Cree LED Revolution Blog

Cree and LED lighting are starting a revolution

Posts Tagged ‘CR6’

November LED lighting contest winner plans to transform family room

Thursday, January 12th, 2012

When Colleen Locchi began planning lighting for her kitchen, she thought she would go with CFLs. But the more investigating she did, the more she realized that mercury-containing CFLs likely weren’t the energy-efficient solution she wanted.

“Initially I was all about CFLs,” Colleen wrote me, “but the more research I did, the less enchanted I have become. LEDs seem to be the way to go. I did incorporate some into my new kitchen and find I now prefer them over my incandescent lamps.”

Once Colleen got a taste of LED lighting, she wanted more. So she entered (and won) our November LED lighting giveaway by submitting a picture of her large family room, which is lit almost entirely with lamps. Colleen won five Cree CR6 LED downlights, which she says she plans to use to accent her fire place and provide overhead task lighting without an assortment of lamps. Here’s the photo she submitted:

Collleen November 2011 winner

“We purchased the house in the mid-90s and the lighting in this room has been a thorn in my side ever since. The expense of the lighting always put it on the back burner so I am quite thrilled to be able to move forward with this project. I really think it will finish off the room,” Colleen wrote.

Not only will Colleen’s new Cree LED downlights deliver beautiful light quality (warm, 2700K color temperature), the lights will also save her energy. The CR6 LED downlight (pictured below) consumes only 10.5 watts, but delivers the same warm light you’d expect from a 65-watt halogen light.

cr6 small

And once Colleen installs her new recessed LED lighting, she won’t have to worry about changing them for years – possibly decades – to come. That’s because the CR6 LED downlight is designed to last 50,000 hours, which means Colleen could leave them lit eight hours a day, seven days a week and they could last more than 17 years. And, let’s be real, chances are Colleen’s family isn’t going to be using the lights that frequently, which means they’ll likely last even longer.

If you want to see how Cree LED lighting can solve your lighting challenges, submit a photo of the lighting you want to replace to our January contest. One lucky winner will receive five Cree CR6 LED downlights to transform their light-style.

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Posted in Contest Winners, Cree, LED Homes | No Comments »

Energy Awareness Month 2011: ComEd Offers Illinois Customers Major Rebates on Cree LED Lighting

Wednesday, October 5th, 2011

Cree is celebrating Energy Awareness Month with a series of blog posts about ways Cree and our products are helping save energy.

When you hear the phrase “LED Lighting,” what comes to mind? If you’re like many, you probably think, “expensive.” And that’s okay – just know we’re doing everything we can to change that.

But some utility providers are offering rebates that make Cree LED lighting even easier on the pocketbook.

Commonwealth Edison Company (ComEd), which serves more than 3.8 million customers across northern Illinois, or a whopping 70 percent of the state’s population, recently introduced major rebates on a host of Cree LED lighting products in an effort to help businesses and customers benefit from reduced energy costs.

Cree Energy Awareness Month

ComEd is offering rebates on Cree’s ENERGY STAR-qualified LR6 and CR6 six-inch LED downlights and the LBR-30 and LRP-38 directional spotlights. These rebates are part of the Smart Ideas for Your Business® Program, developed to help bring cost-effective energy-efficiency improvements to commercial and industrial customers. Each of these Cree LED lighting fixtures are designed to last 50,000 hours, and provide the high-quality light needed for conference rooms, office spaces and other common areas, while delivering higher efficacy than incandescent or compact fluorescent (CFL) lighting options.

Commercial and industrial customers can now receive a $15 rebate on Cree’s downlights and a $10 rebate on Cree LED spotlights! Considering the long-term, low-maintenance qualities of these LED lighting products, ComEd is offering its customers one heck of a deal!

Meanwhile, lighting-savvy homeowners can also save on high-quality LED lighting. If you truck on down to your local Home Depot store in ComEd territory, you’ll find the EcoSmart 6” LED downlight marked down to $29.97—thanks to ComEd’s incentive program.

So with more than just a golf clap, we applaud ComEd for its outstanding leadership in LED lighting rebates and hope it encourages more utilities to join the LED lighting revolution!

Want to find out more about utility rebates in your area? We have more information here.

