Don’t be Blue : CREE introduce Warm White LED street light Really, reading the news these days you really would think that LED lighting was the worst idea since the compact fluorescent bulb. No wonder the people who made the movie Skyline attacked with blue light; it evidently turns milk sour and according to the American Medical Association, it is “associated with reduced sleep times, dissatisfaction with sleep quality, excessive sleepiness, impaired daytime functioning and obesity.” The problem, however, is not the LED; the problem is that we are still early in the evolution of the technology and designers are just beginning to think about these issues. One company that is thinking about this is Cree; after writing the post on the AMA recommendations, I was contacted by Cree’s chief technology officer, Rob Glass. Cree has just introduced its RSW series of street lights that crank down the color temperature from the very white bright 4000°K or 5000°K bulbs that have been the LED streetlight standard down to 3000°K. Color temperature is counterintuitive; the hotter the color temperature, the cooler the light. That’s because heated metal goes from red hot to white hot as it gets hotter. Phosphoric LEDs work by firing blue LED light through a yellow phosphor, and the […]