Energy-generating floorboard lights up 35 LEDs with one footstep

A floor material that converts footsteps into energy may one day power lights in train stations and busy thoroughfares. Xudong Wang (pictured above) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his colleagues have invented a material that generates electricity when people step on it. Unlike previous attempts in this vein, which use relatively expensive materials like ceramics and metals, this one is low-cost, renewable and biodegradable. One step on a floorboard produces between 10 and 30 volts, and is capable of lighting up 35 green LEDs.

Build Your Own 'Tron' Light-Cycle with a Mountain Bike and LEDs

Optronics Releases Next-Gen Opti-Brite LED Headlamps

Optronics International, a manufacturer and supplier of heavy-duty LED vehicle lighting, announced that it will display its most advanced Opti-Brite LED Headlamps for the first time in booth 3328 at the 2016 AAPEX Show in Las Vegas, Nevada. Optronics’ new LED headlamps feature advanced retroflective LED technology engineered to emit a wider, brighter beam for increased visibility and safety, and an eye-catching LED conspicuity array that enhances the lamp’s style and appearance.

The new Opti-Brite LED Headlamps have a signature look and feel that sets them apart from other LED headlamps. Beginning with unique centralized lens elements that house attention-getting LED conspicuity arrays and rear-facing LEDs, the lamps simply look different than anything else on the road. The rear-oriented LEDs interact with precision-engineered metallic parabolic reflectors to create a beam pattern that is ultra bright, with broad, smooth, photometric characteristics that approximate the color temperature of natural sunlight, improving visibility and reducing eye fatigue.

Optronics’ new LED headlamps come in three formats that cover a wide range of vehicle makes and models. The HLL93HLB series fits a seven-inch round format and has both high and low beam functions built in. The HLL79HB high-beam lamps and HLL78LB low-beam lamps fit four- by six-inch rectangular formats and are compatible with four-lamp systems with separate, dedicated high-beam and low-beam lamps.

Vixole's Matrix shoe puts an active LED display on your feet

Now that Nike's Back to the Future-inspired high tops exist, and the famous self-lacing tech has arrived on a consumer product, even footwear is beginning to get smarter. With a little crowdfunding help, Vixole will be making its own contribution to the growing lineup of forward-thinking kicks, with its Matrix shoe. The startup's Indiegogo campaign launched today and aims to put customizable LED displays for static or motion graphics on everyone's feet. It's not just for eye candy, however: The design includes an array of sensors that can adjust the visuals according to movement, GPS coordinates or even react to your playlist.

This Light Bulb Changing Drone

Dynamo LED’s custom display at Gatwick

Hour Passion, a concept store belonging the watchmaker Swatch Group, is one of the first shop fronts in the UK to built entirely from an LED video display. The custom built LED display from Dynamo LED measures 6720mm by 3936mm and features right angle returns on the entrance to the shop.

Philips Lighting joins $7 million round for smart building sensor maker PointGrab

Israel’s PointGrab has raised $7 million in funding for its sensors for smart buildings. The investors include lighting company Philips Lighting; Mitsubishi UFJ Capital Co. (MUCAP), a venture capital arm of Japan’s largest financial group; and existing investors ABB Technology Ventures (ATV) and others. Israel-based PointGrab makes CogniPoint, a smart-sensing solution that detects people in buildings and shuts off lighting if there’s no one around who needs it. The goal is to enable effective building management and save money through energy efficiency.

As use of LED street lights grows, so do concerns over ‘blue light’

Spurred by a desire to lower energy costs, cities and towns in the area — and throughout the country — are overhauling their street lights. One after another, high-pressure sodium lights, a longtime industry standard, are being replaced with brighter, more efficient LEDs. But specialists warn that the “blue light” from some LEDs can disrupt the body’s production of melatonin, a hormone that influences sleep, if exposed to it at night

GE says it will close eastern Illinois lamp plant in 2017

General Electric Lighting says its plant in Mattoon in eastern Illinois will close in August 2017.
The company said this summer that it planned to close the plant next year unless its employees could come up with an acceptable alternative for the facility. According to WAND-TV in Decatur, the company said in a statement Wednesday that the drop in demand for traditional lighting means the plant is now operating at 40 percent of its capacity.