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Posted in Cree, Energy Awareness Month, Energy Efficiency | No Comments »

December Cree LED lighting contest winner wants to save energy and money both at home and at work

Thursday, February 3rd, 2011

Rusty Ponder is always looking for ways to save energy and money. As the Energy Management Coordinator for the third largest school district in Mississippi, Rusty was recently researching new lighting technology for work. In fact, it was his quest to find ways to save energy and money that led him to our website and our LED lighting giveaway.

Rusty is the December winner of our monthly bad lighting photo contest. He wins five Cree CR6 LED downlights for his home. In his entry, Rusty submitted this photo and wrote:

dec 2010 winner

“This house has very little foot candles in every room. Actually it is like living with candles and no electricity!”

Well anyone who talks in foot candles gets a shining star in the lighting geek book. And we couldn’t let Rusty feel like he was living in the dark. Turns out he has bigger plans for his new Cree LED lights. When I wrote Rusty to tell him he won, I asked him why he entered the contest. Here’s what he wrote:

“I thought if I can win these, I can show my bosses the LED technology and do some light meter readings and demos, so they can see firsthand how good they are. Then I can install them in my house and enjoy them for years to come.”

I think that makes Rusty a true LED Revolutionary. Because he’s going to spread the good word about high-quality LED lighting before enjoying them himself. And indeed, these lights could keep Rusty’s home lit for many years. They’re designed to last 50,000 hours, which means he can leave them on eight hours a day, seven days a week for 17 years. The lights are also dimmable, which means he can bring some mood lighting home. And since they only consume 10.5 watts, Rusty will be saving energy and money, which was his goal all along.

“I believe I will have a lot more evenly-spread light with better color and use a lot less energy, which will help me save money and help save the planet at the same time,” Rusty wrote.

This will be the first time Rusty has used an LED light. We’re pretty sure it won’t be his last.

If you want to try to win five Cree LED lights of your own, hurry up and enter our February LED lighting contest. Simply submit a photo of bad lighting in your home, office or business here. Next month, you could be joining Rusty in the LED Lighting Revolution.

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Posted in Cree, Revolution | 2 Comments »

Cree’s October LED lighting giveaway featured several lucky winners

Thursday, December 23rd, 2010

It wasn’t easy picking a winner for the October Cree LED lighting giveaway. There were so many bad lighting photos that our selection committee decided to award lights to several runner ups.

The grand prize winner is Mark Rogers of Encinitas, California, who tried to eliminate the energy-wasting incandescent lighting in his home office by replacing it with LED lighting on his own. But Mark chose PAR30 LED spotlights, which aren’t really the right type of fixture for a downlight application.

When I wrote Mark to tell him he won, he said he was excited because “there are evenings when I would love to work just under the downlights.” Well, thanks to the five new warm CR6 LED downlights he won, Mark should be able to get some work done while saving energy.

His new lights will illuminate his office with beautiful light (2700K for you lighting geeks) while only consuming 10.5 Watts each. And his new LED lights are designed to last 50,000 hours, which means he shouldn’t have to change a light bulb for many years.

Mark Rogers October Winner

Mark Rogers won the October LED lighting giveaway with this photo.

But Mark isn’t the only October winner. Our judges had a tough time saying no to a few other entrants. So we gave away two CR6 LED downlights to Dan Leighton of Cary, NC, an energy-conscious homeowner who sent us this picture of his “spooky” bathroom lighting:

Dan's spooky entry.

Dan's spooky entry.

The judges also loved the submission from Garrett Loewenberg, so they decided to help the boy rid his parents’ home of CFLs by giving him two CR6 LED downlights. And, finally, the judges wanted to help Oregon resident David Myrick banish the bad track lighting in his stairwell. So they awarded him three Cree LRP-38 LED lights, which should be a huge improvement over the current set up he submitted a picture of:

David submitted this picture of his dark hallway.

David submitted this picture of his dark hallway.

We’ll be announcing the November winner soon. And there’s still time to win our December giveaway. Submit a photo of the bad lighting in your life. Whether it’s at home or work, let us help you fix it! Simply upload your photo here!

