Products + Technology

A few LED chip manufacturers have produced laser diodes for some time, including: Nichia, Ushio, and the Soraa Inc spin out SLD Laser that was later acquired by Kyocera and rebranded Kyocera SLD Laser. The most recent example is Luminus Devices. On January 30th, 2024, Luminus Devices announced the launch of green and blue laser [...]

  There are a several E Ink trends in the display industry that could have implications for lighting:  Smart Surfaces Sustainable Product Development and Environmental Impact Incorporation of signage into Smart Cities. Smart Surfaces Displays of the future will personalize, customize, and provide information on top of other surfaces, making surfaces “intelligent” (or at least [...]

  Coastal Source may be an unfamiliar brand to many people in the general lighting industry. LightNOW is pleased to be among the first lighting publications to get an inside look at their new products and to share the company’s story with our readers. Coastal Source is a unique outdoor lighting & audio speaker system [...]

SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet constellation now has over 9,000 communications satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO). The satellites form an enormous mesh network utilizing infrared lasers that share information across space, between satellites, known as inter-satellite laser communication. The inter-satellite system achieves a bandwidth of 42 petabytes (PB) per day, which equals 42 million gigabytes [...]

South Korean researchers have demonstrated a new approach to LiFi using a red, green, and blue (RGB) OLED array. The Pohang University of Science and Technology team utilized an organic photodiode (OPD) array as the receiver. Their study was published October 19, 2023, in the publication, Advanced Materials. The new approach to LiFi reduced interference [...]

  Nichia has announced the release of a new line of products designed to enable different light distribution than conventional LEDs. The product line is based on new LED emitters called Cube Direct Mountable Chip. See photo above. It is a chip scale packaging (CSP) LED, which in itself increases the amount of light emitted [...]

  Optique Lighting has announced the launch of their Armadio illuminated closet rod collection. These custom architectural Nano Linear closet rod luminaires are engineered to be one of the industry’s strongest closet rods and are offered in custom lengths to a designer’s specification, in 1/8-inch increments up to 8 feet. The closet rod diameter is 1.34 inches, [...]

  Most people in the lighting industry know that high heat can destroy both LED’s and drivers, especially drivers containing electrolytic capacitors. However, there are classes of both LED emitters and luminaires that are designed to withstand high operating temperatures, up to 212oF. Example applications include lighting for steel mills, blast furnaces, pulp & paper [...]

 Three companies in Finland have collaborated to demonstrate the successful commercialization of bio-based packaging materials for light fixtures that are recyclable, plastic-free, and biodegradable. The three companies involved are: Secto Design – a company specializing in sustainable wooden design lamps, moved its Petite product line’s products from traditional fossil-based packaging into new packaging made of [...]