Eversource and the Town of Greenwich to host free light bulb swap for residents

On Tuesday, Oct. 25, Eversource and the Town of Greenwich will host a free light bulb swap for residents as part of the 2016 ENERGY STAR Change the World Tour. The light bulb swap will be held from 5-8 p.m. at Greenwich Town Hall, 101 Field Point Road. Greenwich residents, with identification, may bring up to five incandescent light bulbs in any condition and exchange them for new, energy-efficient ENERGY STAR LED bulbs, free of charge while supplies last. Additional LEDs and lighting products will be available for purchase at a discounted rate.

Blue LEDs Light Up Your Brain

About a decade ago Los Angeles–based software developer Lorna Herf decided to try her hand at oil painting. She and her husband, Michael, also a computer programmer, eventually installed bright fluorescent lights in their apartment's loft so that Lorna could paint at night and still have an accurate sense of what colors on the canvas would look like during the day. Late one evening Lorna descended to the living room, where computer screens were aglow. Now that she had become more attuned to differences in lighting, she noticed just how much the bright light from the computer screens clashed with the soft warmth of the incandescent bulbs that surrounded them. She remembers thinking the electronic screens were “like little windows of artificial daylight,” spoiling the otherwise gentle ambience of the room.

LG Innotek Commercializes UV-C LED module for Home Appliance

LG Innotek announced it has supplied its sterilizing UV-C LED modules to LG Electroics’ home appliance. The company expects that this achievement will become the primer to expand its market for UV-C LEDs. According to LG Innotek, the company has provided its 4mW UV-C LED modules to LG Signature air purifiers from LG Electronics since last July. The LED module is equipped with two 6060 UV-C LED packages manufactured by the company.

Lava lamp maker expands into contemporary lighting

Remember those funky lava lamps you had when you were in high school and college? You probably didn't know they are made by an Elk Grove Village-based company and you will undoubtedly be surprised to know the maker is updating the look by entering the conventional lighting market. Lifespan Brands is now offering lava lights that are part of larger, conventional lamps with shades and a 60-watt bulb.

Blissfield to bring LEDs in light replacement program

Consumer’s Energy soon will begin replacing the village’s streetlights with light-emitting diode (LED) lamps, which village administrator James Wonacott said not only will offer a brighter , whiter light but also will save the village some money. Consumer’s will replace 346 lamps throughout the village. Existing 175-watter mercury vapor and 100-watt high-pressure sodium lamps will get 54-watt LEDs while existing 250- and 400-watt mercury vapor and 250-watt high-pressure sodium lamps will be replaced by 110-watt LEDs.

Switching light bulbs to LEDs could ease blackout fears, Greenpeace says

As National Grid prepares to release its winter outlook report on electricity and gas supplies for the coming months, Greenpeace said a drive to switch homes, street lights and offices to LED lights could deliver a major reduction in demand. National Grid published an initial assessment of this winter's energy situation in July, in which it said the gap between total electricity generating capacity and peak demand would fall to just 0.1% at the height of a cold spell without action. But with measures it had taken to provide a safety net, paying large energy users to reduce demand during winter weekday evenings and keeping power stations in reserve that would otherwise be closed or mothballed, the margin was 5.5%

LEDs Will Light Up Homer Harbor Next Year

Homer will soon join the list of U.S. cities making the switch to LED lights. On Oct. 10, the Homer City Council passed an ordinance authorizing the installation of new LED lights on seven high mast poles around the Homer Harbor. Originally, the Port and Harbor Department had planned to install LEDs on a single pole as a test project. But the City Council voted down that ordinance in favor of an expanded project that will install lights on all seven poles. The estimated price tag for the project is $180,000.

Sapphire industry: More than just LEDs

LED remains the dominant sapphire application in 2016. Overall, rates of usage in smartwatches have been disappointing and have decreased below 2015 levels. In parallel, smartphone display screen opportunities haven’t taken off. Within the highly competitive sapphire industry, players are chasing any opportunity to survive and optimize their cost structure. Prices seem to have reached bottom and stabilized after a rough ride over the last 12 months. After a dip in the second half of 2015, LED substrate demand has been growing strongly through 2016 and is now at record high levels, even triggering a limited shortage of high-quality 4″ materials and wafers. According to Yole Développement (Yole), the worldwide quarterly sapphire wafer consumption for LEDs has reached 28.5 million of TIE (Q3, 2016).

