Products + Technology

By Clifton Stanley Lemon How many designers does it take to change a lightbulb? Answer: Does it have to be a light bulb? While this old joke lampoons the legendary persnickety design thinking personified by Steve Jobs and others, the response is quite valid. Who in the lighting industry today is asking this question or [...]

An increasing number of manufacturers of Bluetooth® wireless lighting control components have recently released long-range / outdoor components. Some examples include: LiteTrace Casambi McWong in partnership with Silvair These long-range components can include: fixture controllers, sensors, and signal boosters. Most of these manufacturers utilize external antennas to achieve ranges between 500 to 1,000 feet between [...]

  Glass blocks have been utilized for many decades to create translucent walls or wall sections. However, glass block is not able to create loadbearing walls and is not a good insulating material. A group of Swiss researchers have developed a new aerogel-filled translucent brick that is both highly insulating and can create load-bearing walls. [...]

  Aquafire by Lumina Products gives a new meaning to “lighting a fire!” The company has perfected water vapor flames illuminated by colored LEDs. Aquafire generates a water vapor mist that is gently pushed with fans from the mist chamber to the top of the unit through a diffuser vent. The vapor is then backlit [...]

In February, I published a story about whether a new trend in toroidal propellers could lead to toroidal ceiling fan blades, here. This article became one of the most viewed LightNOW posts of the past year, garnering 10 times the views of a typical post. As a follow up, let’s explore the trend of bladeless ceiling [...]

Researchers at the University of Toronto demonstrated a window technology that utilizes multiple layers of plastic sheets that can be filled with different pigments to selectively filter infrared (IR) heat and/or visible light. This approach has the potential to dramatically reduce HVAC energy requirements for buildings. Different layers within the prototype window filter out infrared [...]

Korean micro-LED manufacturer, Lumens, announced in January, the development of R-G-B micro-LEDs grown in a stack, on a single wafer / substrate (aka monolithic). The benefits of this approach include reducing the transfer process by two-thirds, reducing costs, and increasing productivity. The first applications for this technology are the micro-LED display markets, including TV, AR, [...]

By Clifton Stanley Lemon This is the second post in a four-part series on Lighting and Innovation. The first post can be read here. It’s supremely ironic that we are, ostensibly, in a state of stagnating innovation in lighting today, given that the universal symbol of innovation and inspiration is…the light bulb. Of course, the [...]

Translucent concrete, also known as light-transmitting concrete, is a building material that allows light to pass through it. It is made by embedding optical fibers in a concrete matrix, which allows the material to transmit light while still maintaining its structural integrity. The fibers used in translucent concrete are typically made of glass or plastic [...]