Welcome to the LEDs Magazine News & Insights newsletter for May 12, 2021. Is it really May 12? Doesn’t seem possible. My Padres were snowed out Monday. The few fans at the game in Denver last night were dressed as if they were attending a January football game. I have friends that tell me the climate has always been changing and always will. But I see patterns. Technology such as solid-state lighting (SSL) can certainly lessen the human impact on our Earth. We didn’t have a newsletter on Earth Day a few weeks back, but here’s to our home.
Controlled environment agriculture (CEA) is another application that can lessen our environmental impact on our planet. And LED lighting is a huge part of that but isn’t always a perfect technology. Our Mark Halper wrote about a Belgian tomato farm recently, and how the grower installed LED lighting above its specialty tomatoes. The SSL has achieved good results with the tomatoes but has delivered an unexpected side effect of decreasing bee pollination activity presumably because of humidity change. Beware and prepare for unintended consequences.
In regard to horticulture, I want to pose a question to you the readers. I should have done this in our HortiCann newsletter, but it had not arisen ten days ago and the next HortiCann newsletter is weeks away. Plus, I am under a deadline to define our HortiCann Light + Tech Conference program. I have the opportunity to create a session on sustainability in CEA installations. This session would not be focused on plant science, AgTech, or plant-light interaction. Is sustainability in horticulture a topic you would like to hear about? Send me an email. Also, I am still looking for a few other presenters.
Our connected lighting newsletter just went out on Monday. And of course, we immediately got a number of connected-lighting-centric announcements. The DALI Alliance has announced the DALI+ initiative. The developing specification will enable DALI protocols to pass natively over other wired and wireless networks. The first target will be DALI over the Thread Internet Protocol (IP)-based network stack.
The Zigbee Alliance also continues to separate command and control protocols from the lower layers of a network and specifically the physical layer. The alliance has rebranded itself the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA). Moreover, it changed the name of the Project Connected Home over IP (CHIP) initiative to Matter. The Zigbee brand will continue to be used, but the Zigbee world is rapidly becoming an IP world.
We also had a connected lighting Internet of Things story break involving an unexpected but well-known brand. Sony has partnered with Fagerhult to deliver indoor positioning services in offices. Fagerhult is shipping luminaires with occupancy sensors and Bluetooth beacons already. And Sony has developed a positioning platform called Nimway.
I’ll close with an old-school lighting player and a classic SSL theme. Our Carrie Meadows wrote a lengthy article about a new SSL market-transformation program coming from the California Lighting Technology Center (CLTC). CLTC is reprising its Million Lamps Challenge, this time focusing on linear replacement tubes or TLEDs. The intent is to ensure that high-quality and energy-saving tubes penetrate the market.
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]