An Industry at a Crossroads
Commentary from LpR 70: We often hear grumbles about the lighting industry suffering under low margins and high costs. Primarily, this is true for most traditional luminaire manufacturers but not as much for innovative controls and driver manufacturers, and even less so for innovative newcomers who understand the semiconductor business that has taken over a share of the luminaire manufacturers' revenue.
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A New Lighting Scene
Commentary from LpR 69: I wouldn’t be telling you anything new if I said that technology is changing at an ever-increasing rate. But in the lighting industry there is a lot more happening, which makes these times truly disruptive and perhaps even inconvenient for some people ... but not for me.
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UV-Light for Plant Development
Commentary from LpR 68: Since the development of the incandescent lamp, greenhouse farmers have been using electric light sources as a supplement to natural sunlight. Initially, light intensity was the major concern. Later, growers learned to manipulate plant development by altering the power distribution of the light spectrum for added value such as taste and appearance.
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Blue Light Hazard - How Dangerous Is SSL Lighting?
Modern Solid State Lighting (SSL) technology has long since found its way into our normal working and living environments. In the early phases, consumers were most concerned with lifetime, pricing and light quality of the new LED-based light sources. Now they have become almost ubiquitous, a focus has been placed on safety. At the recent Light+Building exhibition topics such as photobiological safety and blue light hazard (BLH) were highly ranked among both visitors and exhibitors.
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On Smart Luminaires
In the time up to 2010, conventional
luminaires with low or high-pressure
discharge lamps with a luminous efficacy
of about 80 lm/W were developed.
The electrical power was dependent on
the electrical power of the lamps built in
the luminaire. From 2008 and likely until
around 2020, luminaires with phosphorconverted
white LEDs with one fixed color
temperature, a constant luminous intensity
distribution and a maximal luminous
efficacy of about 140-160 lm/W are
developed with an electrical power
between 10 W and 300 W for different
applications and dependent on the
manufacturer. Therefore, a relative
increase in luminous efficacy of 80 -100%
in the context of the discussions on
“energy efficiency” is being achieved.
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Can You Show Me the Next S-Curve, Please?
The evolution of technologies is often
described using the “S-curve” model.
In the early stage, in the first phase of
its life cycle, technology is mainly driven
by fundamental research. Only a few
players are active at that time and
innovation steps are quite large. In the
second phase, early adopters start to
develop products and bring them to
market. This phase is characterized by
huge investments. In the third phase,
more and more players enter the
technology field, competition becomes
important and development speed of
the technology decreases. In the last
phase, the technology is mature,
(nearly) everybody can use it, there are
fewer margins and the technology
should be replaced by a new one.
Many of the SSL technologies have
meanwhile reached maturity. Where are
the upcoming technologies, what will be
the next S-curve? Looking at technology
discussions and lectures at LpS 2017
I tried to find answers to these questions.
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The Value of High-End Labs for High Quality Lighting
With the relocation to the Augsburg
site in 2015, the Osram laboratory
equipment includes a number of
integrating spheres of different sizes up
to 3 meters in diameter, several goniophotometers
A/B/C types, a rotary mirror
light distribution meter and a hemispherical
goniometer with a measurement radius of
2.65 meters, optical bench measuring
systems with up to 35 meter measuring
distance, corresponding high-quality
photometric receivers and spectral
radiometers as well as the necessary
components for the electrical operation
of lamps - according to customer or
standardized specifications.
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Lighting Delivering Increased Value To Society - A Strategy For Growth
In recent years we have seen
energy efficiency as the key driver
for regulation as well as growth.
Thanks to the arrival of LEDs the
industry is already providing energy
savings greater than any other
sector. As the LED revolution rapidly
continues, where next for the EU
lighting industry? LightingEurope,
the European industry association for
the lighting industry has developed a
strategy for growth which aims to
fundamentally deliver value to society
while aligning with the need to move
towards a circular economy.
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Brave New World and the Dualism of Light(ing)
The lighting business has been quite
predictable over a long period of time.
