LED advancements in SPD and efficacy enable new usage scenarios

　　Over the course of mid-summer into the fall of 2016, Lumileds rolled out numerous members of what the company has called the Stylist portfolio of chip-on-board (COB) LEDs with SPDs tuned to a new level of specialization for applications. For example, the FreshFocus components in the portfolio target grocery-market applications and include five different SPDs intended for enhancing the look and appeal of produce, fish, marbled meat (red meat with prevalent white fat), red meat, and bread and pastries. The CrispColor line similarly targets retail while the AtmoSphere line targets restaurant and hospitality applications. What's clear about CrispColor and the other new lines in the Stylist Series is that Lumileds' engineers focused far beyond CCT in developing the new LEDs.

　　Indeed, the SPD has been optimized in each case based on research into customer preference. In the CrispColor line, Lumileds offers a range of CCTs from 2700K to 5000K. In each CCT, however, the SPD delivers light well below the black body locus (BBL), indeed even further from the BBL than the CrispWhite products fall - CrispWhite was really the precursor to Stylist launched a few years back. That decision was based on studies that reveal human preference. The AtmoSphere line, conversely, falls directly on the BBL at a CCT of 2200K. Many restaurants achieve that type of lighting SPD using dimmed halogen lamps today. The FreshFocus, AtmoSphere, CrispColor, and CrispWhite lines will be offered across the Lumileds portfolio of COB light-emitting surface (LES) sizes from 6-23 mm. We remain interested to see how much SPD granularity is just right and how much might be too much for luminaire makers and lighting customers to handle.