 "LED lights")
With the development of LED lamp technology, the lowly light bulb is doing more than just turning on and off. A lamp can be the centrepiece of an environment meant to improve health, moods and even food.
LEDs can create light in multiple colours, generate less heat and use a fraction of the energy of older types of bulbs. And LEDs can be controlled remotely from a PC or smartphone app, as programmable as a television.
"There's a tremendous potential for LED lighting to go beyond illumination," says John Strainic, General Electric's general manager for consumer lighting.
Because of the LED manufacturing process, the light that the technology creates is weighted towards the blue end of the spectrum. That is true whether the LED is used in a light bulb, a tablet or a television display. That blue light has its advantages: Blue stimulates a photoreceptor in the eye that reduces melatonin production and helps a person stay awake. "You have to start thinking of light as a drug," says Terry K McGowan, the director of engineering for the American Lighting Association, a trade group.
That is why Lighting Science, an LED manufacturer, is now selling Awake and Alert, an LED lamp that keeps people pumped up by pumping up the blue. Conversely, the company's Good Night lighting product reduces the blue output, helping people sleep. This summer, Lighting Science will offer its Rhythm Downlight, a lamp controlled by a smartphone app that adjusts blue light based on a user's sleep schedule.
"The Awake and Alert lamp does not look brighter, but our circadian system sees it as such," says Robert Soler, director, lighting research, Lighting Science.
Philips sells its own range of energy-enhancing lights, including its Wake-up Light and - to combat winter blues - the goLITE BLU, a panel of blue LEDs. In Europe, Philips is experimenting with its HealWell system in hospitals. By changing colours based on time of day, it encourages a patient to wake up, feel more relaxed and sleep more easily. At a field study at the Maastricht University Medical Center in the Netherlands, cardiology patients were found to sleep longer and experience reduced depression.
In the United States, Lighting Science is working on a similar system, and expects to offer products by the end of this year. "Unfortunately, many hospitals have removed solariums, but lots of studies have shown that they improve recovery time," said Soler of Lighting Science.
While the ability to alter an LED lamp's colour opens up new uses for light, the fact that LEDs can be remotely controlled significantly changes their potential. With Osram Sylvania's ULTRA iQ system, users can programme lamps to turn on when a key is put in the lock. Philips's Hue system, on the other hand, allows users to create their own lighting moods and then send those instructions to special lamps via a smartphone app. The lights can also be programmed to respond to specific events, such as by glowing a prescribed colour when it is time to remove the roast from the oven. Tabu's Lumen TL800 lamp uses Bluetooth connectivity to control the lamp from a smartphone, allowing the user to change colours, dim the bulb and synchronise effects to the rhythm of a song played on the phone.
But synchronising lighting to events is much more than a parlour trick. Philips has designed lighting systems that decrease growing times and increase yield for greenhouse vegetables and flowers, by using a light's specific hues. In the Netherlands and Canada, among other places, tomato and vegetable growers are using Philips's LEDs to improve bulk, increase growth and reduce vegetable maturation time while reducing energy costs.
Within the next few years, the world's major lighting companies expect to expand LEDs' connected capabilities, particularly with sensors.
For example, sensors could tell how many people are in a room and their location, and direct the proper amount of lighting to where it is needed. Medical patients prone to agitation could be calmed once facial recognition technology identifies them and changes the hue of an examining room to more calming tones.
©2014 The New York Times
