Welcome to the LEDs Magazine News & Insights newsletter for May 1, 2020. Happy May Day! We should be facing up to a Saturday of Mint Juleps and fancy hats, but that will wait until fall this year.
Leave it to nature to remind us how magical the generation of light can be. Indeed, one of my all-time favorite Strategies in Light keynote talks was the one on biomimicry presented by Michael Pawlyn of Exploration Architecture. That keynote examined how lessons in nature can guide architecture. One topic was bioluminescence, or tiny amounts of light generated at the ocean floor that certain species have adapted to gather as useful light.
Here in San Diego, we’ve enjoyed quite a bioluminescence show this week and the show coincided with the reopening of beach walkways to the public so long as social distancing is practiced. In actuality, the coast is experiencing a red tide event. Luckily, it’s not the same type of algae-driven red tide that Florida has suffered in recent years that leads to fish being killed in large numbers.
The San Diego tide is caused by phytoplankton in the water. Ironically, the condition makes the ocean look muddy — almost ugly — in the day. It’s not the normal vibrant green/blue. At night, however, the phytoplankton create a bluish light as waves crest and crash. And you can track dolphins cutting through the water via blue traces. It’s quite a light show presented by nature.
We’ve gathered some business and standards news for you for this week-end newsletter. Tridonic has appointed a new CEO for the second time in just over half a year. Hugo Rohner will join Tridonic coming from the CEO position at Skidata Group. Rohner brings deep IoT experience to Tridonic, a company that has been moving steadily to add connectivity across its portfolio.
In that same article, we covered some regulatory and standards activity in Europe. The Lighting Industry Association (LIA) has a new Emergency Lighting Mark. And remember the LIA isn’t just for UK-based companies, but for any companies that sell into the UK. The TALQ Consortium, meanwhile, has again expanded the scope of its smart-city standard with a new version.
We also have a story about the continued expansion of the scope of DALI (Digital Addressable Lighting Interface). Just a couple of years ago, it was a niche connectivity standard used in Europe to connect a controller to a lighting system. Lately we have covered how new versions can serve inside the luminaire in what we call intra-luminaire applications to link drivers and sensor/connectivity modules. Now the organization is working to define an interface or gateway between Zigbee and DALI networks. And the Digital Illumination Interface Alliance (DiiA) that promulgates DALI is working with the Thread group to essentially deliver a wireless version of DALI-2 for inter-luminaire connections.
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]