This is the fourth and last blog post in our miniseries about the advantages associated with applying LED lighting in the public sector. Previously, we have clarified how hospitals and schools can benefit from LED lighting, and in this post.we take a closer look at why nursing homes should focus on LED.

Our society is undergoing immense demographic changes. The world’s population increases. which means that the number of people requiring extra care will rise in the years to come. Nursing homes are just some of the public institutions that will face challenges with respect to quantity and quality.

The nursing homes’ quality can be improved by replacing existing lighting with LED

. Beyond the economic and environmental advantages associated with LED, the light emitting diodes can enhance the residents’ quality of life. Their sight is reduced over time. just as their perception of depth and colour is impaired. For this reason, nursing homes should provide correct and healthy lighting to its residents.

It has been scientifically proved that light has a biological effect on human beings. Our circadian rhythm can be disturbed by artificial lighting. which can affect our health and well-being negatively. This is where LED become involved.

LED differ from traditional light sources by being able to adjust the colour temperature in the room

. One of the possibilities is called circadian lighting, which can be described as dynamic regulation of the light in harmony with the surroundings. In the morning and in the evening, the diodes will emit a warmer colour temperature compared to the afternoon when the colour temperature outside is cooler. Instead of providing monotonous lighting 24 hours a day. the colour temperature in the nursing home will be regulated automatically during the day.

Beyond this dynamic regulation of the light, residents, as well as employees, are able to adjust the colour temperature in the room manually depending on the needs. If residents relax in their rooms, there is a demand for warmer lighting compared to when the residents eat or read a book.

Accordingly, an LED lighting solution will be a great investment for nursing homes. Below we provide an overview of the advantages associated with LED lighting in relation to residents, employees as well as to the nursing homes themselves.

• Residents: Studies show that nursing home residents become more active when staying in day rooms equipped with circadian lighting. Apart from that, this type of lighting improves the residents’ sleep and eating patterns, which, altogether, enhance their quality of life. The residents will experience that the days become easier and better, seeing that the automatic regulation of light contributes to maintaining a healthy circadian rhythm.
• Employees: Just as the residents, employees are affected positively by this dynamic regulation of light. First, their circadian rhythm is maintained and second, the residents’ sleep will improve, which will reduce the demand for care at this time of the day. For this reason, the employees might experience that circadian lighting can ease everyday challenges.
• Nursing homes: In line with the reduction of workload, nursing homes can choose to reduce the number of employees. Moreover, LED lighting is more energy efficient than traditional light sources. Owing to the diodes’ expanded lifetime, there is almost no need for maintenance, making the investment in LED a good deal. Consequently, nursing homes will be able to provide their residents with the most optimal conditions when investing in LED.

Lighting Color Temperature:

Have you ever noticed that some lighting appears warm while other appear cold? Did you know that different light temperature is suitable for different situations? This article is the first in a series of two articles focusing on the fascinating world behind the science of lighting. The aim of these two articles is to give you an introduction to the scientific theory of lighting and then show you how to actively use this knowledge when choosing a LED lighting solutions for your home, workplace or your shop. This first article gives you a brief insight into the theory of color temperature and offers you easy-to-use guide on how to choose the perfect color temperature for various settings.

The human can observe millions of colors. This might seem as common knowledge today but it was first in 1931 that science defined a color triangle which since then have been a cornerstone in most of the technological lighting measurements made.

The theory of color temperature

What is color temperature? The color temperature of a light source can be defined as the temperature of an ideal black-body radiator that radiates light of a comparable color to that of the light source. This means that the color temperature is an indicator of the level of heat in the heat-up process within the lighting source at which an ideal black-body radiator can project a light in a certain color.

How do you measure color temperature? The measure of color temperature is Kelvin often expressed using the symbol K. Kelvin is defined as a unit of measure for temperature based upon an absolute scale. Overall, you can say Kelvin measures the color of the lighting. If the color temperature measures over 5000 K for a light source the light will be considered a cool color whereas if the color temperature measures between 2700-3000K the light will be considered a warm color. Cool light appears bluish white while warm light appears yellowish or reddish.

How to choose the perfect color temperature of a light source?