Technical changes were introduced
slowly, dominated by a handful of leading
companies, and mostly due to new,
but not disruptive light sources. The life
of engineers was mainly determined by
a manageable number of parameters:
Lighting requirements, light source
parameters, costs, product dimensions,
and the odd, required feature.
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A Lighting Designers Relativity of Light Performance
The LED will always be the superstar
of light sources. Their precise and clear lighting possibilities have been targeted by lighting planners and architects for the past ten years. The coming years will see the performance of the LED getting progressively closer to the spectrum of daylight and that will, in turn, generate biologically effective LEDs that are even higher in contrast and promise a new kind of feel-good light.
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From Component to System, Andreas Weisl, CEO at Seoul Semiconductor Europe GmbH
The history of Light-Emitting Diodes
(LED) is quite short compared with
some other electronic device industries.
However, it has changed and
revolutionized the entire world of light
within a very short period of time. The history of Light-Emitting Diodes (LED) is quite short compared with some other electronic device industries. However, it has changed and revolutionized the entire world of light within a very short period of time.
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Lighting Up Smart Cities, Dr. Wu Chou, Huawei
Although streetlights have been
associated with cities for more than
a thousand years, they are rarely
considered for functions other than
luminary purposes. One of the distinct
features of streetlights is their
geographic location. In particular,
streetlights follow the roads and
streets that are the arteries of the city,
and at night they outline the city so it
can be seen from many miles away.
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Review of the LED Lighting Design Approach
A rapidly changing world leaves little time to react to new trends. Nokia lost its lead position because it failed to recognize market changes and take appropriate action in time. This has caused anxious industries to react quickly when changes come about. But, in some cases, such hasty
reactions can also be harmful.
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LpS 2016 - Product Launches - Latest Technology Trends
The sixth LED professional Symposium +Expo opened its doors on September 20th, in Bregenz, Austria. Exciting product launches were presented in the exhibition and at the international press conference at the LpS 2016. Among the presenting companies were: Auer Lighting, Dow Corning, Flip Chip Opto, Gigahertz-Optik, iLumTech, Ophir Photonics, Plessey and UL.
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The Good the Bad and the Ugly
We sit as lighting designers in our
offices and look at beautiful pictures of
beautiful lighting scenarios in beautiful
glossy magazines. We are inspired
by possibilities that new lighting
technologies can offer us and allow
ourselves to dream of the beautiful
projects to come.
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Lifetime and Reliability by Günther Sejkora
Although questions regarding lifetime
and reliability of Solid-State-Lighting
(SSL) products are essential for
customers, knowledge about it
is still fragmentary. It was easy to
give answers to these questions
in the times of conventional lamps
(incandescent, fluorescent, high
pressure): light output degraded over
time and end of life was reached
when light output fell below a certain
level or when the lamp “burned out”.
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Nisa Khan on LFI 2016 Touts LED Lighting and Digital Control Technology Transformation by Dr. Nisa Khan
Hello Hans, The feedback from your audience is interesting. Like many other technologies and product types, LED lighting is already suitable for some applications - [...] Read more »
Hans on LFI 2016 Touts LED Lighting and Digital Control Technology Transformation by Dr. Nisa Khan
Hello Nisa, after my presentation on several identified but still unresolved LED lighting deficiencies during a German lighting congress, two students came up to me. [...] Read more »
Nisa Khan on LFI 2016 Touts LED Lighting and Digital Control Technology Transformation by Dr. Nisa Khan
Hello Hans, I am the author of the article. Thanks for your feedback. You have pointed out the right set of problems for LED lighting [...] Read more »
Hans on LFI 2016 Touts LED Lighting and Digital Control Technology Transformation by Dr. Nisa Khan
Couldn't agree more: All those digital bells an whistles are for the birds if the light quality still is immature under a variety of aspects: [...] Read more »
LFI 2016 Touts LED Lighting and Digital Control Technology Transformation by Dr. Nisa Khan
The 27th Annual LightFair International (LFI) conference was dominated by LED lighting coupled with internet-based control via wireless networks that continues to proliferate in today’s world. The world is increasingly becoming drenched with Internet of Things (IoT) discussions, demonstrations and for some, a certain level of implementation. Electric lighting
transformed our society for over 100 years, boosting our mood and association with the environment, culture, productivity,
and economic conditions. Such enormity pales in comparison to an unprecedented revolution that LFI describes as “Light and Technology in a New Language!”
