Smart Lighting Market Worth Over USD 23 Bn by 2025

The smart lighting market demand is driven by increasing adoption of LED lamps across the globe. The energy-efficient nature and durability of the LED lamps are driving their adoption across multiple lighting applications.

Currently, LED lighting accounts for more than 40% share in the general lighting market. The number is estimated to cross the 80% mark by 2025. Supportive government initiatives to promote the adoption of energy-efficient lighting technologies are driving the adoption of LED lamps across the globe. Moreover, the declining average selling price of the LED lamps across the globe is also serving as a major force accelerating the adoption of LED lamps.

The proliferation of IoT devices has further paved a way for the growth of the smart lighting market. Due to the advancements in the IoT technology along with wireless communication technology, the lighting component manufacturers have started focusing on enabling wireless connectivity into lighting fixtures. These manufacturers are collaborating with technology solution providers to integrate their solutions into the product. Furthermore, the advancements in IoT technology are also presenting huge opportunities for the lighting management systems to remotely control lighting fixtures and lamps.

The luminaire market will grow at a CAGR of over 16% during the projected timeline. Regulatory restrictions on the use of inefficient lighting technologies are propelling the growth of the smart lighting market. The adoption of energy-efficiency code and smart controls also acts as a major force driving the adoption of the connected luminaire market. Furthermore, the superior properties of luminaire such as durability and energy-efficiency are also accelerating their adoption across multiple lighting applications.

Wireless technology will grow significantly with a CAGR of more than 21% during the forecast period. The growth of the smart lighting market is credited to the integration of advanced technologies, such as Bluetooth, ZigBee, and Wi-Fi, into the lighting solutions. This allows lamps to be controlled through mobile apps or a home/building automation hubs and individual bulbs can be programmed to change the output as per requirements. Furthermore, the lamp's internet connectivity makes it possible for vendors to use edge computing and equip smart bulbs with additional features such as built-in cameras, built-in speakers, and occupancy-sensing capability.

Kentucky Greenhouse Home To World's Largest LED Installation

An AppsHarvest greenhouse under construction in Morehead, Kentucky, is said to be the world's ninth-largest building at more than 2.7 million square feet. It will be outfitted with a $15 million hybrid LED lighting system, making it the world's largest LED installation for a single building. AppHarvest rep won't say exactly how many LED fixtures it takes to make the largest LED (light-emitting diode) installation, but they note that a review of media reports and other publicly available information shows the eight other largest buildings either don't have LEDs or haven't had them all installed at one point.

Dimmable LED driver for smart buildings’ lighting

UK distributor Ideal Power has added the latest LED driver from Xelite to its portfolio. the XT-GR dimmable LED drivers support motion sensing for LED lighting in smart buildings, where they can offer cost and energy savings. The drivers are supplied connector-ready for a motion sensor which will activate the lighting when required. The drivers can be used for interior or exterior lighting in warehouses and car parks, schools, supermarkets and offices.

Artificial Light at Night Might Increase Virus Transmission by Birds

A research shows that birds exposed to artificial light at night might increase the spread of West Nile Virus (WNV). West Nile Virus that infects birds and other animals including humans. The virus can cause West Nile fever for people and sever disease in horses. The virus is transmitted by birds and mosquitos. The study led by Meredith Kernbach, a PhD student in the University of South Florida College of Public Health, suggested that wild birds who carry the virus would remain infectious two days longer if exposed to artificial light at night time, leading to higher potential of virus spread.

Yeelight HomeKit support arrives, with firmware update for existing bulbs

Yeelight HomeKit support has finally landed, after what the company says is eight months of work. Even better, there’s a firmware update available for three existing products that will retroactively add HomeKit support. A reader tells us he got an in-app notification for his latest LED bulbs (model E27), but he also has some first-generation bulbs that don’t get support. Yeelight offers a range of smart lighting products, starting at less than $20.

NYSERDA Offering LED Street Lighting Webinars

New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (LRC) are teaming up for the LED Street Lighting Academy – a series of four monthly webinars to educate local governments on LED street lighting options and better prepare municipal decision-makers for interacting with contractors and the public.

