A look at the future of interior lighting, from LED lighting to connected lighting platforms where lights will no longer simply accessorize spaces, they’ll be fully integrated within them. Also discussed are "smart buibs," and comments from experts.
Everyone loves a good lightbulb joke. Whether the punch line is nuns or New Yorkers, the question of how many people it takes to change one tickles funny bones the world over. But that question isn’t as jocular to optical scientists, who point out that the evolutions in lighting require many years—and many people—to execute.
Just ask illumination engineer Jeff Quinlan, technology evangelist at Atlanta-based lighting manufacturer Acuity Brands. Meaningful advancements in light-based technologies are rare, indeed.
“When the fluorescent lamp came into wide usage after World War II, it was about 10 times more efficient than the traditional incandescent lamp,” Quinlan says. “That was big, and we see that sort of change about every 25 to 30 years. We see a major shift every 100 years or so. Almost 200 years ago, for example, we had natural gas lamps. Then, at the end of the 19th century, Thomas Edison and the incandescent lamp again changed how we experience lighting. The next major change is LED.”
FULL STORY: Let There Be LED: The Future of Light-Based Technologies for Interiors
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City of Albany
UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
City of Piedmont, CA
Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research