Mid-Range Samsung Smartphones Finally Have Notification LEDs

One such important, yet inexpensive piece of hardware that has been conspicuous by its absence in Samsung mid-rangers, is the notification LED. The feature is available in most sub-$100 devices in the market today, but it is only now that the world’s largest smartphone maker is bringing it to some of its lower-priced handsets. The honor of being the first non-flagship Samsung smartphones to come with the notification LED goes to the Galaxy J5 Prime and Galaxy J7 Prime, both of which were launched last month in India at prices ranging from $220 for the former to around $280 for the latter.

Hybrid nanohole LED design suppresses efficiency droop

Publishing their results in the Applied Physics Letters, a team of Chinese researchers have drastically improved the efficiency of white light LEDs through a hybrid approach, filling nanoholes in a blue InGaN/GaN LED structure with nanocrystals. Key to the improvement in colour conversion efficiency (CCE) is the reliance on an efficient non-radiative resonant energy transfer instead of the radiative pumping that would typically prevail when combining a blue InGaN/GaN LED with down-conversion materials, such as phosphors or even semiconductor nanocrystals (NCs), they write.

Soraa’s LEDs Bring Two Million Years of History to Life

Soraa announced that its LED lamps have been installed at the Western Australian Museum in Perth, Western Australia. Soraa’s exceptional LED technology illuminated the exhibit – A History of the World in 100 Objects, a collection of the British Museum.

From the earliest tools made of humble stone to colourful Javanese shadow puppets, the objects in the exhibit provide an unwritten insight into human cultures across time, from two million years ago to the present. The challenge was to find the right lighting to accurately render colours and whiteness while meeting specific lighting guidelines to keep artifacts safe.

To meet these guidelines, Soraa’s Australian partners, Lighting Options Australia, and lighting designers at Illuminated Design chose 150 Soraa VIVID MR16 LED lamps throughout the exhibit after rigorous tests and evaluations of several brands. Utilising every colour in the rainbow, especially deep red emission, Soraa’s lamps render warm tones beautifully and accurately, and achieve a colour-rendering index (CRI) of 95 and deep red (R9) rendering of 95. And unlike blue-based white LEDs without any violet emission, the company’s lamps have violet emissions to properly excite fluorescing brightening agents, including natural objects and white materials, such as textiles and paper. Plus, with no UV and IR radiation, low heat output and the ability to dim to specified light levels the precious objects were protected.

LEDs Are Lighting Up Fashion—And Have Been for Years

Chanel’s robots might have stolen the show at Karl Lagerfeld’s Back to the Future–style show this season, but the accessory of the moment will no doubt be Chanel’s LED-adorned bags. Clutches, cross-body styles, and the label’s infamously cool Boy bag were updated with LED dot matrices that flashed a trompe l’oeil quilted pattern and double-C logos. Clever? Yes, and quite salable considering the modern girl is as obsessed with capturing an Instagram-worthy moment on her iPhone as she is addicted with her phone itself. We’re betting Dolce & Gabbana’s light-up tiaras and shoes are popular, too.

Jaffrey: LEDs to replace streetlights

The town of Jaffrey will embark on a trial run to decide whether to switch the town to LED streetlights. The decision was made at Monday’s Select Board meeting to have a trial run of six lights, after the board received a proposal from DPW Director Randy Heglin. To retrofit the town, which has 154 streetlights, the cost will be $45,010, which will be lessened by a $15,400 rebate.

New High-Power XP-L LEDs From Cree

Cree, Inc. introduces the XLamp XP-L2 LED, delivering up to seven percent more lumens and 15 percent higher lumens-per-watt (LPW) than the industry-leading XP-L LED. Leveraging elements of Cree’s breakthrough SC5 Technology Platform, the high-power XP-L2 LED improves the lumen density, voltage characteristics and reliability of the XP-L LED in the proven XP package. Cree, Inc. introduces the XLamp MHB-B LED, a new high-power LED that enables a more effective way to deliver lower system costs for high lumen...

Mercedes-Benz readies smart-pixel LEDs with thousands of light points

Developed through a partnership with suppliers Infineon and Osram, the technology centers around a new LED chip populated by 1,024 individually controllable light points. The approach appears to bridge the gap between individual LEDs and high-resolution OLED display panels. The innovation eliminates the need to install separate LED driver modules side-by-side and stacked, which limits the number of controllable segments in current-generation adaptive LED headlights.