By converting street lights to energy-efficient LED technology, local governments can save taxpayer dollars, provide better lighting, reduce energy use, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Blue perovskite LEDs get an efficiency boost

Perovskites, known for their potential use in solar cells, also hold promise for making low-cost, flexible light-emitting diode panels for lighting and displays. One hurdle that perovskite LEDs face is that blue-light-emitting devices have lagged behind their red and green counterparts in terms of efficiency, and all three colors are crucial for displays and white light. Now, by combining perovskite nanoparticles with 2-D perovskites, researchers have doubled the efficiency of blue LEDs

Philly to Retrofit All 100,000 City Streetlights

The city of Philadelphia has a great many plans to reduce its municipal energy consumption in the name of staving off climate change. These include ambitious but obvious initiatives like purchasing more renewable energy and driving more electric cars. But it turns out, when it comes to how much the city spends on its own energy bill, the single largest offender is something both ubiquitous and taken for granted: streetlights. Our roughly 100,000 sodium-powered bulbs cost $15 million to light each year. Which is why, after experimenting with some pilot programs beginning in 2011 that replaced 5,000 sodium bulbs with more energy-efficient LEDs the city has promised to scale up the whole effort and replace all of its 100,000 streetlights, along with another 18,000 alley lights.

Emergency Lighting market worldwide is projected to grow by US$1.9 Billion

Emergency Lighting market worldwide is projected to grow by US$1.9 Billion, guided by a compounded growth of 4.3%. While global megatrends sweeping through the market influence the primary direction of growth, regional markets are swayed by more granular locally unique business drivers. Representing the developed world, the United States will maintain a 3.7% growth momentum. Within Europe, which continues to remain an important element in the world economy, Germany will add over US$76.2 Million to the region's size and clout in the next 5 to 6 years. Over US$252.5 Million worth of projected demand in the region will come from other emerging Eastern European markets.

Custom molder Hicks Plastics sold to automotive lighting supplier

Hicks Plastics Co. Inc., a Tier 2 supplier of injection molded and vacuum metalized automotive lighting components, has been sold to Sea Link International Inc. The deal was announced Aug. 20. Financial terms were not disclosed. Hicks Plastics is based in Macomb Township, Mich., a Detroit suburb, where it has two facilities: an injection molding and parts assembly plant with more than 20 injection presses ranging from 75-1,500 tons, according to its website, and a paint coatings and metallization facility.

Smart Light Switch cuts energy use and acts as a sensor

Amazon offers the ecobee Switch+ HomeKit-enabled Light Switch for $45.28 shipped. As a comparison, it typically goes for $80 at retailers like Best Buy and elsewhere. Today’s deal is a match of our previous mention. ecobee’s smart Switch+ works with a variety of voice assistant platforms, including HomeKit and Alexa. With automatic scheduling, you’ll be able to cut down on energy usage. It can also serve as a sensor in some smart homes, letting you automatically control temperatures and lights based on occupancy. Rated 4.3/5 stars. More Green Deals below.

Kingston completes city building conversion to LEDs

All lighting in 12 City of Kingston municipal buildings has been converted to LED. The installation was subsidized by Central Hudson Gas and Electric Corporation and was implemented at a cost to the city of $128,880. The investment is expected to be paid off in 2 ½ years and is expected to save the city $51,147 each year in electric lighting costs after that.

A Custom Milled Jig For Smart Bulb Programming

Who would have thought that some day we’d need programming jigs for our light bulbs? But progress marches on, and as there’s currently a number of affordable Internet-controlled bulbs powered by the ESP8266 on the market, we’re at the point where a tool to help update the firmware on the light over your kitchen sink might be something nice to have. Which is why [cperiod] created this programming jig for AiLight smart bulbs. Flashing the AiLight bulbs is easy enough, there’s a series of test points right on the face of the PCB that you can hook up to. But if you’re updating more than one of them, you don’t want to have to solder your programmer up to each bulb individually.

Transitioning to LED Lights Can Be Simpler Than You Think

Unlike halogen or fluorescent light bulbs used in the lighting fixtures of yesteryear, LEDs are more delicate in their design. What this means is that installing LED fixtures requires also installing electronics that will protect the diodes from overcurrent events or surges to defend their delicate design. For example, the LEDs in screens or marketing signage can be expensive to replace if the diodes are damaged from something such as an overcurrent event. LED drivers act as an insurance plan to help ensure that the LEDs reach their life expectancy.

Signify Supports LED Lighting System to US-based AppHarvest

Signify announced its partnership with AppHarvest, a controlled-environment growing facilities builder to help the company increase efficiency and boost yields using fewer resources in their 25 hectare greenhouse in Kentucky, USA. With the partnership, the greenhouse will be fitted with a hybrid LED lighting system, utilizing Signify’s Philips GreenPower LED toplighting compact and Agrolux high pressure sodium lighting. AppHarvest will grow tomatoes and cucumbers in its facility, which will be completed in the second half of 2020.

