The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), the trade association that oversees Bluetooth® technology, and the DiiA, the global DALI alliance of companies from the lighting and sensor industries, announced their collaboration for expanding designed to accelerate the adoption of IoT-enabled commercial lighting systems. The collaboration will enable the deployment of certified DALI-2 devices and intelligent D4i luminaires, with qualified Bluetooth mesh intelligent lighting-control networks. This collaboration brings together two IoT standards for commercial li...

To enhance UVC disinfecting applications, a new study proposed an alternative transparent conductor that deliver UV spectrum to solve the issue of low efficiency of current UV LED technology. The research provide the approach of using SrNbO3 as an electrode material for UV LED. A joint research group with scholars from The Pennsylvania State University, University of Minnesota from the U.S. and The University of Tokyo and Tohoku University in Japan published their study in Communications Physics suggesting a solution of UV-transparent electrode to de...

Breaking the social activity limitation brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, Samsung launched an online virtual lighting exhibition to fill the need for more consumer-facing product presentations with innovative new strategies. The Virtual Lighting Exhibition now offers a 24/7access to Samsung’s updated lighting solutions for manufacturers, supply chain partners and end users. Samsung said that this online booth provides a platform where virtual visitors can access the most current Samsung LED technologies and products. Users can find segmented product lineups grouped...

Mini LED display technology is on its way to break into the mainstream market with several products including laptops and gaming monitors officially debuted. Apple’s rumored Mini LED-based iPad and Macbook are also expected to show up in the second half of 2020. In addition, leading TV brands are said to launch high-end 8K TVs with Mini LED backlight technology. Epistar, the Taiwan-based LED chip maker, is believed to be benefitted from the increasing demands for Mini LED. Aiming to fulfill the surging Mini LED display applications, Epistar has in...

The China Association of Lighting Industry (CALI) and the Zhaga Consortium (Zhaga) have signed a liaison agreement which entered into force by May 1, 2020. (Image: LEDinside) The two parties said in their joint press release that LED technology has improve radically in the past decade and changed the lighting industry. Dedicating to standardizing interfaces of components of LED luminaires, Zhaga sees the progress and identified areas of mutual interest with CALI. Thus they agreed to structure and strengthen their relationship and to foster closer cooperat...

Do you feel like enjoying the magnificent viewing experience created by Micro LED technology but are not sure if the sky-high price is worthy? There is a way to immerse yourself in the next-generation display technology before the decisions are made: visit the experience zone of “The Wall” opened by Samsung at Gwanggyo Department Store in Suwon, South Korea. (Image: Samsung) Samsung launched the “The Wall” experience zone by installing a 146-inch The Wall display at department store on May 31, 2020. Visitors feel the superior quality of t...

Fluence by OSRAM announced the launch of four additional spectra on its VYPR top light series. From broad white to high red, Fluence’s extended PhysioSpec™ spectra enable growers to optimize lighting strategies for any crop in any growth stage or geographic location. “In our relentless pursuit of innovative lighting solutions for crop cultivation, we’ve conducted in-depth research on plant response under various spectra with a range of crops,” said David Cohen, CEO of Fluence. “One of the biggest challenges for cultivators around t...

EPISTAR Corporation, a leading innovator and manufacturer of LED solid-state lighting technologies, filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Lowe’s Companies, Inc. and Lowe’s Home Centers, LLC (collectively “Lowe’s”) in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas Waco Division on May 22, 2020. The complaint asserts that GE LED filament bulbs sold by Lowe’s infringe several EPISTAR patents and seeks damages and injunctive relief to halt further sale of the infringing products. EPIS...

Velodyne Lidar and Idriverplus announced an expanded partnership and Idriverplus inclusion into the Automated with Velodyne integrator ecosystem, which helps companies grow their businesses while using Velodyne’s LiDAR technology. Through the program, Velodyne will further collaborate with Idriverplus to support its continued innovation and promote Idriverplus autonomous vehicles, including street cleaners, passenger cars and logistics vehicles. Recently, Velodyne signed a multi-year sales agreement with Idriverplus to provide Puck™ sensors for the mass prod...

Cree announced the launch of its new SMD RGB LED product series, CV94D, for video wall, signage and color sign applications. According to Cree, the new LED product deliver high contrast and high quality image at different viewing angle from different distances. Featuring water resistance and containing UV inhibitor, these RGB LEDs are able to deliver stable light output over the lifetime and are suitable for outdoor applications. (Image: Cree) The new CV94D IP X8-rated enables the LED and its lenses to be directly exposed to the environment, wh...

