Energy efficient LEDs to ‘make you feel homey at home’

WASHINGTON - A new lab at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is helping to bring LEDs (light emitting diodes) into homes, to help save both energy costs and the environment.

“LEDs can be very energy efficient, and they are a lot smaller and last a lot longer than light bulbs,” said NIST vision scientist Wendy Davis.

Davis, Yoshi Ohno and a team of physicists, created the NIST Spectrally Tunable Lighting Facility (STLF) with a goal to improve the quality of the light that LEDs produce, so that when you turn them on, home feels homey.

“Everyone wants light that appears natural and is pleasing to the eye, but with LEDs we’re not consistently there yet,” Davis said.

“LEDs offer a lot of advantages over incandescent and fluorescent lighting, but they don’t always emit light that looks ‘right’,” she added.

Here, scientists experiment with combining LEDs of different hues to produce an overall light colour that pleases the eye. One section is decorated with couches, tables, and food-filled plates, just like a living room-but above, hundreds of LEDs cover the ceiling like stars in the sky.

Davis can activate varied groups of them like colour-coordinated constellations. Adjusting the level of different colours demonstrates the effect lighting has on the appearance of the food and furniture below.

“At this point, LED manufacturers don’t have a reliable way to determine the colour performance of their products,” Davis said.

“If we don’t handle this issue now, it could create big problems for future LED lighting products, because bad colour means unhappy consumers. We want to use measurement, which is a NIST specialty, to nip this problem in the bud.” (ANI)