It is not without importance which color temperature you choose to light up a room with. In fact, color temperature has important applications with a variety of industries including the film and photography industry and manufacturing industry. For example, did you know that film settings have their own light sources created to achieve the color temperature that fits the interior? Galleries too consider carefully which color temperature to use to light up their art so the art presents itself in the best possible way. Shop owners within the manufacturing industry also have to choose what color temperature to use when highlighting their products and which effect this color temperature will have on customer experience.

Why is color temperature important? This is because the color temperature has an effect on the ambiance of the room. In other words, the color temperature has highly influenced us and our mood. For example, if you are exposed to warm light in your workplace your work efficiency is likely to drop because the reddish light might feel more tired and cool light would have.

Light sources have different color temperature and this makes them useful in different situations. You must therefore carefully consider which color temperature to use before installing a light source in your workplace, home or shop. Choosing a color temperature in a light source has a stylistic importance because certain colors create certain emotions, mood, and associations.

Here is a small guide of which color temperatures to use in various settings

• Light sources with a color temperature of 5000K: this is the color temperature of daylight. This type of light sources is suitable in situations where you want the artificial light to look as “real” as possible. This color temperature fits in for example in galleries and ateliers.
• Light sources with a color temperature of 3000K: these light sources have a positive effect on humans when working a long time at the same place sitting still. Therefore, these light sources can with advantage be used in an office with, in the home or as overall lighting someplace else.
• Light sources with a color temperature of 1200-2700K: This color temperature creates a warm and romantic ambiance and is therefore for example suitable in restaurants, cafes or anyplace else where intimacy and coziness are wanted.

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Outdoor lighting

Lighting is all about creating the right atmosphere. With the right choice of lighting, you can create just the ambiance you wish for in the outdoor area. But what type of lighting should you choose? And which different ways can you use lighting outdoors? This article can guide you and give you the answers!

Finding the optimal lighting for your outdoor project can be difficult because of the vast amount of lighting products on the market. The lighting market can indeed seem like a jungle, and choosing the right lighting solution can seem like no easy task.

Although this blog won’t outline the entire lighting market, it can show you in the right direction and give you inspiration how to light up different outdoor settings.

What type of lighting should you choose?

There exist different types of lighting sources on the market. One good advice is to consider choosing a LED solution for your next lighting project. Looking at the possibilities of LED lighting it is clear that LED lighting can be used in any setting due to the many different variations of LED lighting available on the market. But even though quality LED light comes in different forms, one thing all the different LED luminaries have in common is the extraordinary advantages.

Do you want to get an overview of the sublime advantages of using LED? We have created a TOP 6 list of the most spectacular advantages of using LED to light up your life:

• Extraordinary high quality of lighting: With LED you can get a higher quality of light to illuminate the outdoor area in question compared to traditional light sources such as incandescent bulbs, fluorescent lamps, and high-pressure discharge lamps.
• Exceptional lifetime: LEDs have an exceptionally long lifetime with a general life expectancy of 50,000 hours.
• Minimal maintenance: LED lamps are characterized by being extremely robust and this enables you to use LED in rough environments. Because LEDs are this robust and the fact that LEDs have a very long lifetime, the maintenance is greatly reduced and even eliminated in most cases.
• Greatly reduced energy costs: Changing your current lighting into LED can generate great savings. In fact, your savings on the electricity bill can reach up to 75% and this will have a very positive impact your household’s or organization’s economy.
• An environment-friendly lighting solution: With LED you can greatly reduce your CO2 emissions and reduce your carbon footprint. LED is the most sustainable lighting source compared to traditional light sources and by using LED you can pursue a more sustainable use of resources.
• Strengthen your CSR profile: The low environmental impact of LED can boost the CSR profile of your organization. Using LED can help improve your environmental image and this can strengthen marketing efforts differentiating you from competitors.

Do you want to know more? You can read more about the great advantages of using LED here.

How to light up the outdoors with LED

As previously mentioned it is possible to use LED in almost every setting. However, to give you some concrete examples of how to use of LED in the outdoors we have selected a few settings where you can use LED with advantage. To give you some inspiration as to where to use LED, we will now take a close look at four different LED concepts: street lighting, park lighting, square lighting and terrace lighting.

