms, enhance night-time melatonin secretion, improve sleep quality, increase day-time vigilance and raise our resilience to stress. For shift workers and others who are active at night, appropriate lighting could reduce ‘chronodisruption’ – the effects of the body being active when it is not prepared to be. Lending his voice to the ‘human-centric lighting’ movement, Plischke said that the radiance, spectrum and solid angle of ...

Facing £157m budget cuts over the next few years, Derbyshire County Council decided that some lateral thinking was needed. The result is the plan to replace its over 68,000 existing streetlights with low energy LED lighting to help balance the books. By James Hunt: The LED lights are expected to last for 25 years, which will lead to lower maintenance costs, and they use less electricity. Derby Telegraph Derbyshire County Council is to replace over 68,000 streetlights, with lamps and luminaires replaced with new LED light fittings. At the same time, over 22,000 older lampposts will be replaced. The reason for this £23 million investment is the very significant budget restrictions imposed upon the Council. The amount of money that the Labour-led Council has paid in electricity for streetlights has risen in recent years because of the increase in fuel prices. Since LED lighting uses less electricity and prices keep going up, it is envisaged that the £23m investment could be...

It looks like the sun... but it isn't. It's a brand new type of artificial skylight called CoeLux which, for the first time, recreates the scientific process that makes the sky appear blue. It also creates an illusion of depth to make the 'sun' appear to be far above. Lux takes an exclusive look. Featured in this video: Professor Paolo Di Trapani, CoeLux Kevin Andrews, Ideaworks Christopher Musangi, Mlinaric, Henry and Zervudachi Etienne Pradier, Butterfly Trix Gary Hubbard, ISG Robert Kiely, Lightadvice Shuttla www.novelenergylighting.com

Battle of the efficiency bands:  With a 50 per cent improvement, LEDs have now pulled ahead of CFLs. Lux reports: The lighting industry can sometimes sound downright fickle when boasting about energy savings for LED lamps compared to incandescent models. One moment, it's 70 per cent. Another it's 80. Then it's 90, after which it might revert to 80, or 75. Who could blame the consumer for getting jaded? But it's not always the whim of the vendor that keeps these numbers going round and round. Several factors justify the vicissitudes. The US Department of Energy has just reminded us of one of them: Lab developments keep making LED bulbs better. Thus, figures from two years ago could well have given way to improved performance. According to the DOE's Energy Information Administration, new LED lamps ('bulbs' to some readers, including those in America) are generally 50 per cent more efficient today than they were in 2012. The chart above shows th...

But can it also do the dishes? : BMW's combo LED streetlight and car charger thickens the plot of the convergence game, in which internet companies are already intruding on traditional lighting industry turf. Lux Reports: German auto giant BMW has thrown down a gauntlet to the lighting industry, unveiling a new streetlight that doubles as an electric vehicle charger. No, there are no typos in the opening sentence. BMW – you know them for cars with names like BMW i, BMW M, MINI and Rolls-Royce – is getting into the LED street lighting business with a product called Light and Charge - a Swiss army knife for today's age of all things digitally converging. 'Light and Charge is a simple and innovative solution which aims to seamlessly integrate a smoothly functioning charging station network into the urban landscape,' said  Peter Schwarzenbauer, a BMW board member . Schwarzenbauer introduced the 'combined state-of-the-art LED street light and charging s...

You be the judge:  The last time you were at the Sistine Chapel, it probably didn't look like this. Lux Reports: ROME - If you've been to the Sistine Chapel, you probably recall the crick in your neck and the strain on your eyes as you gazed upwards to spot Michelangelo's ceiling. Strain no more. The Vatican will today officially switch on 50 new luminaires containing 7,000 LEDs that illuminate masterpieces such as The Creation of Adam and The Last Judgement in a way that brings the paintings and frescoes into full, clear and colourful view, as was evident at a press preview last night.  'We want to honour the 450th anniversary of Michelangelo's death by providing new lighting for his work,' said Prof Antonio Paolucci, director of the Vatican Museums. The great artist would probably be proud of the project, led by Germany's Osram, which said the new LEDs provide ten times the brightness of previous lighting, while slashing energy consum...