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I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Bonnie Littman, President, USAI Lighting, on the topic of tunable-white lighting. I’m happy to share her responses with you here. The interview informed an article I wrote for the May 2016 issue of tED.

We Love Nature 
A hike through the woods, a round of golf, or a walk on the beach—all of these provide connections to nature that intuitively we know people enjoy, seek and value.

With the advent of LEED certification and the general trend towards green technology and home efficiency, lighting technology has become an increasingly critical component of “going green”. While these make nice catch phrases, we hope to dive deeper into the subject and provide a solid knowledge base for those seeking a better understanding of energy efficiency as it pertains to lighting technology.

There is more to light than meets the eye — a lot more, in fact. While light enables us to see our world in vivid color and stunning detail, we have learned that light also regulates many biological responses in people which are not associated with our sense of sight, including an 'internal clock' in our bodies that makes us alert during the day and sleepy at night.

A decade ago, when white LEDs began entering the architecture marketplace in force, early adoption came with misgivings. The new light source would drastically cut electricity consumption over many more hours of life — but the color temperature was cold, or brightness seemed insufficient. Like most disruptive technologies, LEDs promised to revolutionize the industry. Just as soon as users could stop thinking twice about them.

The LED Triangle offers a comprehensive, technology-specific tool to measure LED fixtures, based on; color harmony, optical control and performance (energy efficiency). Traditional fixtures required consumers to sacrifice one or more points of the triangle. USAI’s innovative, proprietary solutions balance the three factors in harmony.   

Light – and more specifically, light’s color temperature – has a powerful and direct impact on our mood, productivity and sleep. Simply put, it influences nearly every element of our lives.

Advances in accent lighting fixture design present a bright future for the LED market and for the plethora of interior spaces that will benefit from the technology. 

USAI Lighting's NanoLED family was one of the first products to fully realizes the benefits of Cree's powerfully bright and amazingly consistent XLamp MT-G LEDs.