Three Benefits of Warehouse Lighting with LEDs

Warehouse operation can make or break a business. For many companies, it’s the bottleneck that slows down their customer fulfillment process. Therefore the warehouse manager should exploit every opportunity to improve warehouse productivity. One such opportunity is LED lighting. Here are three reasons to change your warehouse lighting to LEDs:

Emits a Fuller Spectrum of Light

LED lighting is similar to daylight except that it doesn’t have the harmful UV levels of sunlight. LED light is white and brighter per watt consumed than other commonly used lighting. This is particularly important in a warehouse environment because product picking errors are costly in terms of customer returns and lost business. A well illuminated warehouse is important for avoiding injuries where forklifts and workers on foot work side by side.

Increases Worker Productivity

LED lighting contains a blue light component that improves mental alertness in the same way as exposure to natural sunlight. This is an important consideration if you wish to boost the productivity of night shifts. The body’s circadian rhythm is cued by the presence or absence of the blue component of sunlight. Blue light signals the body that it’s daytime and triggers wakefulness, while its absence signals nighttime and triggers drowsiness. This effect of LEDs can potentially reduce night shift accidents.

Easily Used In “Smart Lighting”

LEDs are easily used with motion sensors and timers that can dim or turn them off in warehouse areas not being used. Unlike many other types of lighting, LEDs are readily dimmed, brightened, and turned on or off without their damage or reducing their operational life. They don’t require warm up periods, which means they turn on instantly. When combined with the low energy consumption of LEDs, smart lighting substantially lowers your warehouse lighting costs.

Hotel Lighting: 3 Lighting Tips For Your Lobby

A hotel is meant to be a home away from home for business travelers, families who are enjoying their vacation, or any other individual or group of people in need of a warm bed. There are many nuanced details to consider when crafting a warm, inviting accommodation for your guests and lighting is definitely a top priority. If you are looking for extra ways to make your hotel lobby more welcoming, check out these three hotel lighting tips.

  1. Choose Lighting That is Intrinsically Friendly: Since you are creating a setting that is a home away from home for your lodgers, you want your lighting to be many things, particularly friendly. Don’t go for harsh lighting in your lobby or anywhere else in the hotel. Strive for lighting that offers soft warmth and familiarity.
  2. Avoid Florescent Lighting Like The Plague: Florescent lighting is to be reserved for sterile, bland environments like dreary offices or school hallways, not a hotel lobby. Though it might seem like the most efficient, simplistic thing to do for your hotel lobby lighting, it could seriously leave your visitors with a sour impression. Many people dislike the harshness and coldness of florescent lighting and even complain of headaches. Additionally, florescent lighting does not nicely accent the decor and furniture in your hotel lobby the way warm lighting does.
  3. Strive For Elegance And Uniqueness: You want warm lighting, but you also want lighting that stands out and impresses your visitors. Give them something to remember. Go for lighting that doesn’t just offer light but is truly artistic in its form. You want the lighting to be representative of the feel of the entire hotel.

The Future of Lighting

Have you ever wondered what the future might look like. In 10 years will we all be riding personal scooters? In 50 years will we live on another planet? In 100 years will people vacation in other parts of our solar system? The potential outcomes are almost as varied as the fun choices we can come up with.

Scientists can make a lot of estimations of what the future will likely look like.

One area they have taken especially interesting consideration in, is lighting. What will the future of lighting look like? Here are a few highlights. Some of them may surprise you.

  • Fiber optics. Fiber optic technology is not new. It is believed that as far back as the Romans people were passing light along a strand of glass. However, in the 1790’s it began to be put to good use as a source of optics in a fiber optic telegraph by the French Chappe brothers. Recently we have been perfecting this amazing (and cheap) source of lighting by using reflective surfaces and mirrors to illuminate large areas. The light can be “piped in” by fiber optic cables. So where does the future take this light source? Scientists think it will be used beyond our planet, since the sun can be seen almost anyplace in our solar system. If it is visible the light can be “captured”, moved down a fiber optic tube, and amplified. This could be used to light underground structures on distant objects like comets. Since the surface would be in full sunlight for long periods of time.
  • Lasers based on LED’s. The LED (Light Emitting Diode) is an amazing marvel. This tiny device is a Diode (a part of an electric circuit that allows electricity to flow in only one direction) that emits light when energized. The potential is nearly infinite. Scientists are able to intensify the light being emitted by adjusting the LED’s current that it is drawing in. The more current the brighter the LED can get. The only limitation is the resistance of the components that the LED is assembled from. Particularly robust LED’s are capable of being so bright they can blind a human being. What makes LED’s so attractive to lighting specialists (aside from cheap manufacturing costs) is the fact that LED’s last so long. The traditional light bulb is based almost totally on resistance and heat. These two factors wear down components in any device or electric circuit. LED’s are built specifically to emit light in a very efficient way. This efficiency means they emit very little heat. This translates into cost efficiency because the LED pays for itself in savings. Focusing the light of the LED can make a laser that can be transmitted over a huge distance without loosing much of its brightness. This hypothetically could lead to less wires or even transmitters on earth and receivers of light on something like the moon.

