Get Your Hospital Ready for the Future of LEDs Now

LEDs hit the lighting world by storm, and there are several good reasons for that. Not only are they energy-efficient and produce less heat, but they’re also customizable. Everything from dimness to color and direction can be programmed into LEDs. But while that makes LEDs a smart bet for new hospital constructions, it used to be another story for retrofits. Here are three reasons why your administration should make switching to LEDs a priority:

1. The current infrastructure will support future bulbs.

Early adoption of technology is always risky. Switching to the last data storage medium or buying the latest devices can be expensive or an investment in a fleeting trend. But LEDs are here to stay, and their current support systems are built to last. Whether you want to start retrofitting your hospital in sections or you want to overhaul the whole property, switching to LEDs is a safe bet.

2. Dimmable, programmable bulbs help people do their jobs.

LEDs in hospitals don’t just have the general benefits like in other commercial settings. They also have specific benefits for your employees and your patients. You can automatically program LEDs to duplicate daylight with bright white light so employees on the night shift are more alert. You can also add dimmable bulbs to waiting rooms and patient rooms. Even color-changing bulbs are being studied for their positive impacts on people’s healing rates.

3. Save on variable expenses.

Hospitals cost a lot of money to run. You have to keep the lights on 24/7, and even a single hospital room has a lot of specific lighting requirements. But LED bulbs will cut down on electrical costs. Because they have long lifespans, you also save on replacement bulbs, or diodes, over the years.

Contact us at Relumination to get started. We can help plan, implement, and analyze your hospital’s lighting systems.

LED Lighting: Are You Ready To Make The Switch?

Is today the day you are going to move ahead with your commercial lighting and switch your incandescent light bulbs for the popular LED light bulbs? If you are thinking about making the switch, we know there are some more things you will want to know about LED lighting.

An LED is a light source that converts electricity into light by using a semiconductor. LEDs can convert electricity up to 90 percent more efficiently than the traditional incandescent light bulbs. The majority of today’s LED light bulbs have a projected lifespan of 25,000 hours. With your commercial lights being switched on and off every day, your business will definitely shine longer and brighter than ever before.

LED light bulbs can come in a variety of styles and colors. This means that you will not have to settle for the traditional white bulbs that you are currently using. You can use the LED light bulbs as part of the signage outside of your business without worrying about the color of the bulb fading over time. You will also not have to worry about constantly checking your light bulb for popping sounds.

Not only can you use LED light bulbs in signage outside of your business, but you can certainly use them indoors. If you love creating displays inside your business to attract customers, you will appreciate the appeal that LED lights can bring.

An incandescent light bulb will brighten the entire display, but LED lighting will give you the opportunity to highlight the parts of the display you want to stand out. Incandescent light bulbs are cooler than LED light bulbs, but the LED bulbs will still produce a little amount of heat. When installing LED bulbs in enclosed spaces, you should make sure the bulbs have been designed for enclosed spaces.

Are you ready to add a little more light into your business? Do not hesitate to contact us today for more information on LED lighting.

Electric Light Has Come a Long Way: Where Do We Go from Here?

Even though nobody wants to go back to candles, there has been a lot of criticism of the poor old incandescent bulb, which has served civilization faithfully for over 130 years. In 2007, President G.W. Bush signed into law a requirement that “screw in” light bulbs will have to be 60 or 70 percent more efficient than today’s incandescent bulbs. The trouble is that 90 percent of the energy that goes into an incandescent bulb is required to heat the metal filament in the bulb to 4,000 degrees F, in order to get the bulb to light. The US law does not ban incandescent bulbs but those conditions are impossible for incandescent bulbs to meet. Manufacturers have phased out old-style 100-watt bulbs [The Washington Post]. “Traditional” incandescent bulbs have been banned from being sold in some states, including California.

So What Do We Replace Them With?

There are two current options that will meet the efficiency requirement of President Bush’s bill.