An easy way to boost contrast and ease eyestrain

If you want to improve the contrast of your TV without ponying up for a brand-new set, bias lighting makes for an easy and relatively inexpensive way to do it. Bias, in this context, means that light is projected at an angle to your TV; more specifically, onto the back of your TV or onto the wall behind it, so that it casts a dim halo around the display. Once installed, a bias light can boost the apparent contrast of your TV, making blacks and dark areas of the picture look deeper than they did before. Bias lighting can also help ease the strain of looking at a bright TV screen in a darkened room.

Global Automotive LED Revenue Still on the Rise

According to the newest 2019 Global Automotive LED Market Report—Passenger Car and Box Truck report by LEDinside, a division of  TrendForce, the global automotive market has been showing declines since 2018 amid global trade frictions and economic recessions, but the penetration rates of LEDs in various major automotive lighting products continued to rise. Furthermore, new energy cars have a greater demand for LEDs than traditional cars do while boasting a faster growth in shipments. This will cause the volume of and revenue for automotive LED products to maintain modest growth in future years, with global automotive LED revenue forecast to arrive at US$3.17 billion in 2019 and to register a CAGR of 7% during the forecast period 2018-2023.

IKEA SYMFONISK table lamp and bookshelf Wi-Fi speakers aren’t just for Sonos fans

Like sound, design preference is highly subjective. What’s not is just how versatile the new SYMFONISK lineup can be. Sonos and IKEA have bundled a Play:1 level Wi-Fi speaker inside a table lamp and bookshelf end cap. Useful features and attractive prices make both speakers worth considering even if you’re not in the Sonos ecosystem. Apple AirPlay 2 speakers including the table lamp and bookshelf speakers let you wirelessly beam audio including music and podcasts from Apple devices. You can also assign each speaker to a room in your home using HomeKit and Apple’s Home app. This lets you use Siri voice control to send audio from iPhones, iPads, HomePods, and Apple TVs to AirPlay 2 speakers.

AC-powered LEDs Could Cut the Cost of Lighting

Engineers at Pennsylvania State University have demonstrated a practical way to integrate gallium nitride LEDs and their power supply circuits onto the same chip using industry-standard manufacturing processes. The result is a lighting chip that runs directly from the AC electricity supplied by a wall outlet, with no need for the intermediate step of converting the electricity to low-voltage DC on separate silicon chips and other components. The Penn State engineers describe the work in IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices.

Commission abandons colorful LED lighting for Community Park splash pad

Due to a surprising hefty price tag, the Jefferson City Parks and Recreation Commission voted against purchasing colorful LED lights for the splash pad at Community Park. Last month, commissioners voted to move forward with purchasing colorful LED lights that would be installed to 22 nozzles at the splash pad at Community Park, 725 Marshall St. However, the commission decided Tuesday not to pursue the lights due to the unexpected high price tag.

European LED Lighting Market to Reach $30 Billion by 2024

The European LED lighting market is expected to reach over $30 billion by 2024, according to research by MarketStudyReport.com. Growing awareness about smart and greener cities in the European countries is contributing to the demand for LED lighting systems.

This is resulting in the increasing deployment of LED lighting systems across all countries. For example, the road and street lighting transformations in Copenhagen that includes deployment of LED street lights is driving the European LED lighting market. These street lights deployed in Copenhagen have situational dimming capabilities that brighten when vehicles arrive and dim down when they pass.

Deployment of LED products in retrofit installations is a rapidly emerging trend across the European LED lighting market due to the low CO2 emissions benefits. Increasing infrastructure transformation projects going on in the European Union involves the transition of traditional halogen-based lighting systems. This factor, along with electricity cost saving advantages, is a major reason contributing to the growing demand for LED lamps and luminaires in the retrofit settings further contributing to the European LED lighting market growth. Moreover, the public infrastructure development and high investment in the LED-based street lighting projects also undergoes the replacement of conventional lamps and lights to LEDs.

Increasing Tariffs on LED Product Continues to Impact the Industry

On August 1, 2019, President Trump announced an additional 10% tariff on US$300 billion Chinese imports which will come into effect in September. The new listed products which will be imposed with taxes also include several LED products. LED products that are listed in the new 10% tariff list include “Ballasts for discharge lamps or tubes”, “electrical lighting equipment of a kind used on bicycles”, “flashlights”, and a series of electrical filament lamps, as well as LED lamps.

