This lighting blog covers a wide range of lighting topics including current events, the lighting industry and product related blogs. I, Dr. Edison Bulb have 30+ years of lighting experience, my specialties include LED, commercial lighting and sports lighting. I am continuing my learning by keeping up with current lighting events and keeping track of them in this lighting blog.
Earth Day may not be known as a gift-giving holiday, but if I were to recommend a gift, it would be the Kill A Watt by P3 International. I know, I know—you may assume that I’d prefer something like a brand new LED bollard light or some energy-efficient sports lighting, but even I, Dr. Bulb, like to play sometimes. The Kill A Watt helps cut down on energy costs by discovering the energy that electrical products use and which ones are worth keeping plugged in. After connecting something like a stereo amplifier or an appliance to the...
read moreEven I, Dr. Bulb, can be nostalgic. Today I thoroughly enjoyed reading an article in the Worcester Telegram and Gazette about the city’s 27 remaining working gaslights. William Murdoch invented gaslights around 1792 in Britain and the technology spread quickly. Until then, the best outdoor lighting technology was hanging lanterns with candles from poles. By the time Edison invented the incandescent lamp, gas lighting was a well-established industry, with manufacturing of equipment and infrastructure to support the gaslights. Eventually...
read morePhilips Lumileds just announced an LED emitter that achieves more than 1,000 lumens per dollar. Now, that is something that gets Dr. Bulb quite excited. Why does this matter? With LEDs, luminaire performance is frequently measured by lumens per dollar. Every lumen costs money, and the greater the luminaire output, the higher the price. Say for instance you were lighting a tennis court with LEDs. While the foot-candles required could be achieved with anywhere from 8 to 16 luminaires depending on lumen output, the most relevant factor in pricing...
read moreLG is one of my favorite lighting companies because they make high performance LED light modules. Recently, they debuted a new OLED lamp that doesn’t have a light bulb. This lamp certainly gets around the USA ban on the incandescent lamp! As mentioned in my previous blogs, OLEDs are very thin and flexible, creating an opportunity to design lighting products that are certainly outside of the box. The new lamp, shown in the photo, is just the start of what is yet to come, and this time the proposed OLED product really makes sense. Stay tuned...
read moreFiguring out the right luminaire for an application can be challenging. Even with my lighting expertise, I. Dr. Bulb, still need to think carefully about my lighting decisions. For bollard lights, not only are there various styles to choose from, there’s also a number of other choices to make. These include optics (louvers, standard reflectors, or type 5), lamp type (fluorescent, metal halide, high-pressure sodium, or LED) and a range of wattages. Knowing the efficacy that each combination produces has always been difficult. I was excited...
read moreIn a word, the old technology is TOAST! This is the case with high intensity discharge (HID) luminaires, lamps and ballasts. With rapidly improving performance, which is now in many instances superior to HID, LED luminaires are being used in new projects and replacing HID luminaires as the HID luminaires need to be changed. Typical applications for HID lamps are bollard lights, wall packs, area lights, and street lights. The net effect as reported by NEMA is HID lamp indexes continue to slide. NEMA’s shipment indexes for HID lamps in Q4 2013...
read moreWill LED bulbs cost less than a compact fluorescent bulb by 2020? As Adele said in a hit song—“Rumor has it.” While she wasn’t singing about LED lamps like I am, rumor has it the price of LED lamps will be lower than compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) by 2020, even without energy company rebates. The latest data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration shows how quickly the LED prices have fallen since 2010. At this rate, we will approach price parity with CFLs around the end of the decade. Wow! News like this is so exciting. On...
read moreSome of you watch the Academy Awards, while some prefer knowing the latest about THE RAZZIES. For I, Dr. Bulb, it is the Lighting Design Awards. Why this isn’t a major television event I will never understand, but I digress. On March 20 2014 at the London Hilton, the 2014 Lighting Design Awards were announced. You may not have been able to watch this on television, but you can see all the winners at http://www.lightingawards.com/winners. This is even better than watching the beautiful people babble on thanking people we don’t know. The web...
read moreWhat will the future of lighting look like? LED is changing it as I write. The future is yet to be written for OLED, one of the newest emerging technologies. Key design elements of OLED are that OLEDs are incredibly thin and flexible. This facilitates unique designs that are also thin and shaped. To see what the future may bring check out Design and Trend, This Is What Lighting Will Look Like In The Future Thanks To OLED Technology. Also, be sure to watch the video of the luminaire in action. In action you ask? Yes. That brings up another...
read moreI, Dr. Bulb, love lighting, but recognize that how we effectively light an area is not the only consideration. For instance, in outdoor lighting projects light pollution and light trespass should be considered. Light pollution is wasted light that could affect the surrounding area, while light trespass is light that spills off the area intended to be lit and lights surrounding areas too. Recently I read an article on light pollution, Light pollution impairs rainforest regeneration. For the full article, click here. The article claims,...
read moreStrategic Web Marketing by Applied Interactive
