Welcome to the LEDs Magazine Lighting for Health & Wellbeing Newsletter for Sept. 27, 2021. We had our latest webcast last Thursday focused on ultraviolet (UV) LEDs. Specifically, Chris Eichelberger of ams Osram covered the state of UV-C-band LED technology and suggested germicidal applications where LEDs can challenge legacy lamps.

Our Carrie Meadows wrote about the presentation in a blog post. UV-C LEDs are quickly evolving to serve in certain disinfection roles. If you missed the webcast yet have interest in UV-C, I’d highly recommend that you watch the archive on demand.

The recent Strategies in Light conference also had a significant amount of UV-C content and a session on circadian health or human-centric lighting. Moreover, keynote speaker Jim Collin touched on the subject. I have written an article about those presentations that will be out in our October issue in a few weeks. Lighting for health may simply become the new standard for mainstream light quality. But tunability may not be mainstream. Go figure. Again, if that topic interests you, catch the Strategies in Light archive before it closes in late October.

We published a news article since the last deployment of this newsletter that makes some of the same points about lighting for health. Enhanced cyan energy is important during the day in settings such as offices and schools. Nichia, among others, supports development of such products with cyan-enhanced LEDs, and Zumtobel has a new line of luminaires based on the technology called Zumtobel Spectrum.

Meanwhile, research on spectrum and health continues. Even the US Department of Energy (DOE) has funded R&D at Thomas Jefferson and Tulane. Traditionally, the DOE has more often focused funding on work related directly to energy efficiency. I read the DOE support as the agency having developed an understanding about the future potential of lighting for health, and therefore the need to get such lighting designed in the most energy-efficient ways possible.

I know this last item is off topic, but it’s front of mind for me, and this column is my last chance to mention it. The HortiCann Light + Tech Conference is tomorrow.

We have a lot more good content for you linked down below. I’m always looking for solid contributed articles on the topic of lighting for health and wellbeing. Feel free to send me an abstract or outline.

- Maury Wright, (858) 208-9442, mwright@endeavorb2b.com