Another thing that is turning purple is the prose:
"The mystery of the purple lights appears to be both more mundane and more worrisome than anyone has realized — a mood-indigo check-engine light on the entire infrastructure of modernity. When LED streetlights start changing color for no apparent reason, it's a visual cue that we might need to rethink, just a bit, how we build the future."
Or maybe you're desperately stretching for a hook for a story about a quirk of LEDs.
On the plus side, the article provides an explanation for why this is happening, with some detail.
On the minus side, the article seems to try to make some weird, more general point that is just scaremongering: "omg the sky is falling, sometimes components with hidden defects cause failure on a large scale years later".
The author also suggests this has never happened before, which is of course false. I guess they never heard of the "capacitor plague" cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague, which was a lot more serious.
tl;dw Apparently there are 5G radios installed in streetlights and graphene in our vaccines, and the graphene somehow reacts when irradiated with 5G to turn into... worms?
Also mentioned is the color temperature many of the failed lights were intended to be: 4000K. Perhaps after spending more time in areas lit with other color temperatures, we'll become more particular about our own. What color will be chosen next time the lights are replaced? Orange, white (or purple) streetlights may appear to be a minor detail but do end up forming part of an area's identity. Their light is all we see.
I saw one on our street a few weeks ago and thought it was an intentional change as part of our building's power-reduction efforts. It's definitely better than the harsh white, but overall I still prefer the warmer colors.
They note that "Chromaticity shift in the output light is one of the most
common failures in LEDs [...] [Chromaticity shift] is considered as
one of the most important measures of quality and is often studied and reported" (page 6) so it sounds like this could hardly be new info to the manufacturer.
I wonder if these failed LEDs are dangerous. They presumably emit quite a lot of energy at something like 410 nm while providing comparably little apparent luminous intensity. A quick search didn’t give any clear answers.
LED streetlights have been such a boondoggle. They're a major source of light polution, and their supposed reliability and cost savings is turning out to be a fiction.
LPS is such a better technology for streetlighting but sadly the sudden swing to LED has made commercial production of the bulbs non-viable (esp. as LPS lamps actually are long lived, and so are replaced infrequently) and so even places that realized that the benefits of LED streetlights were largely fiction have found themselves forced onto the inferior technology.
Well, why is LPS (low pressure sodium for everyone playing along at home, took me a bit of googling to find) better for street lighting and street lighting only? I like their light, but presumably if they were better they would be used, wouldn't they?
They don't render colors, makes them unattractive for general lighting applications. They're exceptionally efficient and cost effective, however. Many people, myself included, find the limited color spectrum makes much better at not destroying nightvision and lack of blue light results in clearer seeing (while the blue-heavy light from LEDs is particularly bad).
They're around Raleigh, I'm up in Bryson City right now and see a few around here, as well as when I was in Florida for thanksgiving. From my understanding the power company, Duke, just got a batch that ended up having issues causing them to turn purple. I like them but I can see why people don't.
> The blue LED, with its narrow wavelength, enabled all sorts of modern tech, from the Blu-ray disc to flat-screen monitors.
I don't think the part about monitors is true. For a first few years on the market, flat-screen monitors used fluorescent lamps for backlight, specifically CCFL. Backlight made with white LEDs arrived a decade later.
That's true. Man, those CCFL
backlights sucked. They grew dimmer and dimmer, and replacing the millimeter thick lamp was a nightmare. The high voltage inverter was also prone to fail.
"In some ways, you could represent the whole idea of modern human society with a light bulb turning on above our heads. Few technologies have been as critical to shaping the world as we know it."
"The purple streetlights are a result of the phosphor coating delaminating from the LEDs"
>The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.
Rest of the article follows a similar pop-culture style which leads to a lot of unnecessary filler.
"The mystery of the purple lights appears to be both more mundane and more worrisome than anyone has realized — a mood-indigo check-engine light on the entire infrastructure of modernity. When LED streetlights start changing color for no apparent reason, it's a visual cue that we might need to rethink, just a bit, how we build the future."
Or maybe you're desperately stretching for a hook for a story about a quirk of LEDs.
On the minus side, the article seems to try to make some weird, more general point that is just scaremongering: "omg the sky is falling, sometimes components with hidden defects cause failure on a large scale years later".
The author also suggests this has never happened before, which is of course false. I guess they never heard of the "capacitor plague" cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague, which was a lot more serious.
Maybe they should have done what was done years ago, install a bright white light behind a colored lense.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330676601_Degradati...
They note that "Chromaticity shift in the output light is one of the most common failures in LEDs [...] [Chromaticity shift] is considered as one of the most important measures of quality and is often studied and reported" (page 6) so it sounds like this could hardly be new info to the manufacturer.
LPS is such a better technology for streetlighting but sadly the sudden swing to LED has made commercial production of the bulbs non-viable (esp. as LPS lamps actually are long lived, and so are replaced infrequently) and so even places that realized that the benefits of LED streetlights were largely fiction have found themselves forced onto the inferior technology.
Edit: There's some nice information at http://lamptech.co.uk/Documents/SO%20Introduction.htm
Could they be dumping the defective but still functional lights on markets with clever marketing?
I don't think the part about monitors is true. For a first few years on the market, flat-screen monitors used fluorescent lamps for backlight, specifically CCFL. Backlight made with white LEDs arrived a decade later.
LED backlit screens are so much more reliable!
Manufacturing defect, Evergy will replace.
... eyeroll
https://youtu.be/36-VQQawpsk