
Short History of LED Lighting - blast
https://www.stet.build/ia/031
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ChuckMcM
Okay, that was useless.

Summary: LED Lighting is now called Solid State Lighting (SSL) and improving
lighting efficiency is no longer and issue. So other ways to differentiate are
being sought.

While that could be a good launch paragraph into an interesting article, that
is where it stops.

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wombatmobile
Yeah, the fact that LED bulbs can change color and be connected to networks
and sensors means they can exhibit behaviour. I thought TFA was going to
discuss automation or integration.

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falcolas
What blows me away is that you can now get a watch which is _constantly
illuminated by LEDs_ and they're claiming "up to 3+ years" of battery life.

[https://parweber.com/pages/introducing-
endurolume](https://parweber.com/pages/introducing-endurolume)

LEDs are slick.

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remilee
Shouldnt be "history of led" should be future lol

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tyingq
They talk a lot about the blue LED, but don't mention one reason that it's
important.

What's important is white LEDS, probably the most used color. There isn't
really a white LED. They are either three LEDS (R/G/B), or a blue led with
some phosphor coating.

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milesvp
So true. I'd love a miracle material that doesn't require a phosphor coating
to get full spectrum lighting. Maybe some meta-material will come out in the
next decade...

Meanwhile, these guys keep popping up when I search for LED spectrograms. They
seem to have good phosphor coatings for their LEDs. It's certainly one of the
better spectrograms I've seen for an LED lightbulb.
[https://www.waveformlighting.com/full-spectrum-led-
lighting](https://www.waveformlighting.com/full-spectrum-led-lighting)

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sephamorr
One answer is to stack 3 LEDs on the die, each tuned to the center wavelength
of human photo-receptors. Existing RGB LEDs emulating "white" suffer from
shadowing effects where shadows have a color based on the parallax between the
red, green, and blue elements in the light bulb. This is no longer an issue if
you co-locate the emitters.

~~~
lathiat
This works for direct illumination (eg an LCD screen) but fails for reflected
light (eg a light).

This video from Technology Connections helps explain
[https://youtu.be/uYbdx4I7STg](https://youtu.be/uYbdx4I7STg)

~~~
jrwoodruff
Technology Connections is the bomb. I think I've watched all of his videos at
this point, highly recommend his channel.

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contingencies
What's interesting to me is that LEDs were apparently a Russo-Japanese
invention yet the industry is now completely dominated by China. LED
lightshows of an evening are a very late naughties China thing, every town has
one these days, hell almost every _building_ has one. Makes for interesting
skylines, but no doubt terrible for ambient light pollution, insect life, etc.

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mattgrice
China dominates most electronic industries, few of which were invented there.
Interesting that you say LEDs are a Russo-Japanese invention because all
colors of LED were first commercialized in the US. The high-brightness blue
LED was discovered in the US but commercialized by a Japanese company.

~~~
sephamorr
When Shuji Nakamura developed the high-brightness blue LED, he was working at
Nichia, in Japan. He's now at UCSB.

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wombatmobile
I installed Lifx bulbs in the main living area of my house. They are
controlled by wifi through an ios app that can change the color and intensity
of each bulb. I schedule sleep mode at 10.30pm and normal intensity at
sunrise.

If I want to override the schedule at night I just turn the wall switch off/on
and the bulbs wake up.

I like these wifi LED lights. They are the most reliable aspect of my life.

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ponker
I think that most people vastly underestimate how important lighting is to a
living space. I frankly think that a $500K house with great lighting feels
like a much bigger, higher-end $1 million house.

Get lots of high-CRI lighting, at daylight and warm white color temperatures,
have them automatically shift from blue to red on a daily basis. If you can't
do a permanent installation, get those 5-arm floor lamps.

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ponker
Ydz- you replied this comment with a very useful comment that is “dead” either
because you were downvoted (impossible) or because the megalomaniacs who run
this site consider you persona non grata.

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adzm
The Nobel Prize was awarded to them in 2014 fwiw, not 2004.

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wombatmobile
TFA actually says "So significant was this discovery that in 2004, the trio
would receive the Nobel price in Physics."

