I got through this entire article before I realized it was written by someone I worked with back in my agency days. Beth is an awesome designer with a great eye. Nice to see her on the front page here. Now, to the content: I often wonder how much we have lost with our endless quest for minimalism. We can't even make buttons look like buttons anymore. Affordances have become anemic at times. Designers who think and care deeply about functional color theory and usable design should be cherished.
Ha. I didn't realize until I checked the comments that I worked with Beth in Nashville too! Not sure what that says about how I consume content these days... but she's delightful.
Two of my favorite classes in college were Color Studies and Typography. As a long time back end engineer, I would encourage anyone unfamiliar to spend at least a little bit of time looking into both. If you're at all intrigued, treat yourself to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Typographic_St.... It will forever change how you look at text (hopefully for the better!).
I'm reminded of an article a while back talking about how the change from sodium streetlights to LED streetlights had a whole lot of unforeseen effects on animals, people's sleep patterns, driver awareness and visibility, etc. due to color changes. There was a comment on the article from an old civil engineer saying "no, these were not unforeseen, we actually did the research back in the day to figure out what color the street lights should be, that's why they were the color they were."
That doesn't seem right to me. Sodium (and mercury) vapor lamps are the color they are due to physics, and were chosen because they're very efficient (and long lasting). Low-pressure sodium is the best and worst of these; essentially monochromatic but fantastic efficiency. Their only advantage, color-wise, is that the light can be filtered out easily (they used to be widely used in San Jose because Lick Observatory could filter out the 589 nm light).
The monochromatic light emitted from sodium lamps is also close to the peak sensitivity of the human eye. Colours are not distinguishable, but contrast is much enhanced compared to “cooler” light sources.
*edit: but it’s the overwhelmingly larger lifespan (20-30k hrs) that led to the wide adoption as streetlights. And I guess, the same is true for the change to led today, because of less power consumption.
There are 2 kinds of sodium lamps, low-pressure and high-pressure.
The low-pressure lamps emit monochromatic light and they have not only the advantage of long life but they are also the only other source of light that matches the energy efficiency of converting electrical energy to light of the LED lamps.
So replacing low-pressure lamps with LED lamps does not produce any significant economic effects, it was justified only by the supposed advantage of enabling color vision.
However in many places high-pressure sodium lamps have been preferred, which have a wider spectrum, so they allow some very poor color discrimination. The high-pressure lamps have a lower efficiency than LED lamps, so replacing them was justified by energy savings.
Outdoors at night, I prefer the monochromatic low-pressure sodium lamps, but sadly LED lamps have replaced them in most places.
In my area and esp. in the countryside they have green led lighting on various roads as an innovation, with the reasoning that is both least disturbing to wildlife, and best for human vision to see sharply. The light color takes some getting used to, but I am quite a fan of it. Esp. when cycling at home at night through the fields it makes things seem extra serene and peaceful.
It's not especially close to the peak sensitivity of the human eye (in either bright or dim conditions), but that's entirely okay. The goal should be to not affect people's level of dark adaptation.
If you use shorter ("bluer") wavelengths, as happens with white LEDs which consist of a blue LED + phosphor, it causes people's eyes to become bright adapted and effective night vision is ruined, causing people to have much worse vision in the shadows.
Also, if you use bluer light, the lights themselves cause dramatically more glare in peripheral vision, because the shorter-wavelength-sensitive "S" cone cells and rod cells are mostly absent from the fovea (center of the retina), and prevalent in the outer areas of the retina. This is why LED headlamps on cars are so obnoxious for drivers going the opposite direction.
Also, the LEDs clobber people's circadian rhythms and are extremely disruptive to wildlife.
Finally, the light pollution caused by the LEDs is much worse for seeing the stars, which is maybe not as important as the other harms, but still kind of sad.
> It's not especially close to the peak sensitivity
The sensitivity at sodium light is above 75% of the peak human vision (photopic) sensitivity.
This is a very small difference in light sensitivity. For example in the case of many sources of red light or blue light the sensitivity can be 5 to 10 times lower than the peak sensitivity.
Moreover, a perfect source of white light cannot achieve a better sensitivity than around 37%, i.e. less than half of the efficiency of an ideal source of monochromatic light at the sodium emission line.
Therefore the fact that currently LED lamps and low-pressure sodium lamps have about the same energy efficiency is caused by the LED lamps having a higher photonic efficiency and a lower threshold voltage (caused by a P-N junction voltage instead of the ionization potential of sodium), which compensate the disadvantage of using white light. A monochromatic LED lamp with the same color as the sodium lamps could have an energy efficiency at least double over the white LED lamps.