The Compact Fluorescent bulb is one option. The bulbs are cleverly engineered versions of the long fluorescent tubes you see in the ceilings of some stores and offices. What the engineers did is take the tube (which has to have a certain length and size to generate sufficient light) and bend them either into a U-shape or into a shape like a spring. Sometimes, the bulbs will be mounted in a glass cover so they look like incandescent bulbs. In each case, the bulb itself is mounted on top of a heavier-than-incandescent base which serves as the ballast.

Compact Fluorescents.

The principle behind the fluorescent bulb is a little more complex than other lighting systems.

  1. When you screw the bulb into your lamp socket and turn on the light, AC electric current passes through an adapter in the base of the bulb which changes the current into direct current (DC). The base of the bulb also contains a “starter” and a suppression capacitor. This small system is called the ballast. It builds the current up to the level needed to start the bulb working and serves to maintain a constant voltage because fluctuating voltage in these bulbs will cause flickering lighting.
  2. The current is drawn through the tube which is filled with mercury vapor (and other gases). When the electrons in the tube crash into mercury molecules in the tube, the gas glows with invisible ultraviolet light.
  3. The glass is coated with a phosphorescent material similar to the kind that makes things glow in “black light.” The ultraviolet light makes the phosphorescent powder in the tube glow in visible light which is the light generated by the lamp.

There are two disadvantages of the compact fluorescent system.

The major disadvantage is that they have to be filled with mercury vapor which is very dangerous for the environment. These compact fluorescent light bulbs cannot be disposed of in regular trash but need to be specially recycled.

The second (perhaps less important) disadvantage is that these bulbs require the ballast. The presence of the ballast makes the bulb fitting slightly different from the standard screw-in fitting so the bulbs don’t fit in every socket. The ballast also slows the start of the light. When you turn the light on, there is a slight delay before the light turns on.

Light-emitting Diodes (LED lights).

The light-emitting diode (LED) lamp is the second option. LEDs are the result of a long history of research into special crystals called semiconductors (similar to crystals used in computer chips). These crystals simply glow when you attach them to an electrical source. The circuitry in the LED lamp is very simple. You simply need a current to change AC to DC current (AC is alternative current–the kind of current that comes through your plug from the electric company to DC (direct current–the kind of current that comes from a battery). The current reduced to the correct voltage is connected to the crystal and it glows on its own. This is a property of the matter in the crystal. You often see lamps where there is no apparent bulb, just a small piece of crystal at the base of the lamp that is the source of all the light. LEDs do not generate high temperatures. They tend to last a lot longer than incandescent bulbs and even longer than compact fluorescent bulbs.

The research into the property of these crystals to create light directly from electrical energy is leading to the development of new forms of lamps. Whole wall panels that light up, tubes whose surface has light-emitting property, and even light-emitting paper and flexible plastics.

Relumination was founded with the idea that automated lighting control and new low energy lights can save energy which is less expensive than figuring out ways to produce more. Contact us to learn more.

Choosing Light: Revitalizing Your Business Through Relighting Your Environment

Light affects everything. Light is how we see and interpret how inviting, or uninviting, a situation is. This applies to nearly everything we experience, but it particularly affects our retail experience, both for those who work in retail and for shoppers. Proper lighting can make the difference between lethargic, disconnected employees and active, attentive ones. Studies also show that store lighting has a heavy influence over the amount of time that customers shop as well as how comfortable they are making purchases. Changing over from older forms of lighting, such fluorescent lighting, to LED lighting can have a big impact on the cost of doing business as well as change the way customers perceive your company.

Changing The Environment

Switching to LED lighting can seem daunting, but the benefits far outweigh the initial struggles of change. LED lights come with many benefits, the most obvious being decreased energy costs. LEDs can reduce lighting cost by up to 75%. That is a game changer. Not only that, but they can also reduce cooling costs. Traditional lighting gives off the majority of its light through heat, LEDs do not. They run much cooler, which naturally reduces the overall temperature of the room. This change of temperature can affect the comfort of your employees and customers, creating a more inviting environment.