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Cree dedicates all LED-lit Habitat for Humanity House in Durham, NC

Monday, December 13th, 2010

It’s hard to believe that four months ago Cree employees were framing the world’s first all LED-lit Habitat for Humanity House.

A lot has happened since that August morning when Cree employees met at the home site in Durham, North Carolina to frame the house.  For starters, we broke a local record for fastest framing of a Durham Habitat home, completing the entire process in just a few hours.

Then we worked hard to build a three bedroom house for our family, the Rahlan-Ksors. The experience gave us the opportunity to learn new skills (if you need anyone to drill holes into the foundation of a home to anchor the frame, I’m your gal) and to help give a new family an energy-efficient home.

We gathered at the completed home on Saturday to celebrate with the family. As we set up for the dedication ceremony in their new driveway, Del Rahlan grabbed a broom and started sweeping away mulch that was kicked onto the sidewalk. I wouldn’t have even noticed the mulch if he hadn’t started sweeping. Then I realized how much pride Del truly had in his new home that he wanted every detail to be perfect for the ceremony.

As we stood in the family’s driveway with their church members and fellow Habitat volunteers, our CEO Chuck Swoboda announced that the LED lighting in the new home would save the family about $300 in electricity annually. It’s possible that Del and his wife won’t have to change a light bulb until their children graduate from college.

And while it was rewarding to help build this energy-efficient a home for Del and his family, we feel even better knowing that Cree’s commitment to Habitat for Humanity doesn’t end there. Nationwide, we’ve pledged to install two Cree CR6 LED downlights in the kitchens of every Habitat home constructed during the next three years. It’s a move that will help bring energy-efficient, long lasting lighting to new homeowners.

So as we celebrate the completion of the home for our Habitat family, I thought it would be fun to take a look back at the beginning. Here are some scenes from the ground breaking, way back on Aug. 7. Take a look at where we started and how it ended.

)

The local newspaper highlighted the dedication ceremony as part of its 12 Days of Giving series. It was wonderful watching this house turn into a home.

JOIN US IN CELEBRATING (Twitter Contest)

This week we’re going to giveaway 2 Cree CR6 LED downlights to one lucky tweep in our Twitter contest. Simply join us in celebrating the completion of our all LED-lit Habitat house by tweeting us with the hashtag #CreeHabitat. We’ll randomly pick one winner to win the lights (which are the same lights we’re installing in Habitat homes throughout the country) at 4:30 p.m. EST Friday, Dec. 17. Not sure what to tweet, simply Retweet what we’ve posted here.

And, of course, our standard contest rules apply: Cree’s decisions are final and binding. The contest is limited to legal residents, 18 or older, of the 50 United States and District of Columbia.  Void where prohibited.  Void in Arizona, Florida, New York, and Rhode Island. Winners will be notified via Twitter and must claim prize within 30 days of email notification.

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Posted in LED Homes | 4 Comments »

September Cree LED lighting contest winner to prove naysayers wrong

Thursday, November 11th, 2010

Michigan resident Carol Thompson wanted to try LED lighting – or so she thought. But then someone told her that “the color spectrum was altered and they didn’t light too well.” Curious Carol didn’t let speculation stand in her way. She set off to Google the prospects of LED lighting.

“I found the information quite contrary to what I had been told,” Carol told me in an email.

Her quest to find out the truth about LED lighting led her to our contest. She submitted a photo of the lonely recessed light in her home office. Carol is the September winner of our LED lighting giveaway. She wins five Cree CR6™ LED downlights.

Here's the photo Carol submitted in our September contest.

Here's the photo Carol submitted in our September contest.

Here’s what Carol is going to find out when she installs her new lights. They deliver beautiful light, providing the quality you would expect from an incandescent. And her new lights won’t slurp up a lot of energy. Each CR6 LED downlight only consumes 10.5 Watts, and can replace a 65 Watt incandescent light. (Yes, the time has come to say goodbye to those Halogen lights warming up the cans in your ceiling.)

Carol’s new lights provide warm light (2700K for those of you in-the-know) and they’re dimmable to 5 percent. Bonus: She’ll use even less energy when the lights are dimmed.