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Zhaga Meets Smart Lighting by Dee Denteneer
At first glance, the standardization of LED lighting components seems to be quite remote from the rise of smart, connected lighting and the Internet of Things (IoT). But the projected growth in penetration of smart lighting can only be realized through developments in high-volume electronics and
standardization. Such standardization is intended to remove arbitrary variations in components, making design and
implementation easier for manufacturers of smart LED luminaires, and enabling a supplier ecosystem. This is where
Zhaga comes in.
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Design Beyond Traditional Form Follows Function
Today design is omnipresent. But what is design? “Design” was first coined by the American architect, Louis Sullivan, to mean that the style of architecture should reflect its purpose; applicable for buildings and constructions and later on attributable to products and objects.
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Can We Have That, Please? What We, As a Manufacturer of Lamps, Are Looking For by Axel Schmid, Ingo Maurer GmbH
Many things have happened since the blue and the white LEDs were introduced to the market. It was, and still is, an exciting time for us as a manufacturer of lamps and light objects.
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Lighting Beyond Illumination by Dr. Heinz Seyringer, zumtobel group
Currently, lighting is at the same point the mobile phones were when the first additional features beyond the actual phone service were introduced. There are many new possibilities arising but nobody knows which of them will be the killer apps of tomorrow.
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Creating Growth for the Lighting Industry in Europe with new Opportunities
How to create growth for the lighting industry in Europe was the challenge in the strategy workshop of LightingEurope in May. With the economic climate improving, various opportunities around LED technology have been defined including lighting applications such as smart lighting or human centric lighting.
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IYL 2015 - Light is Live, Light is Culture, Solid State Light is Progress
On 20 December 2013, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 2015 as the International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies (IYL 2015). This was the culmination of a long and concerted effort by a large consortium of scientific bodies, working together with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), where the initiative was adopted by its General Conference
in November of the same year.
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LED Innovation will Offer a Human-Centric Smart Lighting Platform Enabling Enterprise IOT
After a century of analog electrical light, the lighting industry has spent the last decade in transition to digital light sources; LEDs, sought to replace the tungsten filament. LEDs are now embedded in all market segments in both residential and commercial applications. The predictions of early LED pioneers such as Dr. Roland Haitz have become reality today: more lumens delivered at a lower cost with increasing reliability and quality of light attributes. As a result,
the world of electrical light has accepted that LEDs will be its primary light source and contribute to saving significant electrical energy, reducing carbon emissions and providing increased safety and comfort in our homes, at work and even while commuting in traffic.
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A Confusing Situation that demands Solutions: Performance Specification
Product innovations are not the only consequence of recent advancements in the lighting market. These changes must be accompanied by a realization that the “old” methods for specifying the performance of lighting products no longer fully apply and need to be amended. From the perspective of DEKRA, an organization specialized in the testing and certification of SSL products, the current situation shows the following picture:
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"Beyond LM Testing - A New Metric for Quality over Lifetime" by Thor Scordelis
In a recent blog post, the United States Department of Energy’s Jim Brodrick noted that solid-state lighting standards and testing methods “may not be glamorous, but they’re essential for the success of any technology, and SSL is no exception.” Certainly, this is true with respect to lumen quality, and for many years, the LM-80 standard, used to measure lumen maintenance of LED packages and modules, has sufficed. However, with the growing adoption of LED technology has come higher customer awareness and expectations. “Good enough” isn’t good enough anymore.
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