Articles & Interviews

Paradigm Changes in Lighting Are Challenging Lighting Companies

Fabien Bubendorff has a Master in Electronic Engineering and has 10 years' experience in the lighting industry. He has spent more than 13 years living in China. He worked as a Product Manager for a Retail Lighting Company, for the Last 5 years he was responsible for Wever&Ducré as the Head of R&D in China and for the last years Head of R&D at XAL in Austria. Now he has founded an independent consultancy to support European Lighting Companies to deal with these future challenges. He specialized in finding the optimal balance between function and cost to increase product profitability. Read more »

Offline Lighting Voice Controller — An Alternative to Voice Assistants

The historical evolution of light control by users started with a mechanical switch followed by potentiometer and dimming, touch panels and touch screens, gesture and movement detection control, and ending with voice. Voice control are mostly online speaker independent like Alexa, Google Home and Siri. But there are privacy and security concerns. Filip Michalski, Electronic Engineer, and Cezary Skotak, CEO, from Cezos describe a speaker independent offline voice controls system, explain the technology and discuss the pros and cons. Read more »

Kenneth Martin from Zumtobel about Comfortable Lighting

Kenneth Martin has been specifying, qualifying an developing components and characterization setups for LED light sources within the Zumtobel Group since 2006. With his expertise on spectral measurements and applications, he supports integrative lighting solutions topics. He gathered valuable knowledge in physics and optical system engineering while studying at the University of Applied Sciences RV-Weingarten, during the internships at a quality assurance department of a reflector aluminum manufacturer and the optical development department of Zumtobel. He combines his enthusiasm for lighting and sustainable construction engineering with a DIY philosophy. Read more »

Adopting an LED More Suited to Circadian Entrainment

Since the introduction of LED lights, a lot has been said about risks of blue light for ocular health on the one hand, and the opportunity of circadian entrainment, on the other hand. While a controversial discussion on the first topic is ongoing, the second topic is well accepted. To solve both issues, Bill Chan, President of LiteController Inc. proposes the application of 465-470nm pumped phosphor converted white LEDs with a content of 86% - 92% blue-turquoise light and 8% - 14% blue-violet light. In the article he concentrates on the second topic and proves the benefit of regulating the circadian entrainment more efficiently, maintaining a high typical efficacy of 150 lm/W and good color rendering of CRI 80+ ideally supporting the WELL Building Standard. Read more »

Discomfort Caused by Glare from Luminaires with a Non-Uniform Source Luminance

Glare and the resulting discomfort are a persistent issue in lighting that became even bigger with the introduction with LEDs as a light source. While the UGR method is well established, it is sometimes heavily discussed if it is appropriate for SSL. The limitations of the UGR method need to be understood. Peter Thorns BSc(Hons), CEng, FCIBSE, FSLL, explains these limitations and consequently describes the research and how to apply correction measures. Read more »

Resources | Full Spectrum LEDs | Jürgen Honold | Opinions | Nov 30, 2020

Tech-Talks BREGENZ with Jürgen HONOLD, Dipl.Des.(FH)

At LpS 2019, Jürgen Honold, Dipl.Des.(FH), and his co-presenter Dr. Martijn Dekker, held a very interesting and remarkable lecture about photobio-modulation (PBM). LED professional wanted to learn more and asked Jürgen Honold for an interview. As Technical Fellow, he is responsible for Seaboroughs' advanced lighting research and development and exactly the right person to talk with when it comes to HCL and related technologies and applications. Dr. Martijn Dekker, CEO of Seaborough accompanied him and gave an introduction with additional insights into Seaborough and the company's structure and strategy Read more »

Research Reports | Sustainability | Dec 15, 2020

Repro-light Consortium Concludes

Aldrans, Tyrol, November 2020 - The European research project Repro-light concludes after a three year journey which began in 2017. The consortium set out with the aim of supporting the European lighting industry in moving towards a more sustainable and competitive future. The project harnessed innovative technologies and materials to develop intelligent modular luminaires with matching smart production processes. The main components of these luminaires are interchangeable and configurable for the respective application (e.g. different LED modules and optics), and their software can be updated accordingly. The LED luminaire can change from a disposable object, into a customisable and sustainable product, with a high function value. Read more »

Resources | LpR Article | Technologies | LED Drivers | Jan 13, 2021

How to Increase the Efficiency of Two-Stage Drivers

In this article, Dr. Weirich from Infineon Technologies, describes a simple method for increasing the efficiency of drivers that can operate with LED engines with a wide range of current and power levels, at virtually no effort. In addition, the method allows for using smaller inductors in the buck stage, leading to lower cost and potentially, smaller size. Read more »

Resources | LpR Article | Feb 20, 2021

Reader's Question About "Short-Pulse Testing"

In reference to the article "Short-Pulse Testing Eliminates Self-Heating Errors to Produce True L-I Graphs" in issue LpR#83, a reader has asked why one measures with these short pulses, since this differs very much to the conditions in real application. Read the author's answer below. Read more »