Welcome to the LEDs Magazine News & Insights newsletter for Oct. 14, 2020. Our October issue content is now available in HTML form and easily found via search. One article I would suggest you read is my column for the issue if you didn’t already read it in our digital magazine platform for subscribers.
Understand that ego has no play in my recommending the column to you. The column ultimately asks for input on terminology we are using to describe the various ways to apply germicidal ultraviolet (UV) energy in disinfection — obviously a very popular topic and, as we have said, an area that is seeing a lot of product development right now in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. But unexpectedly some new application scenarios have arisen that essentially break the vernacular we had adopted in the magazine. Continuous and instantaneous disinfection aren’t enough as compound adjectives to accurately imply the technology at hand.
We also this week saw another company roll out a solid-state lighting (SSL)-centric Internet-of-Things (IoT) platform intended to help healthcare facilities, schools, offices, and other campuses build defenses against the coronavirus. Cooper Lighting Solutions had launched its Trellix platform more than a year ago at LightFair International. Now the Trellix Locate offering adds what Cooper calls real-time location systems (RTLS) technology to track people and assets in a space. For healthcare settings, the platform can minimize groups of people in places such as waiting rooms while also making such facilities more efficient at dispatching patients more quickly.
Moving to the horticultural lighting space, our Mark Halper has written about a Holland flower farm that has added LED-based lighting to its greenhouses. We’ve seen themes of this story before in vegetable applications. The grower maintains some high-pressure sodium (HPS) lighting because some added heat is good for the plants, while the supplemental SSL delivers spectrum that boosts yield.
Remember that our HortiCann Light + Tech Conference kicks off virtually next Tuesday, Oct. 20, and we will have eight sessions over two days. The program is outstanding. You do have to register for each online session that you plan to attend even if you had previously registered to attend the live event, but you can batch-select multiple presentations. I apologize for the inconvenience, but we encountered some technical challenges in trying to make the process more seamless.
We had an excellent webcast on moldable silicone optics presented by Dow. If you missed it, you can still register and catch the on-demand archive. I expected some of what was presented, such as a description of an automotive application for silicone, but there was a significant amount of information presented about using silicone in germicidal UV applications.
In terms of other industry events, LEDucation 2021 has opened its Call for Speakers. Interested participants must submit by the end of November.
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]