Cree LED Revolution Blog

Cree and LED lighting are starting a revolution

Posts Tagged ‘LED Revolution’

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 »

Country Living House of the Year lit with Cree LED lights

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

If you think a two-story house with shutters and a wrap-around-porch looks a little out-of-place nestled between the skyscrapers and marina in New York City’s World Financial Center, you’re not crazy. The Country Living 2010 House of the Year was airlifted in to show Manhattan what a high-end, well-built green home could look like.

HOY

The Country Living House of the Year as it's being set up in Manhattan.

The historically-inspired green modular home is on display through Thursday, so you can see for yourself how a home can consume 50 percent less energy and save thousands of gallons of water a year compared to a standard code-built house, according to Country Living.

Among the ways this home is saving energy is through the use of energy-efficient Cree LED lighting. Cree provided our LR6™LED downlights for this year’s Country Living House of the Year to demonstrate the beautiful light quality and major energy savings that can be achieved through the use of LED lighting.

We constantly hear from skeptics that LED lighting isn’t ready to light your home. But that’s simply not the case, and we’re glad that the Country Living home in Manhattan (of all places) will be yet another public demonstration of LED lighting.

The LR6 downlights that are in the house consume only 10.5 Watts of energy and are designed to last 50,000 hours. That means the lights in this house could stay on for 8 hours a day and run more than 17 years. Could you imagine not changing a light bulb for 17 years? What’s more is at the 50,000 hour mark, these LED lights shouldn’t just burn out. Instead Cree’s LED lights are designed to provide at least 70 percent of their initial light output at the 50,000 hour mark. So, depending on your lighting needs, you could still be using them 50,000 hours later.

If you would like some LR6 LED recessed lights of your own, you can try to win our monthly photo contest. Each month we giveaway five Cree LR6 downlights to one lucky winner.  Just submit a photo of bad lighting in your home or office to qualify for the June contest.

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Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Here’s what you’ll see at Cree’s Lightfair trade show booth

Wednesday, May 12th, 2010

Spring break for lighting geeks starts today in Las Vegas. Lightfair International runs through Friday, and for those of us in the lighting biz, it’s 1,600 booths of fun, technology and education. Here’s what is going down in the Cree booth:

Our theme is “The End is Near.” That may sound dramatic but we believe it and our booth shows it. The end is near for gloomy, inefficient lighting. The end is near for hazardous lighting. The end is near for heat lamps that pass for acceptable lighting.

I know a lot of you won’t have a chance to join the 19,000 people expected to attend Lightfair. So join me on this virtual tour of our booth and here’s a link to our latest release announcing what we’re showing:

Step into the museum, where we’re displaying our directional lamps.

museum

We’ve broadened our family of replacement lamps to now include flood lights in addition to spot lights, offering different beam angles, light outputs and even different color temperatures. Because really, one size doesn’t fit all in the LED Lighting Revolution. So whether you’re lighting up purses in a showroom or avocados in the produce section, our booth shows you that Cree LED lighting can do it all.

Step into the Cree Café, where we’re dishing up “light” refreshments.

cafe

We’re showing off a gorgeous LED replacement for BR30 lamps. Our LBR-30™ lamp is a 65 Watt replacement that only uses 12 watts, providing beautiful light with high color accuracy. You can also see our LR6™-DR1000 recessed downlight that delivers 1,000 lumens using 50 percent less energy than a 26 Watt CFL, with all of the light and high color accuracy. Bonus: In true LED lighting style, there’s no mercury inside.

Step into our office, where we’re working on showing off our LED components.

components

Doubles as our component showcase, where we have our family of lighting-class LEDs on display (underneath our beautiful LED troffer products). Our LED components are an important part of our Lightfair booth because our beautiful LED lighting fixtures start with great LEDs. I’m sure the most popular demo is going to be our new XLamp® platform, the XLamp XM LED. This new single chip LED delivers a record-breaking efficacy of 160 lumens per watt at 350mA, which to us LED geeks is remarkable. This is the first time this revolutionary LED is on display.

Step into our home, where we’re redefining what you can expect from lighting.

home

It’s all about the CR6™ downlight in the residential setting, where the LED lighting revolution comes home. Visitors can flip the switches between the ghastly glow of fluorescent and the glorious glow of the CR6 downlight, our newest LED downlight aimed at the residential and light commercial, such as restaurants and hotels. This awesome new light is in production now, will be available soon and costs about the same as a twisty, toxic CFL downlight. And, a mega bonus, it’s designed to last 50,000 hours. Imagine not having to change the lights in your home for years. [if you state “decades,” you’ll need to state the number of hours of usage per day the calculation is based on]

Finally, our booth showcases the newly redesigned CreeLEDRevolution.com. The educational site shows off real world examples of LED lighting, features a monthly LED lighting giveaway (enter here) and offers a chance for you to actually join the LED Lighting Revolution by taking a pledge.  