Red light would be even better for affecting the dark adaptation, but it has other disadvantages, like much worse energetic efficiency and lower visual resolution.
Yellow light a.k.a. amber light around the sodium emission line is a good compromise between energy efficiency, visual resolution and dark adaptation.
That's not necessarily a downside for traffic safety, though. Though I imagine someone must have studied the effects of various wavelengths on drivers...
The power savings are minor btweeen LED and low presssure sodium lamps. The LED streetlights emit light along the full spectrum, the sodium lamps only at 589 nm. The LEDs are more controllable so smart dimming ( when there are no cars) is a perceived advantage.
Sodium lamps were deemed dangerous for driving” because they made it difficult for drivers to distinguish shapes, since they were different from day shapes. A kid in bright 1980ies colors (Little Red Hood) would look black under those lights.
LED was presented as a sharp improvement because of the large spectrum of white light.
The sodium lamps are in fact safer for driving, because they preserve drivers' night vision, which improves visibility into the shadows, and because they cause less glare.
What they aren't good for is LED manufacturers' bottom line, and the lighting industry spent a lot of lobbying money to entice friendly politicians to heavily subsidize them with public infrastructure budgets, with those subsidies then misleadingly sold to the public as "efficient" and "environmentally friendly".
They're also not very good for reading the newspaper or doing critical color analysis. Thankfully such tasks do not need to be done at night in the middle of the street.
That would make sense. Otherwise I have no idea how people wouldn't have noticed how much more difficult it makes seeing anything outside of the sharp cutoff of the light cone (or, of course, for the person being dazzled on the other side).
The lamps that use alkaline metal vapor instead of a noble gas have better energy efficiency, because of a lower ionization potential, which leads to a lower voltage drop on the lamp. Therefore they have been preferred for lighting instead of neon lamps and the like.
Among alkaline metals, sodium is the cheapest, so it was a logical choice.
However, the fact that it produces light of a suitable color was a happy coincidence. If sodium had produced violet light, like potassium, and potassium had produced yellow light, potassium would have been chosen for lamps.
So among the criteria for choosing sodium for lamps, the color of the light was as important as cost, ionization potential and vapor pressure.
Sodium (and mercury) vapor lamps may be the color they are due to physics, but you don't have to put Na or Hg in those tubes. I don't know but Li, K, Rb, Cs should, Mg, Ca, Sr, Ba probably also work, but nobody make lamps with those elements.
There are 4 important properties for the substance used in a gas-discharge lamp.
1. For a sufficient gas pressure in the lamp, the substance must be either a gas or a metal with low boiling temperature, so that it will be vaporized by an electrical discharge.
2. The gas must not react chemically with the enclosure and with the electrodes, which prevents the use of most gases except noble gases and metallic vapors. Except for noble gases and metallic vapors, the lamps using other substances must not have electrodes, so they need a more complex and less efficient electronic system for producing a high-frequency AC discharge, e.g. using a magnetron from microwave ovens.
3. The ionization potential must be low for a good energy efficiency. Alkaline metals have low ionization potentials and low boiling temperatures, so they are better than noble gases and other metals.
4. The color of the light must be one where the sensitivity and the visual acuity are high. This narrows the choice to yellow light, i.e. to sodium, between the alkaline metals.
...And the old Engineer was just saying that that was the area on the spectrum they aimed for, so they found a light that emitted in that wavelength that could be technically implemented and scaled.
Way better work than whoever it is handling this LED nonsense. Why we can't find a diode that we can use to simulate the old spectra would be a fun research project.
We of course can make LEDs of more or less any color. The current white LEDs are high-power blue LEDs that are covered by various phosphors to give a mix of colors for "full spectrum" illumination. Different color temperatures are produced by different mixes of phosphors. This is pretty similar to how the traditional luminescent (mercury vapor-based) lamps worked.
But different phosphors have different efficiency and price. LED lamps were first introduced for interior lighting, where sun-like spectrum is welcome. Such LEDs were produced en masse and relatively cheaply. So street lighting naturally used them, because municipalities usually look for the cheapest viable option.
We likely could produce high-power narrow-spectrum orange LEDs if there was a large market for the economies of scale to kick in. You can buy deep orange LED lamps today (look for color temperature 1800K or 1600K, "amber"), but they are more expensive, because they are niche.
> Different color temperatures are produced by different mixes of phosphors.
We can make LED light appear to be any given colour by mixing multiple LEDs. But mixed colour isn't the same as pure colour, made from a single spectra of light. Nor is it the same as true broad spectrum light - like we get from black-body radiation like the sun, or a tungsten bulb.
