Lumos of India launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo for its latest LED lit commute backpack, Aster, especially designed for cyclists. The campaign has secured US $18,492 or 34% of US $50,000.   With so many LED gadgets for cyclists on the market, what makes Aster stand out from others?   Aster is a weather-resistant backpack that increases cyclists’ on-road safety. The backpack accommodates 16 LED rear lights and 30 LED brake lights along with two profiles light and two front lights that enable the cyclist to be seen from different di...

If you have been following LEDinside news, India has been a booming market for massive streetlight retrofit projects over the last two years. Progress of LED streetlight projects in the region have been mixed, with some states and municipalities successfully implementing plans, and others lagging behind due to political, financial or technical difficulties. 

This recall involves GE Lighting high intensity discharge (HID) LED lamps. The lamps are used in lighting fixtures for warehouses, schools and gymnasiums. The lamps are 5 1/2 inches in diameter by 11 1/2 inches long and weigh about 3 pounds. The lamps were sold in a blue and white carton with “ED37/EX39 base” on the front and “PC:21259” on the back above the bar code. 

As previously announced, Bang & Olufsen a/s ("Bang & Olufsen") initiated a review to identify strategic and structural options to increase scale and further reduce complexity within Bang & Olufsen.

The UAE’s largest telecommunication company Du announced it is testing LED-based Li-Fi or Visible Communication Technology (VLC) capable of transferring data at 1 gigabyte per second, reported The National.

With the industry’s biggest biennial lighting event, Light+Building 2016 running for the whole week at Frankfurt Fair and Exhibition Center in Germany, the show hosted by Messe Frankfurt has resulted in a deluge of new lighting product releases. To make things easier for readers, and those who were unable to attend the show, we’ll pick a few highlights.

Heliospectra, a world leader in intelligent lighting technology for crop cultivation and plant research, have together with Gothenburg University and biotech companies CropTailor and OlsAro, successfully grown cereals (oat and barley) in a controlled environment under sole source LED lighting. The report entitled “Growth and development of cereals in a controlled environment with sole source LED lighting” demonstrate the potential to cultivate staple foods in a closed environment anywhere in the world. 

As a late entrant in the LED luminaire market, Sony has been primarily focused on grabbing profits in the budding smart home market, and its recent product pricing strategies and new products launched clearly illustrate this approach of utilizing its experience in the consumer electronic industry to make value-added smart LED products.

Gisborne Council in New Zealand announced it will replace over 950 old high pressure sodium street lights with upgrades to new LED power-saving lighting in the district over the next three years.

NanoLumens and Navori have revealed a new partnership and the development of a unified strategy to provide digital signage networks to end users and system integrators.

It’s important to know how microorganisms — particularly pathogenic microbes — grow under various conditions. Certain bacteria can cause food poisoning when eaten and bacterial growth in medical blood supplies, while rare, might necessitate discarding the blood.

On the biennial Light+Building 2016 organized by Messe Frankfurt, Samsung Electronics (SAMSUNG) and Wellmax Lighting (WELLMAX) jointly showcased their collaboration on LED technologies. The smallest 810lm full-beam-angle LED A50 bulb—the Ultron—is firstly released and gained tremendous attention from visitors worldwide.

India will be installing LED floodlights along its border neighboring Pakistan, in the first phase of the project lights in various sections covering districts of Jaisalmer, Bikaner, Granganagar and Barmer in Rajasthan have been replaced, reported Times of India.

Indian city Varansi’s ambitious project to replace old streetlights with LEDs in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency has been delayed, 33,000 streetlight replacements scheduled for completion in September 2015 is long overdue, reported Times of India.

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., and Daintree Networks®—the leader in open networked wireless control, sensing and Enterprise Internet of Things™ solutions for smart buildings—are collaborating on joint solutions involving Samsung’s smart lighting module (SLM). Samsung’s SLM, which will be integrated with LED luminaires from lighting OEMs, enables greater intelligence through device-level processing, as well as enhanced connectivity through multiple embedded communications technologies, including the open standard ZigBee® protocol.  Combining Samsung’s SLM technology with the Daintree Networks ControlScope® networked wireless control solution makes new Internet of Things (IoT) applications possible for smart buildings.

The Fegime Group, the European-wide collaboration of 230 electrical wholesalers, has added the Aurora Group, global manufacturer of energy saving LED lighting solutions, as a preferred supplier of Lighting products in Europe. The agreement will see Aurora Group products being made available to electrical contractors via Fegime’s 1,150 sales points across 27 countries.