And, Carol’s new Cree LED lights are designed to last 50,000 hours, which means they could last more than 17 years if she leaves them on for eight hours a day, seven days a week. It’s a good thing too, because Carol says the office lights are on a lot because her husband works at home.

When she installs her new CR6 LED downlights, she should invite over the person who told her that LEDs don’t make good lighting. We’d love to be there when she flips the switch so we can see their surprised look and hear her offer a big “neener-neener-neener” under her breath.

Congratulations, Carol! If you want to prove any LED lighting skeptics in your life wrong with Cree LED lights, enter our November contest for your chance to win five Cree CR6 LED downlights. And if you just can’t wait, look up a distributor near you.

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Bride installs Cree LED lights in her home and suddenly sees color in furniture again

Thursday, October 7th, 2010


Tammi Myers is my kind of woman. When it was time to register for wedding gifts, the bride-to-be and her fiancé decided they wanted to register for energy-efficient Cree LR6™ LED downlights.

Now, to be fair, Tammi probably knows a little bit more about LED lighting than your average bride because she’s a project manager for CM Buck and Associates, an Indianapolis-based company that sells lighting, including Cree LED lights. But I don’t think Tammi’s gift registry idea was that odd because a friend of mine who isn’t in the lighting business recently asked me if she could register for LED lights for her wedding too.

You can’t always get what you want …

Unfortunately, Tammi’s coworkers didn’t pool together to get her Cree LED Lighting like she hoped. But Tammi must have had some good lighting karma on her side, because Cree introduced the CR6™ LED downlight – which is designed for home and light commercial applications – shortly after her wedding. The timing was too good to pass up.

Tammi Myers and her husband Phil wanted to include Cree LED lights on their wedding registry.

Tammi Myers and her husband Phil wanted to add Cree LED lights to their wedding registry.

 Tammi wrote us at Cree to say she would really love to be among our first customers to buy and install CR6 LED downlights, which only consume 10.5 Watts and are designed to last 50,000 hours. In her email she told us about her wedding registry, and how she and her fiancé didn’t manage to snag any LED lights (talk about a guilt trip, lol).

… You get what you need

So in July we shipped her 10 Cree CR6 LED downlights (since she works for one of our lighting distributors, she paid the distributor rate, but she still had to buy them) and a flip cam. We asked her to film her installation and to share feedback on the lights. We had no idea what her reaction to the lights would be (though we hoped she would love them since we sure do).

Turns out, Tammi did love the lights. She also loved being on camera too. She sent us back a lot of footage. The first video featured her husband installing the CR6 LED downlight for the first time, take a look:

Then she sent us some footage of her replacing the CFLs in her entry way with the CR6 LED downlights. I had a fun time editing this into a little package for you:

Before and After: What a difference LEDs make

She also shared some of her before and after pictures. In all, she replaced five 65-Watt Halogen flood lights in the kitchen, two 26-Watt CFLs her entry way (see video above), one 65-Watt BR30 lamp in the hallway (see video of her husband doing the install above) along with one in a bedroom and one in her husband’s catch-all room.

Tammie Bedroom Before & After

Tammi's Bedroom Before and After photos

 

Tammi's Entryway: Watch the installation video above to see her husband install this light

Tammi's Entryway: Watch the installation video above to see her husband install this light

before after kitchen

Take a look at Tammi's kitchen. Note how with her Halogen lights you couldn't read the "love, laugh, smile" decorations on top of her cabinets.

 

What a difference LED lights can make! Watch the video above for more details on this entryway!

What a difference LED lights can make! Watch the video above for more details on this entryway!

Now that Tammi has had a few months to reflect on her new Cree CR6 LED downlights, we asked her to write us and tell us what she thinks. Here’s what she said:

“This is what I tell my friends and family who aren’t in the lighting industry.  It’d be crazy to say I love my new lighting, I mean, it’s lighting, it’s almost supposed to be invisible since it’s not the decorative lighting.  But it does absolutely everything it was promised and more.  The best part is how much more light it seems to give.  It hits the wall higher and more broadly and doesn’t give me the scallops on the wall like downlights usually do.  I never used to sit around and hate the scallops, but with the new downlights, I either have more light or it appears to give more light, either of which I’m happy to keep.”

