Welcome to the LEDs Magazine News & Insights newsletter for Jan. 5, 2022. Welcome to a new year, everyone. I do hope that 2022 is off to a promising start for you all.
It seems appropriate in the first missive of a new year to talk about change. Nearly everyone has a resolution, an objective, or a habit they want to establish (or drop!) in order to achieve transformation when the calendar flips to January, it seems. Sometimes that change is already in progress before the current year closes.
Some of you may already be aware from personal communications or involvement in LEDs Magazine and its associated event activities that our longtime chief Maury Wright has retired effective this week. If not, well, the cat’s out of the bag now (or perhaps the cardboard box would be a more appropriate version — loudly rustling around in the living room nearby, I might add). While we have not been able to celebrate Maury’s retirement in smashing fashion due to (cue sighs) the pandemic, I would encourage anyone who would like to drop a note of congratulations, appreciation, anything of the sort, to contact me and I will be sure to put you in touch.
Before I get too sentimental 😊 let’s move on to the content, shall we? As we’ve long discussed, January still sees a slow ramping of business developments and technology news. But our trusty contributor Mark Halper has managed to dig up a couple of topical stories that focus on smart building technologies and horticulture in space. Yes, quite a range there!
Mark’s observations on the march of connected lighting have occasionally noted that sometimes the lighting is not even a factor in a smart application story. “Why cover it?” one may ask. The answer is that many of the organizations involved in deployments of smart sensors and controls work with both lighting-based installations and networks of devices outside of the lighting and associated controls. In this case, mesh-networking specialist Wirepas has partnered with an IT solutions provider to equip several hospitals with asset tracking capabilities. Wirepas CEO Teppo Hemia noted that embedding controls within luminaires makes more sense when the customer is already upgrading its lighting. I agree. In any case, the reduction in lost equipment and thus lost time is a boon in any healthcare environment.
Far into the atmosphere we also wander once again to the International Space Station with a look at horticultural projects that have been launched by NASA astronauts. It’s an interesting field, for sure, as scientists are learning more about how to design facilities in space for more self-sufficiency while also finding ways to translate the plant science to controlled environment agriculture (CEA) on Earth.
You’ll find more of interest in the body of today’s newsletter. Please keep in touch about content we post or to pitch a contributed article.
- Carrie Meadows, (603) 891-9382, [email protected]