Then there is the light itself. LED lights give off what is often referred to as white light, or a cleaner light. This cleaner light not only increases visibility, but it can impact the health of those experiencing it. Studies show that proper lighting in the workplace can affect mood, alertness, and productivity as well as decrease the chances of some physical ailments such as eye strain, headaches, and even high blood pressure. The health and well-being of your employees can change the efficiency of your company; giving them proper lighting is definitely worth it.

Shopping Through Light

Light is how we see; if the lighting around us is bright and clear, then we can see and enjoy the details of our environment. In a retail setting, seeing the details can make the difference between shopping til we drop and dropping our shopping and running out. A university study done in 2013 shows that the lighting in a store can completely change the way a shopper views both the store and the products in it. Dimly lit shops were described with adjectives such as ‘shady’ or ‘untrustworthy’, while well-lit, bright stores were thought to be better organized and to carry better quality products. The light makes all the difference. The brighter clean light of LEDs can give customers the assurance that they are truly seeing what they are purchasing and make them more comfortable spending more time in the shop and buying more.

Choosing Light

Not only does proper lighting affect your electric bill, but it can also affect your employees in their attentiveness and safety, as well as your customers and how and where they choose to spend their hard earned money. Taking the time to retrofit your older lighting systems to LED lights will not only save you money, but it will also make you money. Clearly, updated LED lighting is a smart business decision all around.

If you would like more information about retrofitting the lighting in your business, feel free to contact us.

5 Benefits of LED Lighting

When was the last time you took a look at your lighting array? Chances are good you probably never really notice it, unless something burns out, or it doesn’t turn on. But if you aren’t using LED lighting, then you are missing out on a lot of benefits that your current system simply doesn’t provide.

For example…

#1: Lifespan

How often do you replace your lights? Well, according to SF Gate, if you’re using old-fashioned incandescent bulbs, it’s once every 750 to 2,000 hours. And if you’re using fluorescent lights, it will be every 8,000 to every 10,000 hours. But if you use LED lights, you’re looking at a lifespan between 35,000 and 50,000 hours.

That’s not a small difference.

#2: Efficiency

Paying your energy bill is something no one wants to do, but we write it off as the cost of doing business. However, according to Current, LED lights use half the energy of incandescent, fluorescent, and halogen bulbs. That’s per bulb. So that may not make a huge difference if you’re talking about your desk lamp, but if you extend that savings to all the lights in an array, or in a building, that can be a serious cost and efficiency change.

#3: Eco-Friendly

As LED Luxor points out, fluorescent bulbs contain toxic materials that are bad for the environment (things like mercury, for example). LED bulbs, by contrast, contain no toxic materials, and are 100 percent recyclable. So when their lifespan is eventually over, they can simply be remade into new lights instead of being tossed into a landfill.

#4: Heat

Have you ever noticed that when you stand under lights, you tend to feel a lot of heat? That’s because incandescent bulbs release as much as 90 percent of their energy as heat, and CFLs can release as much as 80 percent of theirs in the same way. LED lights create very little heat, though, which is why they’re recommended by The Department of Energy.

#5: Minimal Emissions

In addition to putting out minimal heat, LED lights also release very little UV rays. This can be particularly important if you have goods in storage that react negatively to ultraviolet light, since LEDs allow you to see what you have, without doing it any damage.

For more benefits of LED lighting, and why you should consider switching, simply contact us today!

Sustainable Lighting Options for Businesses

Currently, most business owners are working towards achieving sustainability in their daily operations because customers prefer engaging enterprises that prioritize the need to conserve the environment. One of the best ways to create a sustainable workplace is by opting to use eco-friendly lighting. Energy saving bulbs will not only improve the working conditions for your staff but also reduce your energy bill considerably.

