Welcome to the LEDs Magazine News & Insights newsletter for Apr. 17, 2020. Happy Friday! At least we are headed into this weekend here in the US without the severe weather issues that lurked last Friday. We were deluged with four inches of April rain late last week that frankly overwhelmed southern California. And much of my family dodged tornadoes late last week and through the weekend on the other side of the country.
Outdoor lighting has always been among my favorite subjects in the world of LEDs and solid-state lighting (SSL). Maybe it’s the precision engineering specifications that drive street and area lighting installations that I easily grasp and that drove my interest early on. As I have said before, I wish I had a better feel for the inspiration behind architectural lighting projects.
We have an outdoor story for you today from the Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute regarding new guidance on parking lot projects. Early on in my tenure with LEDs Magazine, I had a number of chances to visit outdoor SSL projects and also many based on legacy sources. I always liked the uniformity of the LED installations and the LRC says uniformity is more important that illuminance in terms of safety perception. Of course, I still feel I see far better under cooler CCTs, but it looks like the move to warm outdoor lighting has all the momentum.
We continue to see SSL companies step up in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. We have a story about Acuity Brands accelerating the development of a rugged luminaire and stand that can be deployed in makeshift medical treatment centers. Less than two weeks separated concept and initial deliveries.
Other lighting manufacturers continue to convert parts of facilities to support the COVID-19 fight. Cree Lighting is now making face shields for medical personnel. And Cerno Lighting has been making similar shields for use in southern California medical facilities.
The pandemic does continue to impact our sectors in so many ways and of course you the professionals that make the businesses in our sectors go. Hubbell is the latest company to announced pay cuts and some limited furloughs. Executives will absorb the pay cuts for now, and salaried employees will be asked to take a two-week furlough.
In closing, I will beg of you one more time to consider nominating a young professional for our 40 under 40 program if you haven’t already done so. As I noted last week, we have further simplified the free nomination process, and you don’t need the address for your nominee. We will have to close that nomination portal shortly.
You will find many more stories of interest in the body of today’s newsletter. 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]