Outdoor lighting:

Street lighting

It is crucial that streets are lighted up in the best possible way due to the risk of accidents. Way too often streets are lighted up by dim and inefficient lighting and this enhances the risk of accidents. When using LED as street lighting you are sure to get extremely efficient lighting and this will optimize the safety when driving on the road.

Park lighting

Everybody loves going to the park in the day. However, at night it is important to light up the park in the right way to avoid a sinister atmosphere in the park. If you light up the park using LED light you can easily great a cozy atmosphere in the park and create a lighting that will make people feel safe even though it is dark out. Using LED light you can make sure that people still want to enjoy the park at night, for example walking the dog.

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LED lighting : This is our third blog post in our miniseries about the advantages associated with applying LED lighting in the public sector. The previous blog post concerned LED lighting at haspitals and in this post, we will highlight the advantages connected to replacing traditional fluorescent tubes with LED lighting in school buildings.

It has been proved that lighting is crucial to a healthy working and learning environment. Bad lighting can have a negative influence on the behaviour of the pupils as well as affecting test scores and the absence from school. For that reason, it is important that schools and other institutions provide as optimal lighting solutions as possible.

In August 2014, the controversial Danish school reform came into force with regard to streamline the education and make it more effective. In this connection, the pupils are exposed to an increased amount of classes, and the principals and teachers are offered further education. However, healthy and efficient lighting is not part of the reform.

Fluorescent tubes are the most common source of light at schools. Not only are traditional fluorescent tubes harmful to the environment; they also have a negative impact on our psychical well-being due to their low lighting quality.

By replacing traditional fluorescent tubes with LED lighting, the schools will be able to provide a healthier working and learning environment.

There are many advantages associated with LED compared to traditional light sources such as fluorescent tubes. Accordingly, LED lighting have a much higher colour rendering (CRI), which provides the best possible imitation of daylight. Besides, LED differ from fluorescent tubes by not flickering.

Apart from improving the lighting quality, LED lighting reduce the energy consumption as well, which makes this light source more sustainable and energy efficient in proportion to traditional sources of light. The average lifespan of LED lighting is typically 50,000 hours compared to a lifespan of 10,000-20,000 hours for fluorescent tubes, wherefore LED  is associated with less maintenance. Consequently, the schools can save money by replacing old lighting sources such as fluorescent tubes with new lighting.

From this, LED solutions are optimal for schools and similar institutions. Below we provide an overview of how LED  can improve classroom efficiency in order to secure a healthy working and learning environment for pupils and teachers.

• Pupils: In Danish public schools, pupils spend between 30 and 35 hours a week in classrooms and gymnasiums. Flickering fluorescent tubes can cause a headache and provoke exhaustion. Besides, it can increase the rate of absenteeism and affect the pupils’ results and behaviour during the classes. Accordingly, the high lighting quality connected to LED improve the learning environment and provide pupils and teachers with the best possible conditions.
• Teachers: Just like the pupils, the teachers spend several hours a week in classrooms, wherefore they need optimal conditions to be able to improve classes and increase classroom efficiency. This can be secured by replacing the old fluorescent tubes with LED lighting.

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LED lighting in the spare time

LED lighting in the spare time:

You probably don’t think about it but a lot of the places that you visit in your spare time is depending on good and efficient lighting to support the activities taking place. This blog is a part of our theme “LED lighting in the spare time” and it is about how LED lighting with advantage can be applied places which many of us visit for our hobbies or other spare time activities. In the theme’s fourth blog we take a closer look at how LED can be used to light up a spa, indoor swimming pool, and inground swimming pool. So, if you administer a public swimming pool, owns a spa or inground swimming pool or simply enjoy visiting these places in your spare time you can find out more on this blog about how these places with advantage can be lighted up with LED!

More and more people get an inground pool installed in the backyard and It can be an enjoyable experience visiting an indoor swimming pool or spa in the spare time with the kids, friends, or partner. But for the swimmers to get the full experience it is crucial that you have the right lighting solution installed so the activities in the inground pool, indoor swimming pool or spa is supported in the best possible way. When installing this lighting solution there are several things to keep in mind, for example, underwater lighting, general lighting, lighting design as well as the harsh environment around the pool or spa consisting of chlorine, moisture, and heat. It is important to have the right lighting solution that takes this into account.

