Speakers in the keynote session focused on the growing requirement for adaptive controls in outdoor LED lighting, and a networked system is widely seen as the technology of choice moving forward.
Edward Smalley, the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) 2013 Street and Areal Lighting Conference (SALC) Committee Chair, convened the keynote session of the conference Monday morning and said that with LED-based outdoor lighting you no longer need to compromise in terms of energy efficiency, lifetime, or lighting quality. Indeed, the theme ran through the opening speeches that LEDs offer good efficiency, but that it is networks and controls that can truly allow cities and municipalities to maximize energy and maintenance savings with solid-state lighting (SSL). The messaging followed substantially along the theme of the SALC keynote last year and suggests growing support for a lighting network that acts as a backbone for many services in a municipality.
Mark Lien, director of government and industry relations at Osram Sylvania, addressed a number of issues in his talk but networked lighting was a big part of the talk. Lien listed ten outside industry associations and standards bodies that are exerting force on the SSL industry and noted that five of the ten are focused on interconnect. Examples include the ZigBee Alliance, the TALQ Consortium, and the Connected Lighting Alliance. Lien said, "Interconnectedness is the common thread."
In contrast, only three of the organizations on Lien's list were focused on light-source efficiency. Light quality has also moved beyond source efficiency in importance. Another speaker later on the Monday program concurred. Naomi Miller, lighting designer at the US Department of Energy (DOE) Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), said that LEDs are sufficiently efficient that we can afford to waste some of that efficiency now to build better, more comfortable lighting products.
Gianni Minetti, president and CEO of Paradox Engineering, followed Lien and Minetti and really amplified the trend first covered by Niels Van Duinen of Philips Lighting last year. Minetti said 1.2 million new people are moving into new cities each week around the globe. Cities must become more efficient to sustain the growth. He said that smart-city technology, including networked intelligent lighting, could improve energy efficiency by 30% in the next 20 years. That improvement comes on top of more efficient light sources.
Because intelligent lighting offers easily identified savings, Minetti sees lighting as the technology to drive the infrastructure. He said a network designed for lighting can ultimately handle traffic services, emergency signaling, and even pollution controls.
Minetti covered three case studies in San Francisco, California; Paris, France; and Chiasso, Switzerland that have installed wireless multi-service networks. In the Switzerland case, for example, the network carries feeds from video-over-IP traffic cameras along with lighting status and control data; and offers public Wi-Fi. We'll offer more details on those case studies in a later feature article.
The question did arise from several in the audiences as to who owns, installs, and manages such a network within a municipality and how you get different departments to work together. Both Lien and Minetti agreed that such obstacles are part of the growing pains. Both also agreed, however, that there are no technical obstacles. Minett said, "The technology is available today."
Friday, September 13, 2013
NiteN startup announces novel approach to LED retrofit lamp
Using a single circuit board to host COB LEDs and the driver electronics, NiteN hopes to significantly lower the cost of SSL lamps, but the startup could be late to the party.
NiteN has announced an LED retrofit lamp called the 2D-Lite LED Disk that the company says can hit the $10 price point for consumers in 2014 for an 800-lm, 60W-equivalent lamp. The unique design may not resonate immediately as a lightbulb replacement, but it appears as if it should produce uniform omnidirectional light and can be manufactured at low cost. That said, NiteN is a socially-funded startup that may or may not have the backing to launch the product and the socket-saturation clock is ticking on any new manufacturer trying to enter the retrofit lamp space.
We've refrained from covering socially-funded startups for the most part because frankly few have succeeded in the business-to-business technology space and there have been dozens targeting SSL — none of which have found success to date. The unique design of the NiteN product, however, makes it worthy of discussion.
A-lamp footprint
At first glance it looks little like a lightbulb, but the footprint is the same as the vertical centerline cross-section of a traditional incandescent lamp. The single printed-circuit board (PCB) that hosts the LEDs and driver electronics is shaped in that form. The design eliminates interconnects between the LEDs and driver electronics, and the metal-plated PCB acts as both a heat sink and reflector.
The design uses two chip-on-board (COB) LEDs that are mounted back to back on either side of the PCB. A COB LED alone wouldn't provide an omnidirectional beam pattern. NiteN founder Andy Turudic said, "A redistribution lens provides sweet hemispherical perfection from the LED lambertian pattern." Most often you see a collimating total internal reflection(TIR) lens used with smaller LEDs, but that is to narrow the beam pattern and wouldn't work with a larger COB. But in this case the dispersion lens is used to broaden the pattern and the reflective surface of the PCB adds to the beam spread.
The low-cost manufacturing angle is important. The 2D-Lite design would be assembled automatically on a surface-mount line. There are no wires requiring connections or hand soldering/assembly. Even the screw base of the lamp is implemented in part within the confines of the PCB. The plastic portion of the base that is evident in nearby photos does not have the Edison socket threads and is smooth. But look at the edges and you will see the Edison threads on each side of the PCB (the green vertical equator along the base). Moreover, the electrical connections between the PCB to the threads and to the contacts in the base of the socket are accomplished by contacts embedded on the PCB.
Timing and funding challenges
Despite the positives, NiteN faces an uphill challenge to bring the 2D-Lite design to market. The company needs funding to begin volume manufacturing including the expensive mold for the injection-molding required to build the plastic base. The company is trying to raise money on the Indiegogo social-funding site, and is part of the Philips Innovation Fellows program on that site.
