This is not at all a LED problem. It is just very poor execution. When we switched to LED in our and neighboring cities the light pollution went down very noticably. The switch should be used to use light smarter, not just blast more with higher efficiency. We now have some streets that even have motion sensing and dim to 5% power when not in use.
LED lights are meant to save energy. They’re creating glaring problems
Submitted 1 year ago by Peaces@infosec.pub to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
deliux@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
HelixDab@kbin.social 1 year ago
Quick counter: lower kelvin lights are terrible for color reproduction. Pure sunlight is around 5000K, and has a CRI (color rendering index) of 100. Switching to warmer (lower kelvin) lights is going to also alter your CRI, and will change the way that you perceive colors. If you need high color discrimination, that's going to be bad.
For outdoor lights, in most cases that's not a problem.
Usually. In most cases, you aren't going to notice just how much the colors have shifted, because your brain automatically adjusts. Youre perception of color is usually how colors appear relative to other things; you will see a red as red because your brain is comparing it to other objects with a known color. OTOH, if you're taking photos under poor lighting conditions, you'll see a significant shift in color. If you've ever taken film photos under fluorescent lights, you'd see that everything looked sharply green, when you don't perceive them as being green at that moment. (Digital cameras often make color adjustments, and the sensors are often not as sensitive as film can be.)
Going to an extreme, if you use a red filter on a light source, all colors are going to end up looking brown and grey; switching to red lights does the best at minimizing light pollution and loss of night vision, but at the cost of most color information. That's not bad, just a thing to consider.
Shurimal@kbin.social 1 year ago
Not really, CRI is not dependent on color temperature; 2400K and 2700K incandescent bulbs all have CRI of 100. And, as you said, human brain is incredibly good at adopting to light color temperature. While I would not do color-critical work in candlelight, 2700K and 2400K bulbs are perfect for general late evening lighting and 3000K...3500K is very good for task lights. Higher than 4000K lights should not be a thing in domestic or public outdoor lighting, it's just too harsh and uncozy.
You don't need high lumens, either. As an extreme example, I've done plenty hiking (and patrolling during my military training) in starlight with no artificial light source—the eye is quite remarkable at adopting to darkness. The cities today are overly bright at nights, you could easily halve (or more) the lumen output and be absolutely fine. Even light distribution with no shadowy dark spots is way more useful than overly bright lights. Another personal anecdote, I live on 9th floor and I don't need to turn on any lights when visiting bathroom at night; the light pollution from outside through curtains is enough to navigate around in my apartment.
burningquestion@lemmy.world 1 year ago
[deleted]sshff@lemmy.sdf.org 1 year ago
I think a lot of it is also that we never bothered to use the switch to LED streetlights to fix the design issues with streetlights as a whole. So many of them are designed with no real care in their directionality. They are there to light downwards but make no efforts to minimise any directed up. A lot could be done to mitigate the effects with a better design focus to limit the lighting only to where required.
devdad@programming.dev 1 year ago
This could have just as easily been on the dadjokes community.
u202307011927@feddit.de 1 year ago
Oh, I see that now!
cloudless@feddit.uk 1 year ago
Why did you use a redirection link instead of the original link?
washingtonpost.com/…/glaring-problem-how-led-ligh…
Are you trying to track user interaction?
Peaces@infosec.pub 1 year ago
It’s a “gift article” to get past paywall: …washingtonpost.com/…/4403823008539-How-to-use-gi…
cloudless@feddit.uk 1 year ago
I’ve tried the direct link and it is not behind he paywall.
eee@lemm.ee 1 year ago
it says the gift article is expired for some reason
nivenkos@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It’s just a shortened link, probably copied it for mobile.
cloudless@feddit.uk 1 year ago
But what’s the point of shortening it? I want to see the source before clicking on a link.
NotSteve_@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
I’ve read that just adding hoods to the lights to keep light pointing downwards would help a lot with light pollution. I’m not sure why we don’t do that more
snooggums@kbin.social 1 year ago
The reason we don't do it more is cost > 0 and the people who make the decisions don't care about light pollution.
WagnasT@iusearchlinux.fyi 1 year ago
This is just weird to me, i don’t expect to see stars in a city, even before the lights were LED. They’re saying the blue light scatters more and that’s a problem but if the entire point of the street light is public safety then more light information is a good thing. The cities probably need new studies and information about lumens per square foot though because they’re probably working off of old studies with redder light and they could probably lower the intensity and still get the same amount of light information.
lemming007@lemmy.world 1 year ago
The biggest problem I have with LEDs is they’re supposed to last forever yet mine die every few months.
CmdrShepard@lemmy.one 1 year ago
It’s because the ones you’re buying are built with cheap components that are pushed to their limit. If they used oversized components, they’d run cooler and last longer.
czardestructo@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Buy Cree branded lights if you can find them. High quality and I’ve never had an issue.
Peaces@infosec.pub 1 year ago
Here’s another link in case you have issues with the original: wapo.st/3pUUnJu
The links are only good for 14 days apparently
czardestructo@lemmy.world 1 year ago
There is nothing wrong with LED lights. There is just a big problem with cheap, poorly designed LEDs. You can use proper optics and control the light exceptionally well and put it exactly where its needed with very little spill over or reflections up. You can also chose whatever color and color rendering index (CRI) you like but all of this costs more money and municipal bean counters are drunk on the lowest bidder. So we get glare bomb blue light shows. I used to design this stuff so feel free to ask questions.