Trying to Solve the L.E.D. Quandary

Is there a workable business model for products that are built to last, rather than to fall apart? This is an idea that I explored here in July, in a story about the L.E.D. quandary. That quandary, in short: companies are making a good thing—light-emitting-diode bulbs that conserve energy and last for years—but they can’t make money in the long run from products that rarely need replacing. As global light sockets fill with L.E.D.s, century-old corporate titans are getting out of the bulb business even before “socket saturation” tips sales into a decline. The question remains whether any company has an incentive to make a product that is not designed to fall apart or become obsolete.

Clever tricks and some obsessive crafting

A lightbulb might seem like an odd thing to covet, but then, the Plumen 003 LED spotlight is an uncommonly beautiful lightbulb. The new design by Claire Norcross, Marie Laure Giroux, and the British firm Hulger relies on a few clever tricks and some obsessive crafting to produce one of the most elegant lightbulbs we’ve ever seen. At its center is an LED spotlight, and the brass-plated aluminum housing focuses the equivalent of 60W directly below the bulb. But the genius of the design is the way the housing’s facets direct gentle light in all directions.

Hive takes on Hue with colour-changing light bulbs

In its bid to kit out Britain's homes with tech-centric appliances, British Gas' Hive has launched a wide range of internet-ready products. There's the all-important smart thermostat, plugs, home sensors and, more recently, Hive Active Lights. These smart bulbs can be controlled via the Hive app and interact directly with the Hive Hub, but customers have only been able to buy the standard dimmable white light. That changes today, after the company added two new bulbs to its Active Light line-up, putting Philips' Hue in its sights.

Using Graphene to Lower the Cost and Footprint of LEDs

To reduce the footprint and cost of WLEDs, researchers from National Tsing Hua University designed a direct WLED derived from a strontium-based MOF, graphene and inorganic semiconductor hetero-junctions. Testing of the device showed that the WLED’s emission spectrum was continuous, similar to natural sunlight. This is in contrast to currently commercially available WLEDs, which are comprised of three discrete colors (red, green and blue), and which can make the colors of the objects they illuminate appear distorted.

LEDs purpose-built and binned for horticultural needs

The Luxeon SunPlus Series of LEDs introduced by Lumileds are purpose-built for horticulture and binned by photosynthetic photon flux in µmol/s (PPF) to ensure ease of system design for grow lights. The purpose-built LEDs provide the exact wavelengths of light required for horticulture applications, claims the manufacturer. Growers can develop single channel solutions using key wavelengths for photosynthesis, blue (420-480nm) and red (620-670nm). Or they can develop multi-channel solutions with select LEDs to optimize light output for different stages of the plant’s life cycle, including seedlings, germination, vegetative growth, flowering, etc.

LED Streetlights Are Getting a Dark Reception

As light-emitting diodes become cheaper and cities are encouraged to cut their energy use, LED streetlights have sprung up on the roads of many municipalities around America. But residents in those early-adopting cities are now faced with a problem: they don’t like the light. Until recently, most of the LED streetlights that have been installed have had a bluish tinge. As IEEE Spectrum reports, ever since they’ve been installed, people have been complaining about glare, light pollution, and their effects on wildlife

The Balldur lamp is also a wireless charger, stereo, and alarm clock

The Balldur fulfills so many functions that it’s tough to decide what its primary purpose is, but if you’re looking to add a soft glow to your room, this lamp can certainly help. The loft-style bulb can be customized to varying intensities either by way of the touchpad on the Balldur, or via the companion app (available on both Android and iOS). You can even set a sleep mode so that, without ever lifting a finger, the light turns off automatically when it’s bedtime.

Phillips Hue’s SceneSwitch LED bulbs make mood lighting easier than ever

Mood lighting has never been this easy to achieve. Thanks to the new SceneSwitch LED bulbs from Phillips Hue, you can change the color (or really, the hue) of your lights with nothing more than the flick of a switch. Gone is the need for expensive wireless hubs and color-changing bulbs. Rather, the SceneSwitch system is an all-in-one solution that will let you choose among daylight, soft white light, and a warm glow more seamlessly than ever before.

Advanced LED technology for automotive applications

Since the introduction of high-power LEDs, there has been considerable innovation in the automotive lighting industry. For example, low-beam headlights have historically been achieved with the use of a single lamp as the light source, and with a set of optics—that imaged the light onto the road—to create the cut-off pattern. With the first generation of LEDs, the lamp light sources were replaced, but similar optics were still used. Some of the recent major advances in LED technology include a reduction in the source size, as well as improvements to the luminance and tolerance (the capacity for precise alignment of the optics components, with regard to the light source).

