The Industrial Revolution left in its wake technology that is important, but also inefficient, archaic, and wasteful. It is up to the scientists and engineers of today to embark on a new, corrective path. Lighting, an important feature of any modern home, is an area in which great strides have been made. Just the change from cold cathodes and metal halides to long-lasting and efficient LEDs are symptomatic of this, but the technology is ever evolving.
Design
Wireless
The modern world is eschewing the hassle of cables for wireless products. It isn’t only the internet, though, many other products that depend on radio frequency systems are finding that wireless is the way. Phones made the leap years ago, but they are followed now by outdoor LED lighting systems, which can be controlled with the press of a button.
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Control
Smart Homes
Once only imaginable in science fiction, smart homes are not only a reality, but one increasing in popularity. The Internet of Things, a web of connection between different objects, is now a staple of modern life. Smart lights use tracking technology to make decisions regarding light usage and relevance.
Control over lights
The state of the environment is at the crux of all current technological advances. Light innovations have given the user control over household lighting with products such as remote control led lights, with dimmers that are both energy and money saving. There is a myriad of products available now, giving a homeowner choice, and in the choice, control. Lights.co.uk has thousands of products, many of which implement this remote control technology for both indoor and outdoor usage.
Innovation
Innovations in LEDs
LEDs are constantly being adapted. Hybrid uses a design with reimagined heating valves that are separate from the light source, ensuring the lamp doesn’t overheat, and making it easily replaceable. Because drivers, which turn mains electricity into light, are LEDs’ weakest point, new research seeks to either strengthen them, or remove them from the equation entirely. Iviti has a lamp available that uses no driver, and Isotera replaces the driver with a different power system based on Ethernet.
Alternate materials
Nobel Prize winner Shuji Nakamura exchanged the sapphire of blue LEDs to the gallium nitride of violet ones, lending them more power and efficiency.
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Research at the University of Manchester finds that graphene holds great potential for LEDs’ future, with high conductivity that means lights that are longer-lasting, more efficient, and brighter. More experimentally, Mike Thompson developed ‘the blood lamp’, based on luminol that reacts to the iron in blood and turns bright blue. Developed as a thought experiment about the usage and wastage of electricity, it currently powers an entire laboratory.
Thanks to modern technology, things that once were a sketch in a notebook are now attainable. Lighting innovations have restructured the way households, and public buildings are illuminated. But like all innovation, though it has come a long way, it still has much in store for the future.