The other challenges include the nontraditional look of the lamp and the relatively short time left for companies to capitalize in the retrofit lamps space. Founder Turudic said low cost will trump unconventional looks and that the design should hit the $6 price point in 2015 and drop to $3 in 2017. But even Philips Lighting seems to have learned that consumers want traditional-looking lamps. Of course, it wouldn't be terribly difficult to put a globe on the NiteN design, although that would impact the cost and possibly the thermal design.
The bigger question is probably the clock. Without question NiteN has misjudged how quickly the retrofit lamp space is moving. Even if things go perfectly for the startup, Cree, Philips, and probably others will beat them to market with $10 60W-equivalent lamps. The important factor is that the large companies have volume production and distribution arrangements in place to move hundreds of thousands of units instantly. And by the time 2017 rolls around, the market for retrofit lamps will be severely diminished as consumers will have installed many long-life lamps already.
The NiteN intellection property (IP), however, could be applied to luminaires as well. Turudic pointed out that the 2D-Lite LED Disk could serve perfectly in the typical surface-mount ceiling fixture that uses two incandescent lamps or compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) in which half of the light is radiated upward and essentially wasted. NiteN could just power one side of its disk and halve power consumption to double efficacy in such a case.
The most likely path to success for the company, however, is probably sale or license of the IP to companies working on integral luminaires, or even a move into the luminaire space if the startup can find funding. The concepts are impressive, but we've seen many impressive concepts in the SSL space that were far better funded and yet have staggered to exit the startup phase.
NiteN has announced an LED retrofit lamp called the 2D-Lite LED Disk that the company says can hit the $10 price point for consumers in 2014 for an 800-lm, 60W-equivalent lamp. The unique design may not resonate immediately as a lightbulb replacement, but it appears as if it should produce uniform omnidirectional light and can be manufactured at low cost. That said, NiteN is a socially-funded startup that may or may not have the backing to launch the product and the socket-saturation clock is ticking on any new manufacturer trying to enter the retrofit lamp space.
We've refrained from covering socially-funded startups for the most part because frankly few have succeeded in the business-to-business technology space and there have been dozens targeting SSL — none of which have found success to date. The unique design of the NiteN product, however, makes it worthy of discussion.
A-lamp footprint
At first glance it looks little like a lightbulb, but the footprint is the same as the vertical centerline cross-section of a traditional incandescent lamp. The single printed-circuit board (PCB) that hosts the LEDs and driver electronics is shaped in that form. The design eliminates interconnects between the LEDs and driver electronics, and the metal-plated PCB acts as both a heat sink and reflector.
The design uses two chip-on-board (COB) LEDs that are mounted back to back on either side of the PCB. A COB LED alone wouldn't provide an omnidirectional beam pattern. NiteN founder Andy Turudic said, "A redistribution lens provides sweet hemispherical perfection from the LED lambertian pattern." Most often you see a collimating total internal reflection(TIR) lens used with smaller LEDs, but that is to narrow the beam pattern and wouldn't work with a larger COB. But in this case the dispersion lens is used to broaden the pattern and the reflective surface of the PCB adds to the beam spread.
The low-cost manufacturing angle is important. The 2D-Lite design would be assembled automatically on a surface-mount line. There are no wires requiring connections or hand soldering/assembly. Even the screw base of the lamp is implemented in part within the confines of the PCB. The plastic portion of the base that is evident in nearby photos does not have the Edison socket threads and is smooth. But look at the edges and you will see the Edison threads on each side of the PCB (the green vertical equator along the base). Moreover, the electrical connections between the PCB to the threads and to the contacts in the base of the socket are accomplished by contacts embedded on the PCB.
Timing and funding challenges
Despite the positives, NiteN faces an uphill challenge to bring the 2D-Lite design to market. The company needs funding to begin volume manufacturing including the expensive mold for the injection-molding required to build the plastic base. The company is trying to raise money on the Indiegogo social-funding site, and is part of the Philips Innovation Fellows program on that site.
The other challenges include the nontraditional look of the lamp and the relatively short time left for companies to capitalize in the retrofit lamps space. Founder Turudic said low cost will trump unconventional looks and that the design should hit the $6 price point in 2015 and drop to $3 in 2017. But even Philips Lighting seems to have learned that consumers want traditional-looking lamps. Of course, it wouldn't be terribly difficult to put a globe on the NiteN design, although that would impact the cost and possibly the thermal design.
The bigger question is probably the clock. Without question NiteN has misjudged how quickly the retrofit lamp space is moving. Even if things go perfectly for the startup, Cree, Philips, and probably others will beat them to market with $10 60W-equivalent lamps. The important factor is that the large companies have volume production and distribution arrangements in place to move hundreds of thousands of units instantly. And by the time 2017 rolls around, the market for retrofit lamps will be severely diminished as consumers will have installed many long-life lamps already.
The NiteN intellection property (IP), however, could be applied to luminaires as well. Turudic pointed out that the 2D-Lite LED Disk could serve perfectly in the typical surface-mount ceiling fixture that uses two incandescent lamps or compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) in which half of the light is radiated upward and essentially wasted. NiteN could just power one side of its disk and halve power consumption to double efficacy in such a case.
The most likely path to success for the company, however, is probably sale or license of the IP to companies working on integral luminaires, or even a move into the luminaire space if the startup can find funding. The concepts are impressive, but we've seen many impressive concepts in the SSL space that were far better funded and yet have staggered to exit the startup phase.
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