 And if you are in Las Vegas for Lightfair, don’t forget you can stop by our booth to enter our drawing for a free iPad. All you have to do is take a photo of your favorite part of the booth and post it on Twitter or our facebook page. Complete directions on how to entere are here.

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Posted in Trade Shows | 2 Comments »

North Dakota homeowner is happy his Cree LED lights don’t have “Star Wars light saber effect”

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

Dave Hultin recently wrote me through the contact form on the LED Revolution site saying he joined the revolution more than a year ago, when he outfitted his home with LED lights. I interviewed him last week to find out more. This is his story:

When Dave Hultin began designing his home in Fargo, North Dakota, he knew he wanted to incorporate energy efficient lighting. That’s when he started doing his homework. He knew CFLs were out of the question because he said his wife wasn’t keen on the potential health issues that could arise if any of the mercury-laden CFLs ever broke.

One night Dave was holding his son’s LED flashlight and he said he started to wonder if LEDs were being developed for residential lighting. He found a 40 Watt equivalent LED bulb online and ordered it.  He was disappointed when it arrived and it had a “laser beam feeling.”

“I wasn’t ready to give up,” he said. “I thought: ‘there’s got to be something better.’”

Dave said he started to read about the Cree LR6™ LED recessed light that, at the time, was only 12 Watts but delivered warm light. (A newer version is now only 10.5 Watts!). So he found a local supplier and bought four and had an electrician install them in his master bedroom, which was still under construction. He didn’t even have switches in place yet.

Dave was a skeptic and wanted to see if they would have the “Star Wars light saber effect” or if his family could actually live comfortably under the LED light. After the electrician installed his test lights, Dave visited the construction site to see how they looked.

“I remember that first night when I came there. I went there when it was dark. I was expecting the best, but hoping I wasn’t going to get a wimpy, little glow,” Dave said. “So I tentatively turned it on and I went ‘Yes!’ That’s when I was convinced it was a good thing.”

So Dave placed an order for more LR6 LED lights. In all, he placed 44 in his living room, kitchen, dining room, hallways, piano room and master bedroom. (Here are some pics Dave took and e-mailed me):

DaveHultinKitchen

DaveHultin2

DaveHultinHallwayupstairs

DaveHultinPianoRoom

“The biggest thing that I would say about the light quality is that I don’t have to talk about the light quality,” Dave told me. “It’s there and it’s what I would expect. I don’t have the Star Wars light saber effect going up to the ceiling. People don’t notice that something is different, they just see that it’s there and it works.”

Dave said he spent $3,867 on the LED lights. And by his calculations, the lights will pay for themselves in energy savings after three years (he has already lived in his home for a year). But since the LR6 LED lights are designed to last 50,000 hours, he’ll be racking up the savings long afterward.

“When I go to a relative or a friend’s house and notice they have a burned out bulb, I look at my watch and think: ‘In another 12 to 15 years, I’ll be doing that too,’” Dave said.

You can read more about Dave’s experience finding and trying out Cree lights on his blog.

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Posted in LED Homes | 8 Comments »

Do you hate fluorescent lighting as much as I do?

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

I hate fluorescent lighting. I always have. I once worked at a company that had a horrible conference room lit with ugly fluorescent lighting, and every time I was summoned to a meeting in there, I would turn off the lights. Better to work by the light of our computer screens, I reasoned, then to drown in a greenish fluorescent bath. No one ever asked me to leave the lights on, so I guess my colleagues hated the lights too.

My disdain for mercury-laden fluorescent lighting has grown even stronger since I started working for a company that makes LED lighting. That’s because I now sit in an office lit by beautiful, dimmable LED lights and it’s pretty nice. I’ve never felt the need to switch off the lights here. I’ve also learned a lot about the downsides of fluorescent lighting: the headaches, migraines, eye strain and discomfort those icky lights can trigger in some people thanks to their notorious, sometimes subtle, sometimes painfully obvious flicker.

I must admit that even though I’m not a fan of fluorescent lights, they are more efficient than energy-sucking incandescent lights. But they also contain toxic mercury. Sadly, a lot of people don’t realize you’re not supposed to toss CFLs in garbage. There are special ways you’re supposed to dispose of CFLs (and all fluorescent lights) so you don’t muck up landfills with mercury.