LeddarTech announced that it is working with STMicroelectronics to create a LiDAR Evaluation Kit. The evaluation kit will demonstrate technical concepts and offer development capabilities in a functional LiDAR for automotive Tier 1-2 suppliers and industrial system integrators to develop a LiDAR solution based on LeddarEngine™ technology. LeddarTech’s kit will include ST’s MEMS mirror-based laser-beam scanning solutions along with technologies, products, and services from other LeddarTech ecosystem partners. The evaluation kit is being...

The U.S. lighting company Acuity Brands announced its strategic partnership with Ushio America. The two companies entered into an alliance agreement that Ushio will supply Acuity Brands with its Care222® UV disinfection module, which generate far-UVC light which is safe to human skin but capable of inactivating viruses and bacteria on indoor surfaces. Under the agreement, Acuity Brands will have an exclusive right to use Ushio’s far-UVC disinfecting module for general illumination uses throughout North America and non-exclusive right for the worldwide m...

The COVID-19 pandemic has been the biggest challenge to international trade after the financial crisis in 2008. When most of commercial activities are moving online, international purchasing becomes harder than ever for buyers to import since a purchasing decision must be made directly online without face-to-face communication. Through our recent investigations on hundreds of professional overseas buyers, the biggest worry for them turns out to be the quality issue during the process of oversea procurement online, because a quality issue brings potential risks of damaging brand re...

The tallest building in Southeast Asia currently locates in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The 461.5-meter-high building, Landmark 81, is recently lit up by Osram subsidiary Traxon e:cue and LK Technology. (Image: Osram) The intelligent dynamic lighting system on the facade of Landmark 81 is provided by Traxon e:cue. More than 12,500 sets of Traxon luminaires are pixel precise controlled and managed by the e:cue Light Management System. A variety of products are incorporated into the structure including customized LED Dots, Monochrome Tubes, several e:cue B...

Apple is reportedly preparing the new iPad and MacBook adopting Mini LED technology coming later this year or later while its progress in Micro LED technology has yet enter the next phase. It was said that the Apple Watch Series will feature OLED screen which is similar to the previous model, instead of Micro LED. An anonymous Twitter account who has revealed several Apple products details accurately twitted on May 31 suggesting that Apple will use display from JDI, who supplies OLED panels for Apple Watch. (Image: Apple) Since Apple initiat...

Worldwide researchers continues to explore the possible ways to defeat the novel coronavirus. UV light is considered one of the effective ways to reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection as it deactivates microorganism in air, water and on the surface. A new study from Colorado State University (CSU) found that UV light can also diminish SARS-CoV-2 virus in blood. Researchers at CSU used existing technologies to show that exposing the coronavirus to riboflavin and UV light reduces pathogens in human plasma and whole-blood products. The result was published on M...

According to the latest investigations by TrendForce, despite the slight slowdown in wearables shipment (including smartwatches and smart wristbands), the increasing demand for improved health monitoring functions has galvanized a strong momentum in the market for wearables-related components. For instance, to raise the accuracy of health monitoring functions, wearables manufacturers are projected to utilize more green LEDs and infrared LEDs while also increasing the size of photodiodes, in turn doubling the demand for PPG. TrendForce indicates that most wearables measure b...

In 2020, people all around the globe are living in ways that we would never have thought because of COVID-19 pandemic. Majority of the world population has spent most of their time at home with lockdown policies and to avoid infection in the past few months. Even now that several areas have lifted up the restriction, people’s lifestyle is likely to change forever. Lighting applications, which highly related to our daily life, reflect the changes of people’s behaviors. LEDinside is thus seeing some rising trends in the lighting industry in response to the impact of ...

Due to COVID-19 pandemic, countless international events across the world have been cancelled or postponed in the past few month. However, in China, where the outbreak first began, LASER World of PHOTONICS will be held as planned in July. (Image:  LASER World of PHOTONICS CHINA) Chinese government issued the guidelines of preventing and controlling the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) on May 8, 2020 and the emergency response level of major public health emergencies in Shanghai was adjusted to level 3 afterwards. Following the gra...

General Electric (GE) is exiting its century-old lighting business with its announcement on May 27, 2020 that it has signed a definite agreement to sell the lighting unit to Savant System. Financial details of the deal was not revealed by both parties. Based on the agreement, Savant System will continue use the GE brand and keep headquarter in Cleveland, Ohio. The transaction is expected to close by mid-2020 and more than 700 employees will transfer to Savant after the deal completed. GE’s light bulb business has a history of almost 130 years and it was the f...