Remember the days you had to turn the lights off?

If you are considering a kitchen, bath or any other project in your home, more than likely you will have to make some decisions updating lighting. LED (light emitting diode) is the new standard in today’s remodeling. LED lighting uses approximately 85% less energy than other types of lighting. It is flexible and efficient, plus LED bulbs are not as fragile as traditional candescent or fluorescent bulbs. They last between seven and 28 years — so even though they cost more upfront they pay off big in long term savings, especially on your electric bill. Another advantage is that LED bulbs don’t get hot — no more accidental minor finger burns when removing a bulb that is way too hot.

A micro-LED Display Patent was Published in Europe this Month that could Apply to Future iDevices

Patently Apple has discovered a new micro-LED display patent published in Europe on August 1, 2019. Apple begins their application stating that the "State of the art displays for portable electronics, computers, and televisions commonly utilize glass substrates with thin film transistors (TFTs) to control transmission of backlight through pixels based on liquid crystals. More recently emissive displays such as those based on organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) have been introduced.

Stadium Lighting market worldwide is projected to grow by US$253.5 Million

Stadium Lighting market worldwide is projected to grow by US$253.5 Million, guided by a compounded growth of 6.9%.

LED displays the potential to grow at over 7.6%. The shifting dynamics supporting this growth makes it critical for businesses in this space to keep abreast of the changing pulse of the market. Poised to reach over US$540.9 Million by the year 2025, LED will bring in healthy gains adding significant momentum to global growth.

While global megatrends sweeping through the market influence the primary direction of growth, regional markets are swayed by more granular locally unique business drivers. Representing the developed world, the United States will maintain a 6.1% growth momentum.

Within Europe, which continues to remain an important element in the world economy, Germany will add over US$9.7 Million to the region's size and clout in the next 5 to 6 years. Over US$23.3 Million worth of projected demand in the region will come from other emerging Eastern European markets.

In Japan, LED will reach a market size of US$31.4 Million by the close of the analysis period. As the world's second largest economy and the new game changer in global markets, China exhibits the potential to grow at 9.9% over the next couple of years and add approximately US$66.9 Million in terms of addressable opportunity for the picking by aspiring businesses and their astute leaders.

Are LED lights damaging your retina?

There’s growing concern that the blue light they emit may be damaging our eyes and health. Ophthalmologist Rishi Singh, MD, shines a light on this issue. But before you throw out all of your electronic devices, Dr. Singh says the jury is still out. “Thus far, there is no true, strong study to show either way that it is harmful or beneficial,” explains Dr. Singh. “We haven’t had a marker of structural damage to the retina from these lighting technologies. So right now, we can’t recommend that people stop using them.”

Work to begin on Niagara Falls Boulevard lighting to improve safety

Work is scheduled to start Tuesday to light up a busy – and too often dangerous – stretch of Niagara Falls Boulevard in Amhert with the aim of improving safety for pedestrians and drivers alike. The Town of Amherst is embarking on a $2.2 million project on the east side of Niagara Falls Boulevard that includes installing 104 streetlights between the I-290 ramps and Creekside Drive, said Amherst Supervisor Brian J. Kulpa. Work will continue into December.

AEA seeks applicants for outdoor lighting grants

Applications are being accepted by the Alaska Energy Authority for grants to retrofit outdoor lighting of public buildings and facilities to LED technology in rural communities. The application deadline is Sept. 20. Grants are to be awarded in October. Funding for the latest program comes from a grant from Wells Fargo, plus additional matching funds from the state’s Village Energy Efficiency Program, with a goal of implementing energy saving efficiency measures for buildings and facilities in small communities statewide.

LED Headlights Can Be Brighter but Often Lack Clear Advantages

Automakers have embraced light emitting diodes (LEDs) in headlights, and their use is becoming more widespread. At Consumer Reports, 55 percent of the 2018 models we tested had LED headlights. Of the 2019 models we've tested, 86 percent had LEDs. LEDs are small and can be used in a string of lights, giving car designers more leeway in how the headlights look. But in CR's testing, we discovered that these new lights don’t offer any more illumination than traditional halogen and/or high intensity discharge (HID) headlights.

