LED Lighting for a brighter future!

LED highbays installed at the Wembley and Aylesbury maintenance depots delivered a 67 per cent and 48 per cent saving in energy consumption respectively. A mix of LED amenity, street and area lighting products were installed to deliver optimum illumination at Chiltern's Wembley station. Chiltern Railways was in desperate need of a cost slashing innovation to reduce energy usage and an inventive application of LED technology offered the answer. The Arriva owned company has updated the internal and external lighting at three major stations, Wembley, Aylesbury and Stourbridge in the south of the UK. Energy-intensive 400W highbays at the Wembley and Aylesbury maintenance depots were replaced with hooked LED highbays in a range of wattages and a sustainable, higher efficiency, longer lamp life replacement for traditional 2D bulk heads, was installed in the staff shower and toilet facilities at Wembley. The offices on both sites were kitted out with ultra slim ce...

  The potential decision to sell of the firm’s prestige lighting business will come as a surprise to some, especially as lighting, in the early days of the company, defined GE. GE is thought to be considering selling its lighting buisness so it can concentrate on producing large complex equipment such as aircraft engines. GE, the company credited with inventing and mass marketing the lightbulb, is reportedly plotting to sell of its lighting division. The Wall Street Journal reports that the firm has been talking to a number of investment banks about a potential deal. GE was co-founded by Thomas Edison, the inventor of the first viable incandescent lamp, over a century ago and the jettisoning of the firm’s lighting business a century later could net the company up to $500 million. The Boston based company has been gradually selling off businesses since 2004, including its insurance, credit card, plastics and security divisions. It is thought that GE is...

Research found that 32 days after they were planted and nourished under LED light, tomato plants showed a 45 percent increase in height and a 28 percent increase in weight. Improvements in weight, morphology, flowering, root development and flavour have been spotted in plants grown under supplemental LED lights in greenhouses. Tomato plants have been found to show a 45 per cent increase in height and weight when cultivated under LED lights. The new research, which was conducted by LumiGrow, who develop LED technology for use on farms, noted an increase in flowering observed in cucumber plants, as well as a reduction in the spread of powdery mildew, which is a common problem. Increased flowering rates were also found in tomato and cannabis plants. The research also aimed to pinpoint the optimum supplemental LED light intensity for strawberry production. The research was presented by Dr. Xiuming Hao and Shalin Khosla of Harrow Research and by Dr. Melanie Yelto...

'The moon, unlike the sun, lets you look at her, it seems she wants to be looked at', commented Paolo Di Trapani, CEO of CoeLux, who is behind the latest innovation. CoeLux Moon aims to create a comforting and relaxing ambience and less light is used to produce the final effect than the original sunlight CoeLux uses. CoeLux’s artificial skylights have rocked the industry due to their convincing reproduction of sunlight. Now the company has launched a new version that aims to be just as successful at recreating the night sky. CoeLux Moon is being launched at Euroluce 2017, which is currently taking place in Milan. ‘The moon, unlike the sun, lets you look at her, it seems she wants to be looked at,' commented Paolo Di Trapani, CEO of CoeLux, who is behind the latest innovation. CoeLux chose last year’s LuxLive to launch the second generation of the CoeLux daylight range, which is comprised of smaller less costly fittings. ‘By rebuilding the phy...

Amazon's voice technology 'Alexa' forms the backbone of the firm's Echo platform, but Alexa is also finding its way into a string of third party innovations. The Amazon Fund have invested in a number of start-ups that aim to improve voice technology used in the home. The Fund  has already invested  in firms such as Musaic, a smart HiFi that allows users to integrate lighting with their playlists. Amazon has launched a $100 million strong fund to fuel voice technology innovation, with the intention of ensuring it becomes the key tool used in home lighting control. Named the Alexa Fund after the voice that assists users on the company’s Amazon Echo platform, the venture capital stream aims to fundamentally improve the way that people use voice technology, including to control lighting. The Alexa Fund will offer financial help to independent developers and device-makers who wish to advance voice technology, be that through creating new Alexa capabilitie...

LED lamps and luminaires are commonly available in 2700K, 3000K and 4000K colour temperatures, but how do you go about choosing the correct colour? This question has been answered by  Chris Shenton , technical and quality specialist at LEDvance UK. Lamp colour temperature is often a personal or historical choice and it depends on what environment is being created.   Here is a general guide: 2700K   is a similar colour appearance to incandescent lamps and is a warm, relaxing colour. 3000K  is a similar colour appearance to halogen lamps with a warm but crisper colour than 2700K. Commonly called ‘warm white’. 4000K  is a cooler, whiter colour than 2700K and 3000K. It’s the lamp that has traditionally been used in offices, waiting areas and most commercial applications. This is commonly called ‘cool white’,  or occasionally ‘neutral white’. 6500K  is a very cool white that is used to simulate day light. It ...