Various regulations are pushing companies to lower their carbon footprint and for that reason, opting to use eco-friendly lighting within your enterprise is a wise idea. However, the proliferation of sustainable light fittings in the market makes it difficult to identify the right option for your business. Here are some of the viable business lighting options that can offer excellent value for your money.

Architectural Modifications

The discovery of new lighting technologies for businesses is gathering momentum as more and more business operators focus on acquiring the right option to support their operations. If you do not want to delve into the aspect of visiting various vendors as you seek to identify appropriate lighting for your company, you can consider modifying the architectural design of your office space.

The idea behind the architectural modifications is to maximize natural light to make your office brighter as you seek to reduce reliance on artificial lighting. For instance, you can arrange the light shafts, windows, and skylights of your company premises to maximize natural light by adopting the daylighting design.

LED Lighting

One of the challenges of the previous variety of LED bulbs is that they are quite dim and therefore unsuitable for commercial buildings. The improvements on LED bulbs today makes them one of the best options for businesses because they are currently brighter and their lifespan is longer.

If you opt to invest in LED lighting as a business operator, you will cut down on the cost of replacing light fittings from time to time since LED bulbs last longer than ordinary bulbs.

CFL Light Fittings

If LED bulbs are an expensive option for your organization, you can consider buying CFL light fittings because they are both cheaper and energy efficient. You need to note that CFL light fittings are difficult to recycle because they contain traces of mercury, which means they are less sustainable for your office environment, in comparison with LED bulbs. If you need more information on viable lighting options for businesses, contact us today!

University Lighting: Providing An Energy-Efficient Campus Environment

A university’s campus is like a small community filled with a variety of people with varying interests. However, one of the areas where the interests are aligned is safety. One of the best ways to ensure safety and security on campus is to improve university lighting.

LED lighting will provide a safe, secure, and energy-efficient environment on campus at all times. LEDs also reduce the cost of operation while satisfying the needs of faculty members and students who can appreciate the benefits of eco-friendly solutions. LEDs also provide outstanding durability in the environments that can place an incredible amount of stress on light bulbs and lighting fixtures, such as a university campus.

Due to the high-quality energy efficiency, LED lighting allows universities to save a significant amount of money on repairs, operating costs, and maintenance costs. When compared to a traditional light bulb, an LED light bulb can consume less than half the energy that the traditional light bulb can. Although an LED light bulb will not consume as much energy as a traditional light bulb, the quality of the LED bulb will not be negatively impacted.

A university needs to have safe walking areas across the entire environment, and college administrators can save a significant amount of money by lighting the campus with LED lights instead of the traditional lights. LED lighting for universities will typically last longer and they will be more reliable and durable than other lighting options your university may have used in the past.

All areas on a university campus can benefit from LED lighting fixtures, and there are different types of fixtures that will fit your university’s classrooms, parking lots, offices, dorms, walkways, etc. With students preparing to head back to campus, now is a great time to make improvements to your university lighting in order to ensure the safety of your university.

For more information on the benefits and advantages of LED university lighting, please do not hesitate to contact us today.

Don’t Let Your Lights Be Zombies: Protect Your IoT Network

Smart lights are a smart choice. No matter what business you’re in or if you have a mix of indoor and outdoor lighting systems, more control is a good idea. You can power down the lights remotely to save on power. You can flip on the exterior lights if you get an alert about unauthorized activity. Smart lights even give you data about if people are staying in the office late at night, which helps you make smarter decisions about workloads and deadlines.

But a smart light system made out of color-changing LEDs or dimmable bulbs is smart only as long as you control the power and the data. As a general rule, the Internet of Things isn’t as protected as it should be. There’s no standard operating system that you can protect with antimalware. You can’t install updates or widgets to make sure the wi-fi is as encrypted as the rest of your business network.

Are unprotected lighting networks really that big of a deal?