Osram invests in driverless car AI company

Osram might be in the midst of an uncertain ownership change, but it’s conducting business as usual in that it continues to recast itself as a high-tech outfit. In its most recent example, it has invested in a Silicon Valley firm specializing in artificial intelligence (AI) for driverless cars. The company’s Fluxunit venture capital arm joined with other firms to place a combined $25 million round of Series A funding in Recogni, a San Jose, CA-based startup with operations in Osram’s home city of Munich.

ELM8: A Wireless Continuous LED Light

If you have been working with Elinchrom's flash system, you are probably familiar with their modifiers that also happen to work with their previous generation of continuous lights: Scanlite, a halogen hot light. It's great to hear that their newest child, the ELM8 LED, is compatible with their current modifiers. But, enough about compatibility. Let's jump onto the tech specifications.

Faulty dimmers and glaring street lights in Bellingham should be replaced by the end of 2019

Faulty dimmers and glaring street lights in Bellingham should be replaced by the end of 2019. The city will replace the computing system for 3,600 traditional lights while 353 decorative street lights will have LEDs replaced, both at the contractor’s expense. The lights were originally installed as part of the city’s 2015 LED Retrofit Project. Bellingham residents have complained about the failing lights being on in the middle of the day. This issue should be solved when a traditional photocell replaces the computing system.

How LED Lights Are Revolutionizing Our Homes, Neighborhoods And Roads

The past decade has seen LED light usage soar in the U.S. as traditional incandescent bulbs went into the trash bin. “Research is showing us the best option is for roughly three days to work from home and then you allow two days in the office,” says Scott Mautz, a former executive at Procter and Gamble. That change has shaken up the industry in a good way. Mark Rea, professor at the Lighting Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, tells Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson that the benefits of LED lights “really make it kind of a slam dunk for a transformation in the way light sources are sold.”

Hygienic beer caps using UV LED technology

To ensure clean water for high-quality beer, brewing companies often install ultraviolet (UV) systems upstream of their brewing equipment, with the purpose of keeping the drinking water free of germs. Fraunhofer researchers are investigating a greener and more efficient alternative, which uses UV LEDs to destroy bacterial DNA. The technology is also suitable for disinfecting brewing water and for disinfecting the caps for bottled beer, soft drinks and mineral water during the filling process.

Eyes on Sony’s CLED (Crystal LED) display technology

CLED is Sony’s version of a Micro LED display. The basic principle is quite simple: Each pixel is formed by a cluster of three tiny LEDs—red, green, and blue. Thus, Micro LED is an emissive display technology like OLED. But Micro LED can get much brighter than OLED, making it ideal for reproducing HDR images. In addition to very high brightness, Micro LED can achieve super-deep black levels, because the LEDs can be individually and instantaneously dimmed or turned off as needed. The Sony CLED goes even further, placing the LEDs for each pixel at the center of a black cell.

Kind LED Grow Lights Optimized Full Spectrum Wastes No Energy

Kind LED Grow Lights have been designed to have a full yet targeted spectrum for growth and flowering, and to not waste energy emitting large amounts of spectral ranges that plants don’t absorb. Kind LED specifically targets the areas of the light spectrum with the highest absorption rates in order to deliver exactly what the plant needs for photosynthesis, and not areas of the light spectrum the plant otherwise sees as useless.

High-Intensity Discharge lamps (commonly referred to as HID) have decent PAR readings (Photosynthetically Active Radiation), but when their spectrum is revealed it becomes evident that they emit most of their energy in areas of the light spectrum mostly unused by plants. This makes them an inefficient lighting option, as that wasted energy is turned into heat. Kind LED Grow Lights, on the other hand, show extremely high PAR readings with an efficient and accurate distribution of strength across a plants’ desired spectrum.

Several grow light companies have taken to producing white light LEDs. These lights follow the more familiar 2700K-6500K temperate color range that we commonly see in HID and T-5 bulbs. While this makes a light that photographs well, and is closer to what we are all used to seeing as far as color, it negates one of the most important benefits of LED lights, not wasting energy on parts of the light spectrum the plant can’t readily absorb.

Researchers demonstrate low voltage LEDs

When atomically thin semiconductors are combined together in a Lego style, they emit light at a lower voltage potentially leading to low energy consumption devices. Whilst this research is in its fundamental state this shows promise for practical applications in optoelectronics and telecommunications. The voltage of an LED is usually equal to or larger than the bandgap energy per electron charge. A team of researchers based at The University of Manchester, University of Warsaw, the High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Grenoble and the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan have been able to demonstrate LEDs that turn on at much lower voltages.