Its hard to tell the difference just by looking at a light. But different kinds of lights - even lights which look the same colour - will change what objects actually look like. And they probably have different effects on our sleep cycle and our low light vision. I was in a room once lit only by sodium vapour lights. The lights were yellow, but everything in the room (including me) appeared to be in greyscale. It was uncanny.
This is part of the reason why LED lights are still looked down on by a lot of old school photographers and film makers. Skin doesn't look as good under cheap LED lights.
For light with a narrow spectrum, it is possible to make LEDs that emit that light with high-efficiency, for any color inside 2 ranges, one from near infrared to yellow (corresponding to semiconductor phosphides and arsenides) and one from blue to near ultraviolet (corresponding to semiconductor nitrides).
Only green LEDs have worse efficiency, because they must be made with semiconductors for which optimum efficiency is attained at either lower or higher light frequencies.
Lamps using high-efficiency amber LEDs with about the same color with sodium lamps could be made at an energetic efficiency at least double to that of white LED lamps.
The double factor comes from the visual sensitivity being double for the light at sodium color than for ideal white light.
In reality the energetic efficiency of such LED lamps should be more than double, because they do not have losses caused by conversion through fluorescence.
seafoam green choice was also influenced by eye rest studies... since our eyes are most sensitive to middle wavelengths. just keep the room dimmer without losing detail. It reduces fatigue for operators on long shifts.
When I was an medical intern back in the day and worked 24 hour shifts every third day, I bought a roll of thick black vinyl and taped it to the window frame. 0.0 light got through.
Another effect observed with LED street lights, especially in my area, is that many have shifted from white light to purple as a widespread manufacturing flaw causes their phosphor coating to fail.
The purple lights evoke a vaporwave/synthwave aesthetic like I'm in a bad 80s scifi movie. Unintentionally appropriate given the general state of things.
I think we've learned a couple of times that lighting placement, temperature, and shadow-casting are not ideal [0]. Also some of the newer lighting does actually fade to a different color [1] so it's not just the base temperature of the new lights.
I miss the aesthetics of the support for the street light themselves too. In Spain they used to be curved with a 'crown' shaped top, looking 'classical' and less hard for the brain as straight lines make the brain really tired. We are used to fractal and curved designs from nature, not to fake perspective points in every city full of straight lines.
These could just reuse the current LED lamps by just redesigning the socket. Altough the materials should be changed as the old ones (I think they were ceramic and/or concrete?) could cause serious harms if they felt over random people walking around. And, yes, they can even break concrete pavement like nothing.
I remember hearing a falling lamp+case near my home and upon falling to the sidewalk it sounded like a bomb, I am no kidding, even the floor vibrated and the windows nearly crashed. These things were really sturdy, either concrete or cement. I would love the same design but in magnesium, which can be lighter and maybe as durable, altough I know ceramic/concrete can withstand anything.
I'm sure tons of people along the way "noticed" but if you're selling LEDs or you're paid by the LED people to create marketing to convince people that LEDs are gonna save the planet, you're not gonna bring that up.
IDK if you've noticed but we are all lighting our house with bulbs that use 1/10th the amount of electricity as incandescents did. I like the color spectrum of a real lightbulb better, too, but not enough to pay 10x in power. I make up for it by using all kinds of random bulbs all over the place so that the aggregate light in the room fills more of the spectrum than if I coordinated them all to be the same.
For indoor lighting, LED lamps are indeed the right solution.
I have also been using for more than a decade 13 W LED lamps that produce the same luminous flux as the 100-W incandescent lamps or the 23-W compact fluorescent lamps used in the past.
However, the requirements for an outdoor night lamp are very different. Low-pressure sodium lamps have about the same energy efficiency and lifetime as LED lamps, so those are not arguments for replacing them. The only thing that matters is whether you prefer yellow light or white light in a night environment. I definitely prefer yellow light, for reasons already mentioned by others, i.e. much less interference with night vision, sky light, nocturnal animals, or with my street-directed windows at home.
If energy efficiency would really matter, one could produce monochromatic amber LED lamps with efficiencies at least double over the current white LED lamps.
Did you try using high CRI LEDs with color remperature of 2700K–3000K? When I switched from halogen to LED I did just that and the difference is not noticeable, you'll have the same yellowish tint and very natural looking colours. Even with expensive bulbs, extra longevity covers for higher cost.
Many complain about this, because they have been fooled into buying low-quality lamps, with bad cooling or bad electronic components.
I have many Philips LED lamps bought some 10 to 15 years ago, which were put in Edison sockets for incandescent lamps, and none of them has become defective during all these years.