There are a lot of potential other sources of light but many will take decades or even centuries to perfect. One of them is cold plasma, another might be bio luminescent paints you have to “feed” and “water”. It is certainly fun to think about.

Parking Lot Lighting Helps Customers Feel Safe

If you are a proud business owner, you certainly want to excel in your field. There are some very smart ways of doing this. You want to do things that bring repeat customers. You can accomplish with by, first and foremost, make your customers feel valued. Allow them to see that you understand the fact that without them, your business could not survive.  Do you want your customers to feel safe when they enter your parking lot? Of course you do. This is why adding quality lighting in your parking lot  is essential.

If you are establishing a rapport with your customers, then you likely know many of their names. This gives much more depth to the idea of keeping them safe. How can  quality parking lot lighting keep them safe you ask? Just think about the things that are happening in our world today. There are people who refuse to leave their own home after dusk. Wouldn’t it be gratifying to know they will still come out to visit your establishment, despite nightfall, simply because you’ve made their safety a priority? With the right lighting, customers will be worry-free of getting out of their cars to come inside, because any danger lurking is visible.

The Future of Lighting

Imagine a world where light switches don’t exist. Your factory floor is illuminated only when and where it needs to be. Your administration offices feature light fixtures that have more intelligence, providing services, such as public address, WiFi, and security, and they’re incredibly energy-efficient. This is the future of lighting. And you can make it happen today.

Already in the marketplace, there are light bulbs and lighting fixtures which produce some of these effects. High-efficiency LED bulbs are already available for most industrial and commercial needs, and they aren’t even custom-designed. You can find LED bulbs designed to fit most existing receptacles, and while the price is currently slightly prohibitive, it will go down. LED bulbs that replace the old tube fluorescents are already available, and in the near future will have additional features.

Light fixtures that detect motion are also already available, but this is a flawed technology in that it only activates lighting when there is motion in a room. Future lighting fixtures will contain heat and motion sensors, turning on lights when a warm body is in the room, even if that person isn’t moving enough to trigger the motion sensor, enabling good lighting for office workers, and reducing the turn-off time once everyone has left for the day.

Lightbulbs containing WiFi repeaters or security cameras are also already available, although these are consider niche products, your business could definitely benefit from converting to the secure wireless connections offered by these ‘near-future’ systems, especially once they’re integrated into a single bulb or fixture. Costing slightly more to implement, the cost savings add up over the increased lifespan of newer bulbs. And newer bulbs are living longer and longer with every iteration.

Consider the future of lighting your workspace now, and invest in better illumination for the future.

Want to Improve Your Grocery Store’s Lighting? 3 Reasons Why LED Lighting Fits the Bill

A grocery store is not just a building with aisles full of food. It can contain quite a few departments including meat, deli, seafood, bakery, produce, and sometimes a pharmacy. Then you have the front desk, break room, warehouse, refrigerator, freezer, loading dock, and general storage room. Switching to LED is one of the smartest things that you can do when you want to upgrade the lighting as a whole.

Light Is Always Needed

Every one of these departments or areas require lighting for efficient operation. This means you will need to have the lights on in most of the grocery store at all times. Since LED lighting is so efficient, you should be able to see a noticeable difference in your energy costs when changing all of the lights over to LED.

Brightness Is Key

An often overlooked advantage of LED lighting is the fact that it takes no time to reach complete brightness. This means that as soon as an employee walks into a room and turns the light on, they can start working. While this may only save a few seconds, over time it can amount to hours or even days. Also, it is easier for your employees to be safe when they have full illumination for handling tasks.

Spend Less on Cooling

It is important for a grocery store to be kept at a cool temperature at all times. This is especially true in the deli and meat department, as well as the refrigerator and freezer storage rooms. LED lights do not produce heat, so you do not have to worry about combating with lights that heat up these areas. Ultimately, this upgrade to better lighting will also provide you with lower cooling costs.

Six Advantages of LED Lighting over Fluorescent Bulbs

Incandescent lights produce so much heat, they can burn your skin when touched. They were even used to heat toy ovens sold in the 1960s. That they’re energy inefficient is beyond dispute. On the other hand, fluorescent lights are considered an energy-efficient alternative to incandescent lights. But how do they stack up against LED lighting? Here are six comparisons:

  • Fluorescent bulbs emit omnidirectional light while that of LEDs is directional. Fluorescent bulbs radiate light 360 degrees around the tube’s circumference. Only a small percentage of this light is directed to the area directly below (such as at a desk in an office). The rest radiates in less useful directions unless the bulbs are installed inside reflectors, which still scatter some of the light. On the other hand, LED lights are directional in that most of their light radiates in a 110 degree arc. They don’t require the bulky reflectors of fluorescent tubes.
  • LED lighting is more energy-efficient than fluorescent bulbs. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, a 12 watt LED light puts out the same lighting as a 15 watt fluorescent light. In other words, LEDs use 20% less power.
  • Fluorescent bulbs emit UV light. Fluorescent bulbs emit some UV light, which is hard on the eyes and causes color fading in fabrics. This is wasted energy. LED lighting does not emit UV light. In fact, its light emission lies entirely in the visible light range.
  • LED lights last longer than fluorescent bulbs. LED lights last up to 13 times longer than fluorescent bulbs. This means a big savings in maintenance costs.
  • LED lights are more rugged than fluorescent lights. LEDs are solid state lights, which are more damage resistant than the fragile tubes of fluorescent lights. Breaking fluorescent bulbs also exposes one to mercury.
  • LEDs do not flicker near the end of their life. Fluorescent lights go through a period of flickering before burning out. However, the usefulness of the light ends when the flickering starts.