Nanoleaf transforms Canvas smart lights into touch-based HomeKit buttons with Touch Actions

Nanoleaf has a new update for its Canvas smart lights that transforms the color-shifting tiles into touch-based HomeKit buttons for activating scenes. Touch Actions let you assign HomeKit scenes to specific Canvas tiles for controlling groups of smart home accessories without an app or voice. That convenience is important in situations where voice isn’t appropriate (like when people are sleeping) and using an app is too fiddly. Using Touch Actions, Nanoleaf puts a HomeKit button for assigning up to three scenes per each tile directly on the wall.

Stadium Lighting market worldwide is projected to grow by US$253.5 Million

Stadium Lighting market worldwide is projected to grow by US$253.5 Million, guided by a compounded growth of 6.9%. Staying on top of trends is essential for decision makers to leverage this emerging opportunity. The report addresses this very need and provides the latest scoop on all major market segments. LED, one of the segments analyzed and sized in this study, displays the potential to grow at over 7.6%. The shifting dynamics supporting this growth makes it critical for businesses in this space to keep abreast of the changing pulse of the market. Poised to reach over US$540.9 Million by the year 2025, LED will bring in healthy gains adding significant momentum to global growth.

While global megatrends sweeping through the market influence the primary direction of growth, regional markets are swayed by more granular locally unique business drivers. Representing the developed world, the United States will maintain a 6.1% growth momentum. Within Europe, which continues to remain an important element in the world economy, Germany will add over US$9.7 Million to the region's size and clout in the next 5 to 6 years. Over US$23.3 Million worth of projected demand in the region will come from other emerging Eastern European markets. In Japan, LED will reach a market size of US$31.4 Million by the close of the analysis period. As the world's second largest economy and the new game changer in global markets, China exhibits the potential to grow at 9.9% over the next couple of years and add approximately US$66.9 Million in terms of addressable opportunity for the picking by aspiring businesses and their astute leaders.

City Council scheduled to approve downtown lighting project

On Monday night, the Columbia City Council will review a downtown lighting project and decide whether or not to approve an agreement to appropriate funds for it. The Downtown Community Improvement District is looking at replacing streetlights downtown with newer ones that would be able to brighten and dim. The lights could be programed to brighten around the time bars close to prevent crime and discourage people from forming large groups.

UC Santa Barbara sues Amazon and IKEA over LED lighting

UC Santa Barbara has had enough of retailers selling its patented LED light bulb technology without authorization. This week, the university filed a lawsuit charging Amazon, IKEA, Walmart, Target and Bed Bath & Beyond with infringing its patents. According to Nixon Peabody, the law firm representing UC Santa Barbara, this is the "first-of-its-kind direct patent enforcement campaign against an entire industry." The dispute centers around filament LED light bulbs, sometimes called "Edison" or "vintage" LED bulbs because they resemble Edison's iconic glass bulbs with glowing filaments.

Outdoor LED lighting market is expected to register a CAGR of over 14%

Asia Pacific is currently experiencing a tremendous shift in lighting systems where companies in these regions have been identified to adopt LED lights in industries and manufacturing plants compared to its counterparts, like incandescent, and LFL owing to the improved efficiency of LED lighting systems.

In India, the government has circulated a series of policies from all the perspectives to support the industry's development, among which the most important is SLNP (Street Light National Programme) to replace 21 million streetlights with LED.

Additionally, to help the various investments enter India, the government had implemented the free tariff (basic tariff) of LED component imports, facilitating the LED products into an assembly in India as semi-finished products and developing the local market.

Collins highway lighting project about halfway finished

Two improvement projects in Collins should be wrapping up in the coming weeks. A project to add new LED lighting along Highways 49 and 184 is about halfway done and should be complete in October. The total cost is nearly $700,000, and 80% of that is funded with a federal grant. Meanwhile, City Hall is getting a face lift, with new paint and grout work and new wheelchair-accessible front doors.

An $8 smart home accessory that shines bright

Wyze, the company that's made a name for itself by releasing connected devices for the home that cost a fraction of what the competition charges, recently announced that it was expending its product portfolio to include connected light bulbs. You can expect to pay $8 for a single Wyze Bulb, or $30 for a four-pack of Bulbs. Each lightbulb connects directly to your Wi-Fi network, instead of using a hub and, in turn, requiring you to purchase more hardware.