However, even at that time, it was not their cheapest model, but one that was claimed to be long-life and I believe that later they have discontinued that model in favor of cheaper lamps.
I have no idea which vendor of LED lamps might sell good LED lamps today, because I never had to search for replacements. I assume that good LED lamps must still be available, but one must not impulse buy them, but one must check carefully the specifications of the lamps and the credibility of the vendor, before making a purchase decision.
I do not like 2700 K to 3000 K lamps, which are obviously yellowish and regardless how high their CRI may be they distort the colors of clothes or any other objects.
I also do not like the bluish cheap 6500 K lamps.
I consider optimum the 4000 K lamps. This appear white with only a very-slightly yellowish hue, which allows the perception of the natural colors of most objects, but it still provides a warmer sensation than a strictly neutral white color (i.e. one around 5500 K).
2700 is really cool. To the GP, if you're looking for something more like daylight but not noticeably yellow, try 3600k or thereabouts.
The actual temperature of the sun is over 5000k (yes, the k in lightbulb temperature corresponds to the Kelvin scale of temperature) but after being scattered by our atmosphere it appears cooler. And where did all that extra light go? It was scattered around, making the sky blue!
Thanks, that's great to know! However, I also had to remove the high-CRI lights from some lamps because I found that they disturb my sleep if I have them on in the hours before bedtime.
I live in a 240-volt country, though, and I've never seen a dimmer switch here.
The really awesome thing about the 1/10 power consumption is that the existing circuits/wiring/sockets now suddenly support 10x the light without burning down your house. I'm a sucker for well lit space and these lights are just heaven for me.
The problem is we went from a market that consisted of cheapo/good bulbs at various brightness levels to a market where Walmart and Home Depot have like 60 linear feet of bulbs.
There’s no standards and people are clueless and confused. There are awesome LEDs, but more often you see have harsh, terrible light.
Cluing in is really easy. Look for "CRI ≥ 90", or at least "full-spectrum" for the lamps that are easy on the eyes. Pick 2700K for softly lit spaces, 4000-4500K for brightly lit spaces.
How many life forms do we have to kill before cost savings aren't worth it?
Besides, we can have LEDs in better spectrums for under 1/5th the costs of incandescents. We just hired stingy motherfuckers and don't care about the repercussions of our decisions.
I question the cost/energy savings. Seems to me for the most part any efficiency gains are being spent on making everything 5x as bright and expansive.
Depending on where you live the heating might be nice.
In the US people use roughly 10 000 kwh per year.
Say we have a 40 watt bulb, say it burns on average 5 hours per day or 200 wh. In 365 days that would be 72 kwh which at 16 cents per kwh is $11.52 or 0.73% of the annual power consumption.
Say one uses 5 light bulbs. Something around $57.60. Say leds use only 25% of the power = $14.40 for $43.2 saved.
I hate incandescents and am glad they're gone. People chronically under light their homes at the best of times.
My whole house is neutral white LEDs except the bathrooms where we go to cool white to make it easier to clean and be sure it's clean (even if it's not spotless, there's a huge psychological benefit to not feeling like dim light is masking even more grime).
Oddly enough I'm otherwise pretty light sensitive - my current office at work has been a nightmare of trying to manage glare from badly places overheads and windows.
Going from 500w for my living room to 80w also helps a lot (and way more light and a lot less heat).
High-quality white LED lamps are indeed optimal for indoor lighting.
That does not make them the best choice for outdoor night lighting.
The replacement of the outdoor lighting appears to have been motivated in most cases by the desire to divert taxpayer funds towards the private companies selling such lamps, instead of by any technical reasons.
Those LED people marketed themselves out of a job, then. I repaced one (1) broken light bulb over the past 10 years, as opposed to 5 a year before switching to LEDs.
I wouldn’t change it for the world. I grew up in Minneapolis and moved to Seattle, so I went in a single night from sodium lights everywhere in a 500 mile radius to LED. It feels safer (subjective), more pleasant to perform tasks in, and less depressing. I should note I care 0% what the animals think of the whole affair.
This is especially important at high latitudes where for months of the year the street lights provide more illumination than the sun for most working people.
Yeah. Skeuomorphism isn't dead. Buttons need to look like buttons. Sliders need to look like sliders.
You just know looking at it that when you click on the little buttons, they pop in slightly as the LEDs go on and off, right? Does it look cheesy and 80s and dated? Yeah it sounds cheesy and 80s and dated too.
Modern designers do not give rat's ass about ergonomics and functionality. Their ultimate design is an empty screen with some light gray color on white text and inability to distinguish between active (can interact with) and info elements