LED can easily be called the most optimal lighting solution in the market today and therefore it is also worth considering if you should install LED in in the inground pool, indoor swimming pool or spa and harvest all the benefits of LED for the advantage of the swimmers and the economy. LED has become so popular due to this lighting type’s many advantages in relation to lighting quality, the environment, the financial situation and the maintenance. High-quality LED has the best lighting quality on the market today and furthermore LED is a very environmental-friendly solution because of LED’s long expected lifetime.

Underwater lighting in both spa, indoor swimming pool, and inground pool

It is important that the entire underwater area is lighted up so that the people in the water can keep themselves orientated so that no accidents occur. In other words, the most important consideration is how to secure the swimmers’ safety. In relation to this, you can consider this:

• Where, how many and how should the LED luminaires be placed under the water to light the water up in the best possible way? The answer to this question has among other things to do with:
• The pool’s size, shape, and depth. You see, these factors influence how the lighting source works in the water in the specific pool.

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You probably don’t think about it but a lot of the places that you visit in your spare time is depending on good and efficient lighting to support the activities taking place. This blog is a part of our theme “LED lighting in the spare time” and it is about how LED lighting with advantage can be applied places which many of us visit for our hobbies or other spare time activities. In the theme’s fourth blog we take a closer look at how LED can be used to light up a theater. So, if you administer a theater, or simply enjoy going to theaters in your spare time you can find out more in this blog about how LED lighting with advantage can be applied to enhance the theater experience

Did you know that the art of theater is 2500 years old? Since the theater genre in its western edition had its tentative beginnings in Ancient Greece, through time it has undergone meager changes and so has the view upon how a theater can be lighted in the best way. In other words, the art of theater has gone through a continuous development in the last 2500 years and today theater is seen as entertainment which both can be performed by professionals and amateurs.

Going to the theater can be a joyful experience and it can bring a cultural contribution to the busy everyday life. Today there exist many different kinds of theater: amateur theaters, musicals and children’s theaters to mention a few. But one thing all these genres have in common is the huge importance of the right lighting solution. Lighting of the stage is a crucial tool in setting the right atmosphere and in supporting the dramatic action. Thus, lighting has an enormous influence on the way the audience is experiencing the show. In other words, a scene without optimal lighting cannot provide the best conditions for performance for the actors as well as it cannot provide the optimal experience for the audience. The lighting designer working on the show is working with four functions for the stage lighting:

• Visibility: The light creates visibility on stage
• Motivation: The light must look natural
• Composition: The light is a part of the rest of the scenic design
• Mood: The light must create the wanted ambiance at stage
• Intensity: How high light intensity shall the lamps have?
• Distribution: From which angle and direction shall the lighting light up the stage?
• Color: Which color shall the light have?
• Movement: Shall the lamps be able to move and project light in a movement?
• A good lighting type on the market today is LED, and LED is seen by many professionals and experts as the most optimal lighting existing today. Therefore, you can with advantage consider installing a LED solution in the theater. But why is LED so popular? The short answer is, that there are a lot of reasons for that because LED has so many advantages when it comes to quality, economy and the environment. The massive use of LED today both in homes, business and urban lighting is highly due to the fact that LED is full of advantages both in relation to quality, economy, environment, and maintenance.

  In this blog, we have developed a small guide to inspire you to how a theater with advantage can be lighted up with LED luminaires for the benefit of both performers and audience.

  • Lighting of the foyer and the audience: In these areas, it is important to have a nicely designed lighting solution as well as lighting which can help people orientate themselves. For this purpose, our product NS66 is the optimal choice. The unique luminaire has a beautiful wall washing effect on the walls which both creates an exclusive atmosphere as well as the right light for orientating oneself.
  • Spotlighting of objects: If you want detailed lighting of special objects on or off stage a powerful LED spot can be used with advantage. These luminaires work perfectly for lighting up specific objects which you want the audience to notice. For this job, our spot luminaire NS73 can be used.
  • Stage lighting: As mentioned above there are a lot of things to take into consideration when installing effective stage lighting. Thus, are are no ‘one size fits all’ solution and there exists no LED luminaire to fulfill all the lighting needs at the stage. However, a fundamental type of lighting used on stage in most shows is projector lighting. A good guess at a luminaire for this type of lighting is our model NS80 which can work perfectly as projector lighting with its highlighting quality and intensity properties.

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