LG Display announced that it will invest in a new OLED light panel manufacturing facility. The planned facility will be the first 5th generation (1000 x 1200mm) OLED light panel manufacturing plant in the world. It is to be located in the South Korean city of Gumi, where it will produce a range of OLED light panels.

Xenics USA, Xenics North and Latin American office covering the full spectral range of Xenics' advanced infrared imagers, cores and cameras, has signed an exclusive distribution agreement with Laser Components’ North American sales, marketing and distribution office. With this new agreement, Laser Components USA, Inc. will become the partner to sell and market Xenics in-house developed SWIR line-scan imagers with rectangular pixels. This partnership will further extend Xenics position in the North American IR spectroscopy market. The agreement was jointly signed on February 12, 2016 at the Photonics West Trade show held in San Francisco.

Gooee, the IoT platform provider for lighting, has partnered with EnOcean, the world leader in energy harvesting wireless technology, to integrate a BLE based self-powered wall switch module into the Bluetooth Smart Mesh stack; the primary communication protocol in Gooee’s enterprise IoT ecosystem.

Essex County Council in UK projects it will be able to save about GBP 24 million (US$ 34.23 million) over 20 years with new LED streetlight installations, but despite energy savings it still plans to implement its part-night lighting scheme, reported local paper Dealer Offers.

With new technology getting smaller and smaller, requiring lower power, University of Cincinnati physics research points to new robust electronic technologies using quantum nanowire structures.

China officially released13th Five-Year Plan, a crucial document that not only underpins China’s development in the following five years, but clearly demonstrates the country’s economic deployment that could create booming investment opportunities. But exactly which market sectors and emerging trends will follow the newly- released plan? Should LED display vendors invest in the right market, their revenues could potentially soar.

The National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) announced that ANSI Accredited Standards Committee C136 revised ANSI C136.15-2015 Roadway and Area Lighting Equipment—Luminaire Field Identification. This standard provides a simple, uniform method for identifying the type and wattage rating of luminaires used for roadway and area lighting. Types include high-intensity discharge, fluorescent, compact fluorescent, light-emitting diode/solid state lighting, induction, and plasma technologies.

Disinfection applications are usually associated with UV LEDs, but one research team from China led by Chaowen Xue has recently demonstrated an alternative solution to ridding most bacteria with visible light range LEDs.

Today at Light + Building, the world’s leading trade show for lighting and building services technology, Samsung Electronics and Silver Spring Networks announced a partnership to develop a networked LED street lights solution, helping to cut costs and simplify connected lighting componentry for luminaire manufacturers.  This will accelerate the road to smart cities for municipalities, utilities, transportation departments and other outdoor lighting network operators.  

Philips Lighting, a Royal Philips company and global leader in lighting, is helping to drive the adoption of the smart home by partnering up with Dutch telecoms company KPN, French insurance firm AXA and French energy company ENGIE. With lighting considered to be one of the main interests in the connected home along with energy and security , collaborations such as these not only help drive the adoption of the Internet of Things for homes but also deliver energy savings and peace of mind when away from home.

Qualcomm announced that its subsidiary, Qualcomm Atheros, is working closely with Acuity Brands in the commercial deployment of LED lighting fixtures/services (marketed by Acuity Brands as Bytelight™ Services) that use Qualcomm® Lumicast™ technology to bring indoor positioning capabilities and services to retailers. Unlike RF-based technologies, Lumicast uses visible-light signals transmitted from LED fixtures to deliver indoor positioning. A regular smartphone, using apps enabled by Lumicast software, receives the light signals through the front camera to determine its position and orientation with exceptional precision and speed.

Soraa, the world leader in GaN on GaN™ LED technology, announces its support for advances in color science and the new TM-30 method released by the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES). TM-30 uses an optimized calculation method to preclude the errors found in the color-rendering index (CRI), the current industry standard.

Leading Taiwanese LED epiwafer manufacturer revenues dropped 12% YoY to NT $1.64 billion (US$ 50.63 million), the lowest revenue reported over the last three years, according to a report from Taiwanese media Money DJ earlier this week.

Arianna Tozzi from The Climate Group  addresses in this article how U.S. mayors are valuing LED lighting replacements in their efforts to reduce city carbon emission and energy consumption.