Finally, fluorescent bulbs contain mercury, and may therefore present waste disposal issues.

Is Your Parking Lot Lighting Adequate?

There are many opinions as far as parking lot lighting is concerned. Many feel as if the lighting in a parking lot is sufficient if it simply exists, and others feel it should be very bright, and meet all of the needs of the people.

When considering an upgrade to your lighting system, there are many things to consider. For example: if your lighting has not been upgraded in many years, you may want to consider the five basic questions below, and then decide if you need to upgrade your lighting system:

  • Intensity of the lighting: how bright are your lights?
  • Uniformity of lighting: how consistent is the light level throughout the lighted area?
  • Color of lighting: how accurately does the lighting show colors?
  • Efficiency of lighting: how much light per watt of electricity does the lighting system give?
  • Lamp life: How long do the lamps last before they will have to be replaced?

If you follow the suggested list above, you will be well on your way to ensuring that your lighting is up to date, and safe for anyone who enters your parking lot. Following this list will ensure that your lighting meets all the needs of the people.

Many business choose to wait until the lighting is not working to replace them. This is not a wise idea. Updating your system with brighter lighting will ensure your parking lot is running smoothly and is at the ultimate level of safety for your staff, and customers.

Will Solar Wallpaper be The Key to Lighting Sustainability?

Solar panels and electric lights have been getting quite cozy over the past few years. Whether it’s highway lamps charged up during the daylight hours, or businesses who dedicate their solar arrays to keeping the interior lights on, a huge amount of renewable power is being spent to make sure we never have to deal with the dark. Of course, for businesses who are looking for new and innovative ways to keep the lights on, the answer may have come from a former Chinese furniture store.

Does Solar Wallpaper Offer Sustainability For Lighting?

Len Gao and Phillip Gao are a father and son who, for years, used their furniture business as a way to finance their solar power ambitions. The result,according to Sustainable Brands, is that their new business Sunflare has produced a product unlike anything else; solar wallpaper.

It may sound ridiculous, but it’s actually not. These solar panels lack the stiff, glass substrates found in traditional solar arrays, and they are significantly thinner. Which means that, if someone wished to, they could put these panels up as wallpaper. Perhaps in the sun room.

An Open Design That Welcomes, and Saves Energy Costs

With the ability to put solar panels up inside, businesses may start re-thinking their designs. After all, if you can put up a bunch of windows to let in natural light, then you’re saving costs, and generating electricity at the same time. And, if a business combines these subtle solar panels with efficient lighting systems, like light-emitting diodes, then it’s possible they may never need to pay to keep the lights on again.

Simple Summer Energy-Efficiency Tips

The heat is on and it is tough to keep your home cool while lowering your energy bill. These simple summer energy-efficiency tips will cool your home without the huge cooling bill.

Dial Down the Thermostat: Do not cool an empty home. Buy a programmable thermostat for your home and set the air conditioner to cool your home before arriving home. When you are only home 12 to 14 hours of the day there is no need to cool your home 24 hours

Cover the windows: When the sun comes through your windows it heats your home and fades your furnishings. Install curtains, shades or blinds to block the heat in the summer while protecting your flooring, paintings, and other furnishings.

Cool showers and laundry: Reduce your water heater temp or reduce the water temperatures of showers and laundry loads. Your clothing last longer with cooler water temperatures. A cooler, shorter shower make you more comfortable in the warmer temps.

Seal the heat out: Hot air leaks through the cracks and crevices around windows and doors. Add insulation around window and door frames where gaps allow heat entry. Remove the frame and push strips of insulation around the door and replace.

Close the gap around pipes: Your heating and cooling pipes with gaps require added insulation to keep cool air from escaping. Inspect all your furnace and air conditioner pipes and connectors. When a connector is loose, tighten and insulate around it.

Use fans to increase the cool: Ceiling and stand-up fans are less expensive to run. Set ceiling fans are to circulate air in an efficient way. Placing floor fans around your home increases airflow, increasing the cooling effect.

Grill or microwave your food: Using your grill keeps the heat outside. Microwave your food and reduce heat from cooking, that normally would warm your home.

Keep hydrated: Drink water, tea and other cool drinks to keep your core body temperature down. You will feel cooler when hydrated.

Power down: Use power strips to turn off appliances and electronics when not in use. Phantom energy increases your bill.

Spend more time outdoors: You have a patio, deck or porch to enjoy. Keep your thermostat down while you are outdoors, Use your air condition only when you are actually indoors.

Try these ten simple summer energy-efficiency tips and reduce the energy use and lower your energy bills.