Micro LED and Mini LED technology bring new hopes for industry players in the field since they have been suffered from price competition with oversupply. Taiwanese LED companies were the first to begin Micro LED and Mini LED development and they have entered mass production phase for Mini LED in the past two years. In 2020, as Apple is rumored to release Mini LED-based products, it is expected that demands for Mini LED display technology will surge. Seeing the trend, LED and display companies in China are also pushing their technology development aim...

BIOS Lighting and TrueLight announced their new strategic partnership to advance circadian lighting applications and bring the health benefits of natural sunlight indoors. The new dimmable TrueLight Circadia bulb uses patented BIOS SkyBlue Technology to pinpoint key photoreceptors that signal circadian responses. During the daytime, the TrueLight Circadia bulb infuses the critical sky-blue region (near 490nm), which helps improve alertness, mood and performance. Dimming the bulb after the sun goes down removes daytime photoreceptors and sends nighttime signals to he...

The COVID-19 pandemic spurred the awareness of disinfection and stimulated demands for related applications based on UVC radiation. UVC LED products have thus become a hit across the world. However, the safety issue of UV light also become a concern as direct exposure of UV radiation is harmful for people and animal. Aim to improve safety of UV disinfection and expand application opportunities, researcher across the world are searching for method to make UV light less harmful. And far-UVC seems to be the solution. A new research carried out by the Univers...

Seoul Viosys and SETi have reported a wide range of applications with its Violeds technology, which was claimed to achieve 99.9% sterilization of coronavirus. After the collaboration with automotive component supplier and home appliance makers to apply the technology for car interior disinfection and laundry tank cleaning, the two company announced the launch of portable air purifier with Violeds under the brand “VAC.” SETi and Seoul Viosys are going to release Violeds technology adopted portable air purifiers to reduce the risk of infection from different pat...

Last week, Samsung announced that it is supporting five startups created by Samsung employees under the C-Lab Inside in-house incubation program. One of the new startups, SunnyFive, builds a window look lighting device delivering artificial sunlight. (Image: Samsung) According to Samsung, the window-shaped lighting created by SunnyFive produces full spectrum of light which is similar to natural light, simulating lighting situation including dawn, sunrise, sunset and dusk. Samsung also highlighted that this window-like lighting device can help users synthesize vitamin D...

LED chip supplier Epistar said that it is seeing surging demands for Mini LED display and fine-pitch display. With its mature miniaturized LED technology, the company is expecting to ship about 689.2 billion units of LED chip in 2020. Epistar is reportedly supplying Apple for the coming Mini LED-based iPad Pro and MacBook. The Taiwan-based chip maker has increased its investment for capacity expansion and turned 95% of its blue LED capacity in Taiwan into Mini LED production to meet the demands of Apple products. Despite that Epistar has already pro...

Signify announced the appointment of Francisco Javier van Engelen Sousa as Chief Financial Officer (CFO), succeeding René van Schooten, who currently holds the position on an interim basis. The appointment will become effective on June 15, 2020. Javier most recently held the position of CFO for Grupo Telepizza, a food operator, ultimately leading the process to take the company private in 2019. Signify will propose the appointment of Javier van Engelen to the Board of Management at an Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders (EGM), to be h...

German research institute the Ferdinand-Braun-Institut (FBH) and Technische Universität Berlin (TUB) have developed UV LEDs emitting UV light that is safe to the skin. The achievement has yet commercially available but will be tested in medicine research centers in Germany. The FBH and TUB worked under the framework of their Joint Lab GaN Optoelectronics and created LEDs that deliver far UV light at wavelengths around 230 nm and provide more than 1 mW output power. According to the FBH, the light does not penetrate into the living layers of...

As many countries and cities are lifting the COVID-19 restrictions and reopening business, how to continuously prevent the spread of the virus is a critical challenge for all. LEDinside noticed that many sensor technology developers have created solutions to anonymously monitoring people’s activities in public for controlling social distance and checking health status. LiDAR technology, for example, is now used to support people flow management. Hitachi Vantara, the digital infrastructure and solutions subsidiary of Hitachi, is leveraging its technology to deliver a ...

The British government announced the new tariff regime as it is exiting the EU. The UK Global Tariff (UKGT) was introduced last week to replace the EU’s Common External Tariff on January 1, 2021. With UKGT, LED lamps will be free from tariffs as the new regime aims to support sustainable economy. (Image: Pixabay) According to the UK government, the UKGT is tailored to the needs of the UK economy and will simply nearly 6000 tariff lines to reduce administrative cost. In order to back green economy, tariffs on over 100 items related renewable ...