Vibrance smart bulb injects some scents into your mood lighting

Why delight just one sense when you can delight two? That appears to be the question on the Vibrance team’s mind, as they introduce a new light bulb that helps you “wake up, energize, relax, sleep, and more.” Not only will you see the light emitted by this bulb, but you’ll smell it, too. Not the light, per se, but the therapeutic scents of lavender, parsley, and other scents meant to “stimulate your mind and body toward your desired moods or goals.” In essence, you’ll be turning your home into a spa by way of a light bulb.

Daylight-toned LED light bulbs: Which one should you buy?

Give a kid some crayons and ask her to draw a light bulb, and the chances are good that she'll color it yellow. Not everyone's a fan of that low, yellowy color temperature, though -- some people like their light a little more neutral. That's where "daylight" bulbs come in. With color temperatures jacked up to the 5,000 K neighborhood, the result is pure white light without the drowsy yellow tinge.

5 Different Ways to Use LED Drivers

Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are semiconductor devices that emit light when an electrical current passes through semiconductor materials. But for LEDs to perform at their best they need the assistant of LED drivers to provide better efficiency, reliability, and longevity. LED drivers are electrical devices that prevent damage to LEDs by regulating the forward voltage (VF) of the LED that changes with temperature, avoiding thermal runaway while delivering a constant current to the LED. LED drivers also aid efforts to meet new energy requirements (e.g., Energy Star).

The LampChamp makes any lamp a USB charging station

While it’s not going to give you a power strip worth of extra outlets, this LampChamp will give you at least one more USB port to plug in to. This is a Lamp Socket addition that you screw into your lamp as you would a light bulb, put the bulb into it, and then plug in your phone, watch, or whatever needs more juice. There are precisely two ways to look at this device, and one is that it only gives you one USB outlet, while the other is that it turns your lamp into a charging station, both of which are true.

Scientists Develop New Earth-Friendlier LEDs

Researchers from China and Taiwan recently developed a new type of LED that is cheaper and more environmentally friendly than currently used LEDs. Their report in the journal ACS Nano provides details regarding the problems inherent to original white LEDs and the development of a new lightbulb that solves those problems. A main detractor of LEDs is their reliance on rare-earth elements. Apart from being a non-renewable resource, environmentalists warn of toxic byproducts resulting from the mining of the materials.

Sustainable: LEDs lighten utility bills for businesses

Last winter Opportunity Distributing Inc. spent about $11,000 to change lights in its Minnetonka warehouse to LEDs. The move has created a brighter space, a smaller utility bill and a more comfortable indoor environment. Working with the Minneapolis-based Center for Energy and Environment, owner Chuck Welle said he had two replacement options, fluorescent bulbs or LEDs for the 9,000-square-foot warehouse at 15408 Minnetonka Industrial Road, where his information technology re-marketing company is located. While the replacement cost would have been recouped faster with fluorescent bulbs, he chose LEDs because they offer better quality light and less maintenance due to their longevity.

EVERLIGHT Revolutionizes Mid-Power LED Market with Ultra-Efficient LEDs.

Mid-power LEDs have become a mainstream product in the LED package sector, showing strong growth in the market over the past few years. The global lighting market scale is estimated to reach US $3.74 billion by 2020, and it is projected mid-power LEDs will comprise the majority stake in the market due to its high reliability and performance, estimated LEDinside. Taiwanese LED package manufacturers have released mid-power LED products including 3030 LED, 5630 LED, and other major LED package products, EVERLIGHT for instance has been shipping large volumes of these products.

LED-lighting influences the activity of bats

The widespread replacement of conventional bulbs in street lighting by energy-saving light-emitting diodes (LEDs) has considerable influence on bats as urban nocturnal hunters. Opportunistic bats lose hunting opportunities whereas light sensitive species benefit. This was shown in a recent study by Christian Voigt and Daniel Lewanzik from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW). Conventional high pressure mercury bulbs have a broad spectrum of wavelengths, including those in the ultraviolet range. As a consequence, insects are magically attracted to street lighting and indirect light spilling out from houses. Moths, mosquitoes, beetles and other insects are drawn to the light because of the so-called vacuum cleaner effect.