Data is always a big deal. Malicious actors who can wind their way into your IoT, even if they can’t cause any changes themselves, learn too much about your business. They know your hours of operation and when just a few people are in the building. They know what kind of bulbs you use and can find out who your network provider is.

Hackers can also co-opt your IoT-enabled light bulbs into their botnet. Just as malicious actors can spread a virus that lets them harness hundreds of computers to power a DDOS attack, they can infect your IoT and use thousands of light bulbs to power the same attack. Even if they’re not reaching into your data, they’re using your network to cause chaos.

The best thing you can do is stay alert. Look for a smart lighting system that is protected. Contact us for lighting that can work with any operating system.

Interior Lighting Which Saves Money and Increases the Productivity of Your Employees

If you’re a small business owner, you want to take advantage of any possible way to improve productivity and increase your bottom line. Every little bit makes a difference. And sometimes, small changes can have a dramatic effect. You may not expect that something small, such as switching to LED lighting would make that much difference to your business. But it does.

Saving Money with LED Lighting

To begin with, you can save quite a bit of energy in the long run by investing in LED lights from the get-go. The average lifespan of an LED light is 50,000 hours. So even if you use the LED light continuously, you won’t have to change it for at least six years.

Imagine how many regular light bulbs you would go through in that time. And you’ll get an idea of how much money you’re going to save. Sure, you might have to spend a little more in the moment but if you’re the type of business owner who looks five or ten years into the future, then you’ll see that LED is the best choice.

Increasing Productivity with LED Lighting

The other advantage of LED lighting is that it’s softer and more like regular daylight. When you work with regular incandescent or fluorescent lights, everything seems just a little bit harsh. And most regular workplaces don’t have large windows letting in the sunlight, no matter how pleasant this might be for employees. So you have to light everything electrically if your employees are going to get any work done.

Using LEDs instead of incandescent or fluorescents will just be (literally!) a lot easier on the eyes for your employees. As it is, they’re probably staring at computer and phone screens all day long, which hurts the eyes. The least you can do is arrange it so that the lighting in your offices is conducive to well-being and, eventually, productivity. Because an employee who is feeling comfortable and happy is likely to work for longer and put in his or her 100%. And this is eventually to your benefit as a business owner.

Contact us for more great tips for using LED lights in your office environment.

8 Ways in Which LED Lighting Is All Around You

LEDs may be new on the scene but they are already being used a great deal. Many people are currently getting LED lighting upgrades because, as compared to fluorescents, LEDs have a longer life. Plus, they are more energy efficient and emit a cooler light.

You may think that LED lighting is only useful in isolated instances. However, LEDs are often used as indicators i.e., to pass on some kind of message to people. Here are some indicators that we are all familiar with:

  1. Traffic Lights: LED lights are used as traffic lights.
  2. Train Stations and Airports: LEDs are also used on boards that give arrivals and departure information in train stations and airports.
  3. Stadiums: In stadiums as well, LED lights are used on the boards which keep score.
  4. Exit Signs: These are usually made with LED lights.
  5. Ships: Ship navigation lights also make use of LEDs.
  6. Night Vision: LEDs are used when it’s necessary to maintain night vision e.g., airplane cockpits, astronomy observatories etc.
  7. Cars: LED lights have very fast switching times. So they are often used as brake lights in cars. As compared to incandescents, LEDs can light up 0.5 seconds faster. This may not seem like much but it can make all the difference to the car behind you. Similarly, LEDs are also being used for rear lights and headlights in cars and other vehicles.
  8. Glowsticks: LEDs are often used in glowsticks. Although a glowstick is sometimes used as a toy, it can also be used in military, police or fire operations.

So commercial LED lighting may seem like it’s just gaining ground but if you look at the above list, you’ll see that there are many commercial uses of LEDs that we are already familiar with. After all, we’ve all seen traffic lights or been to a baseball game. As a result, we may not know it but we’ve all benefited from the various uses of LED lights.

Contact us for your commercial LED lighting needs.