Welcome to the LEDs Magazine weekly newsletter for Nov. 6, 2019. I’m just back from our HortiCann Light + Tech event in Denver, CO as I write this column. The conference presentations were excellent. We will offer some details in a feature article coming in the January/February issue. I quickly wrote a short news piece with some interesting tidbits on the horticultural opportunity, or as I have started to think of it — mandate.
We also learned that the science is still advancing. Plant morphology is one example where light can impact plants, but the goals may be different from cultivar to cultivar. Indeed, we had vastly different opinions from experts as to the importance of leaves. And in some instances, it appears continuous rather than sporadic exposure to ultraviolet (UV) spectrum may deliver the best results.
Back to news, the mergers & acquisition wheels continue to turn. We still do not have a definitive answer to Osram’s future. But we’ve had two private company deals take place. Leviton, whose legacy is controls but has been building out a portfolio of lighting brands, has added to that portfolio with the acquisition of Viscor based in Canada. And in the same story, we covered the ALW acquisition of v2 Lighting, which seems to be a symbiotic matchup of style- and tech-focused companies located in California’s Silicon Valley area.
While we don’t have an update on the Osram business front, we do have a technology article about the company’s continuous push of photonics technology in general. The company has a very broad portfolio of infrared (IR) LEDs or what it refers to as IREDs. The products are intended for augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) applications, and our Mark Halper makes the case that the products are synergistic with technologies offered by Osram suitor ams.
We have an excellent guest blog about presentations at a recent academic summit. The Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute hosted the LRC Summit in mid-October. The blog post includes some compelling summaries of presentations ranging from lighting for health and wellbeing to lighting and the power grid.
Make your plans to join us in San Diego, CA Feb. 11–13 for Strategies in Light. Much of the program is available on the website. We will also have a new approach to our Investor Forum this year, and Total Access attendees have access to that forum. We will have details for you in the coming days.
You will find many more stories of interest in the body of today’s newsletter. Please note my relatively new email address. And always feel free to contact me to discuss content we post or to pitch a contributed article.
- Maury Wright, (858) 748-6785, [email protected]