We can’t argue with that. Thanks for being our guinea pig, Tammi! Now we just have to get our distributors to offer wedding registries. To find a distributor near you, just type in your zipcode on this page.

And Tammi’s not alone in recognizing the CR6 LED downlight. Last month at the American Lighting Association conference in Las Vegas, the CR6 received a “Lighting for Tomorrow” design award.

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Posted in LED Homes | 6 Comments »

Cree breaks ground on the world’s first LED-lit Habitat for Humanity home

Saturday, August 7th, 2010

Today we’re breaking ground on the world’s first Habitat for Humanity House lit entirely with LED lights. Cree employees are working with the Habitat for Humanity of Durham to build the home over the next three months. Cree is sponsoring the construction of the home, which will include our newest LED recessed light, the CR6™ downlight, as well as other LED products featuring Cree LEDs.

The LED lighting in this house is projected to save approximately $250 worth of electricity costs per year over traditional lighting. When it’s complete, this home will be a true example of the energy savings you can achieve when you ditch Edison’s ancient technology for energy-efficient LEDs.

The Durham home that we’re helping to build is part of Cree’s previously announced three-year, $1.5 million pledge to provide its high-efficiency LED downlights for all new Habitat homes built in the U.S. We hope to finish construction by October 2011.

This is the vacant site in Durham where Cree's Habitat for Humanity house will be built.

This is the vacant site in Durham where Cree's Habitat for Humanity house will be built.

We’re so excited to help build the first Habitat home lit solely with LED lights. The CR6 downlight will be one of the primary fixtures in the home. It’s a 10.5 Watt light that delivers warm light and is dimmable to 5 percent. It’s designed to last 50,000 hours, which means the family that moves into this home could leave the CR6 lights on for eight hours a day, seven days a week and the lights could last more than 17 years!

I’ll keep you posted on construction.

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Cree to provide LED lighting for kitchens in new Habitat for Humanity homes

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

Cree LED lights will soon light up kitchens in thousands of homes built by Habitat for Humanity. Last week Cree announced its three-year, $1.5 million pledge to Habitat for Humanity International to provide our newest LED downlight for the kitchens in all new Habitat homes built in the United States.

Specifically we’ll be providing our CR6™ downlight, which is targeted to go to market this summer for about $60 each. This 10.5 Watt downlight is designed to last 50,000 hours, which means if homeowners use these lights four hours a day, they shouldn’t have to replace them for more than 30 years.

We’re very excited about this pledge because it can help reduce electricity costs for low-income homeowners. Habitat for Humanity already works to build homes that are more sustainable and efficient, and the addition of LED lights will help these homes save more energy.

In North Carolina, a Habitat homeowner should save almost $450 over five years by having the CR6 down lights installed instead of the currently-used halogens.* For a house in California, that jumps to nearly $600 in savings.*

A couple of weeks ago, I got to visit a Habitat home being built in Durham, NC. We delivered two of the CR6 downlights. My boss climbed up on a ladder to show the crew how to install the lights. All he did was take the trim off the existing fixture, unscrew the energy-wasting Halogen light and screwed in the CR6. Since I filmed him doing it, I was able to time him, and it took him 28 seconds! But you’ll have to take my word for it, because I’m not sure he’s ready to make his YouTube debut quite yet.

However, I also filmed the installation of the next CR6 by David Larkins, the construction director for Habitat for Humanity of Durham. I pulled him aside afterward to talk to him about the LED lights that were just installed. At the time he had no idea Cree was planning on putting these lights in kitchens at thousands of Habitat homes. Here’s what David had to say:

“We try to make a house that’s really easy to maintain, and energy efficiency is part of that,” he said. “A lot of the energy-efficiency improvements that we do just make a home that is smarter and simpler to maintain.”

Cree designed the CR6 specifically to make LED lighting more affordable for residential applications and we couldn’t think of a better residential application than inside homes for Habitat for Humanity.

*We came to this conclusion by using a North Carolina electricity rate of 9.42 cents per kWh and a California rate of 15.69 cents per kWh. We calculated four lights turned on 6 hours a day.

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Posted in Energy Efficiency, Places Rocking LED Lights, Revolution, Videos | No Comments »