Of course I crave the day when everyone will get to live, work and shop under energy-efficient LED lights. But until then, it’s comforting to know I’m not alone in hating fluorescents. A quick Twitter search of “fluorescent lights” shows a slew of disparaging comments about the lights. Some from the past week are so amusing I have to share them:

flurochain1

If you’re sick of fluorescent lighting too, then become a fan of “Banishing Ugly Fluorescent Lighting” on facebook. I’m not sure it will make a difference, but it always feels good to complain in the comfort of other like-minded people.

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Posted in For Fun | 5 Comments »

Need proof that the LED Revolution is happening?

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

If you’re at work, sitting at your desk under the glow of fluorescent lights, you might be skeptical of the LED lighting revolution. You might be wondering: If this is really a revolution, then why am I stuck sitting under this icky light? When will my office, my home, my grocery store be lit with LED lights?

Well, I think this Bay Area Home Depot associate adequately summed it up when he said to FORTUNE magazine reporter Michael V. Copeland: “Buy, hey, it’s a revolution, and sometimes that takes time.”

LED lighting is out there. LED lights are initially being installed in produce and electronics sections at 650 Walmart stores, they’re illuminating the pedestrian entrance to the Brooklyn end of the Brooklyn Bridge, even lighting up a dorm at N.C. State University.

So if you’re feeling skeptical (or eager like us because you want LED lighting everywhere right now), take a look at this article by senior FORTUNE writer Copeland. Here’s the lead to get you going:

“The $100 billion global lighting industry is undergoing radical change: New office buildings and retail outlets are abandoning fluorescent lighting in favor of LEDs, or light-emitting diodes, those tiny, energy-efficient, long-lasting, and blindingly bright points of light. Giants such as GE (GE) and Philips are shifting production from incandescent bulbs to LEDs. Even the local Home Depot (HD) — which today probably stocks only a couple of LED lighting products — will soon carry a bouquet of LED bulbs, ultimately edging out fluorescents and halogen lamps. By the end of the decade, analysts predict, LEDs will be the dominant source for commercial and residential lighting.”

Read the rest of it here.

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Posted in Revolution | 2 Comments »

Cree brings the LED Lighting Revolution home at the International Builders’ Show

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

Take one look at our booth at the International Builders’ Show and you’ll see that we’re serious about bringing LED Lighting into your home.

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In the LED lighting biz, we often hear from people who say they bought an LED bulb at the grocery store and it stunk. As a result, they write off LED lighting as an expensive technology that doesn’t live up to its price tag, or billing.

At Cree, our hearts seriously break a little each time we hear that. Our booth at the International Builders’ Show explains why. You see, we’re making these gorgeous recessed LED lights that provide beautiful, warm color and are designed to last a crazy long time (50,000 hours). These LED lights are the real deal. They’re not too dim. They’re not bluish. They don’t flicker.

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Yet, like anything, it often only takes one bad apple to give everyone else a bad name. My co-worker Deb actually blogged today about the LED bulbs you can buy in the store that are supposed to be a 60-Watt equivalent.  Deb wrote: “Unfortunately, except for a few, they are mostly too dim or bluish, or worse, flicker and then go out for good.”

So we’re hoping that our booth at the International Builders’ Show will help SHOW people that LED lighting is ready for the home. It just depends on the type of LED lighting you use and how you use it.

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All the lights you see in these photos from our booth are Cree LED lights, and we think they’re beautiful. True, they’re not light bulbs that you would screw into your desk lamp, but they provide very efficient overhead lighting for your home. And that, my friends, makes our hearts sing.

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Posted in Trade Shows | 2 Comments »

Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum installs LED Lights

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

A new exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum is a dream for space exploration fans.  The new “Moving Beyond Earth” exhibit features a 12-foot tall space shuttle model, parts of the Hubble Space Telescope and a model of the Ares launch vehicle. But there’s something even more exciting at the exhibit for LED lighting fans like me – LED lights are replacing the 30-year-old mercury vapor work lights!

Cree’s LR24 recessed LED lights are lighting up the gallery for about eight hours each day so museum staff can clean the gallery and take care of other maintenance when the exhibit isn’t open.

smithsonianLR24

The work lights will be on for about eight hours a day. And since the museum’s new LED lights are designed to last 50,000 hours, they could last 17 years if the lights are on eight hours a day, seven days a week!

You can read all about the installation and some more details about the benefits of having the LED lights at the Smithsonian here.

So if you go to the exhibit, look up at the 20-foot high ceilings and take note of those square lights (they’ll likely be turned off, unless you get a job working at the Smithsonian after hours) and smile to yourself because now you know yet another place that has joined the LED Lighting Revolution.

