By creating these lights with the exact same form factor as a fluorescent bulb, NetLED has made it incredibly easy to upgrade the lighting in a store or office to its LED tubes, which can also be remotely controlled over Wi-Fi.
Most lighting automation systems require a reality show’s worth of renovations to electrical systems and fixtures, but these LED lamps just slot into a fluorescent fixture as easily as changing a bulb. The basic tube sells for $US180 (it’s one of those cheaper in the long run scenarios), but you can also get a version that includes a small USB Wi-Fi dongle for $US260. When connected to a gateway box, the lights can then be remotely controlled from a web browser or smartphone app.
To control multiple lights, and keep the cost of the system down, the tubes that don’t have a Wi-Fi dongle can be hard wired and slaved to a master bulb that does, letting entire banks of lights be dimmed or switched off from anywhere. And because it’s all LED-based, there’s no buzzing, flickering, poisonous mercury vapour or even annoying warm-up times. [NetLED via DigInfo]
vin
Thursday, February 2, 2012 at 3:10 PMstill waayyy too expensive for something which should hypothetically nottt be rocket science in todays world…
i’m assuming each light has an attached unique mac address. so what happens when a bulb dies? do you have to re-configure the entire environment?!?
Daniel
Thursday, February 2, 2012 at 3:16 PMSomething like this would be great at uni’s and places that are open 24/7 where you could setup a computer control to dim the lights when no one is in and at night, but turn them back up when someone walks in the door. Saving power, every little bit helps
MD
Thursday, February 2, 2012 at 3:57 PMWe have these things at Uni called Motion sensors….
If there is no motion in the room for half an hour the lights go off….
It is annoying when they go off during a lecture, so they could better have a timer linked to room bookings……
Also, there is another amazing device incorporating local power regulation in an on-demand-system called a “light switch”……Last one out in the evening, turn off the lights…(Too much switching on and off reduces the life of ‘Fluros’ and LED lights, well practically all lights, though LEDS are the most tolerant to switching) Reduces IP addresses for the over addressed world we live in, and reduces power leakage from the numberless timers, sensors etc needed the world over….
Of course the other argument, is that the lights on all night actually saves power wastage by he power companies, if the power isn’t used, it must be burned off elsewhere (or it blows up the generators), and the short-sighted utilities have not been able to invest in any thermal recovery systems, so the energy goes into heating up the surrounding air or waterways….
In the ldealised world of limitless Green energy turning off the lights wouldn’t make sense either because the energy will be replaced the next day anyhow….
(The world only needs a few days of power backup… we just need to get over that minor hurdle first… once that is done we won’t need green energy, because the baseload plants will be able to self load balance across the grid, and efficiency gains will be tremendous, cost saving will avoid the need to invest trillions (multiple World GDP’s) in renewables)
Antonia
Thursday, February 2, 2012 at 4:12 PMI spoke with one local supplier who said that tubes are available for $75 each but that the LEDs in the array are prone to breakdown so while he stocks them he doesn’t recommend them.
Mark
Thursday, February 2, 2012 at 11:37 PMMy company sells LED tubes for around the $60 mark and has been for the last year. Out of approx 5000 units shipped we have had maybe 6 fail. So stories are bogus. LED tubes are the future.
M@
Friday, February 3, 2012 at 11:39 AMNow, if they offered a multi-coloured version I could see this as a no-brainer for lighting designers around the world…