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

Sacramento guitar shop owner wins five Cree LED lights with photo submission

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

It’s hard to be inspired under bad lighting. Seriously, if you’ve ever worked in a place with dim, greenish or too bright lights, you probably know what I’m talking about.

But each month Cree tries to change that for one lucky person by giving away some of our beautiful LED lights in our monthly photo contest. The November winner is Dave Lynch, a Sacramento, Calif. business owner who has been putting with fluorescent lighting for over a decade.

He sent us this photo, where you can see one of his fluorescent tubes burned out above his head and wrote: “I’ve got these horrid fluorescent lights overhead, been here 13 years, and they’re making me old! What can I do??? Help!!!!”

guitar winner dave

Anyone who uses four exclamation points is probably at their wit’s end. Dave’s entry earned him five Cree LED lights. He chose our LRP-38 lamps. His new LED lights won’t reverse the aging he says his horrid fluorescent lights caused (sorry, Dave), but they will help him save energy while also making the colors in his store pop.

I e-mailed Dave to tell him he won and included some links about our lights. He quickly wrote me back, using even more exclamation points! Looks like he did his research (and has a future in marketing if he gets bored with his guitar shop), because here’s what he wrote me:

“The lamps, the LRP-38’s would give us a huge head start in creating the basis for a beautiful energy efficient and attractively lit shop lighting system worthy of the 21st century.”

I can’t argue with that. In fact, consider this:

  • The Cree LRP-38 lamps he won are designed to last 50,000 hours, which means they could last 17 years if he keeps the lights on 8 hours a day, 7 days a week! Can you imagine not changing a light bulb for 17 years?
  • Each LRP-38 uses 12 Watts of energy, but provides the equivalent light of a 50 to 90 Watt halogen bulb. So his new lights will also consume significantly less energy than traditional lighting!

  • His new lights will provide beautiful, warm light and make the colors in the merchandise pop. Here’s why (be patient, I’m going to get a little geeky on you, but this is truly interesting and information you can later wow your friends with):

The ability to make colors look true – that is to have a tomato look like a tomato – is called color rendering. The color rendering index (CRI) characterizes light sources in view of their ability to produce “natural light” and can be between 0 and 100. A higher CRI means that colors are rendered more naturally and the light is perceived as more pleasant. The CRI of fluorescent tubes is often around 72, but the Cree LED light that Dave is receiving has a CRI of 92! His guitars can look stellar under his new true light.

After he found out he won, Dave e-mailed me some additional photos showing the icky lighting in his shop. Take a look:

guitar shop

I have to say it’s pretty exciting to give away LED lighting to someone who is so enthusiastic about it. You have a chance to win each month. Just submit a photo showing off bad lighting in your home or office.

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Posted in Revolution | 3 Comments »

Introducing the Cree LED Lighting Revolution blog

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

As leaders of the LED Lighting Revolution, we find that many people are in the dark about energy-efficient LED lighting. We’re working hard to change that, and we hope our spiffy new blog will help. So thanks for stopping by. We’ll pause for a few seconds while you subscribe to our RSS feed. (One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand …)

Good, you’re back. Now … on to revolutionary things!

To understand the Cree LED Lighting Revolution, you may have to change your mind set about lighting and LEDs in general. You see, for a long time people said LEDs weren’t a viable source for general lighting.

GinnyTradeshowBooth2

LEDs were long relegated to indicator lights: They lit traffic signals and the speedometer on your car’s dashboard. Then LEDs were used to backlight things like cell phones and TVs. And they were also used to cast colored light in fountains and on buildings. And the LEDs did a great job.

But in recent years, LEDs have found their way into a slew of lighting fixtures used in businesses, parking garages, streets, homes and more. And you know what? LED lights are more energy efficient than many other light sources, including the classic incandescent bulb, really hot halogens and even those toxic stop-gaps, CFLs.

LED lights require up to 85 percent less energy than light bulbs and up to 50 percent less energy than fluorescent tubes. And LEDs are capable of producing beautiful light. Cree LED lights are being used in the Pentagon and there are plans to install them in 650 Walmart stores in the produce and electronics sections. In fact, there are LED lights in a lot of places.

Bad lighting habits can’t be broken if no one understands the alternatives. The Cree LED Lighting Revolution is dedicated to teaching you more about the technology and showing off real-life examples of LED lights.

So follow me, Cree blogger Ginny Skalski, and take a stand against bad lighting. Join the LED Lighting Revolution and subscribe to our blog for more updates. Thanks!

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Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »