Bad LED Examples

AMA adopts better LED lighting proposal June 14, 2016. Annual Meeting of the American Medical Association (AMA) adopted guidance for communities on selecting among LED lighting options to minimize potential harmful human and environmental effects. See here. Doctors Issue Warning About LED Streetlights: CNN article here. The blue spike in LED streetlights is problematic for humans and wildlife. Chart here shows result of spectrometer measurements of LED 4000 Kelvin streetlight and the natural Moonlight. Blue makes ‘daylight’ but is bad for us at nighttime. BLUE LIGHT has a DARK SIDE. Article by Harvard Health Letter covering blue light inside and outside your house - read it here. Avoiding bright, blue- white, lighting at night and avoiding blue from cell phones and TV’s. Apps can now help you reduce blue at night from cell phones. Filter glasses can help with late night TV. Be smart with lighting at night. This video is from Russel Reiter, MD, PhD retired. The doctor explains the eye sensor and our body’s clock that can be mis-adjusted by bad nighttime lighting. We now are learning new LED streetlights are ‘daylight’ models. New cobra shaped LED streetlights at 3000 Kelvin or lower, are available since 2016. More options today! City of Phoenix avoids expensive mistake and chooses to reduce the blue in LED with new 2700K LED soft- white fixtures!!! Some cities are even converting 4000K to 2700K LED models to restore the quality of outdoor life with better streetlights. Tucson picked LED street and neighborhood lighting below 3000 Kelvin see and read how they chose better LED lighting here.

Above: Moon Valley Park is one that got extensive first generation LED lighting installed. This fixture is a 4000K LED. However some lights within the Park have 5000 Kelvin light emitting diodes installed which have even more blue in the spectrum - see below. Right: Light meter shows blue spike from a 4000 Kelvin Park light fixture. This may look good in a photograph above; but this ‘bright blue white’ lighting has been shown to make it harder to see into dark areas at night and is bad for our health.

ASENSETEK Passport Spectrometer used on all spectrum and Kelvin analysis; learn more here.

From 2012-16 more than 1,500 new LED streetlights had been installed in Phoenix as old amber bulbs needed replacement. City of Phoenix chose bright white 4000K GE brand LED cobra fixtures. Many neighborhoods begun raising concerns about the quality of life for all of our city. Bright white 4000 Kelvin LED nighttime makes it hard to see into darkness and is unhealthy. Bright daylight LED all night long is bad for our heath is reduces safety. A 4000 Kelvin LED light fixture is being tested in Mountain View Park. When people see the light in real life, rather then in a photo, they see the fixture is ‘blinding’, ‘harsh’, and ‘horrible’. It makes seeing into the Preserve impossible since the light is to bright. Eye pupil blinded by the LED light.

Here are some neighborhoods struggling with new LED streetlights that are painful. (These are from 2015-16.) Las Vegas…….glare from new LED streetlights creates near accident for Council member. New York….tough luck, daylight all night. LED Streetlights in Brooklyn Are Saving Energy but Exhausting Residents. Vancouver, BC…..New 4000K LED streetlights spark concerns. PHOENIX got the opportunity to make a better choice now since more types of LED streetlights are available. GOOD NEWS - 4000 Kelvin streetlights were rejected by residents for our streets, parks, and neighborhoods via the city survey. But survey didn’t even test the better 2700K soft-white fixture. Folks that saw 2700K LED lights quickly picked it as the best option to save energy, better safety, and for better visibility. Great choice by PHX also!

Bad ‘daylight’ LED streetlights at nighttime

Enlarge jpg to see more on Moon Valley Park and the unfortunate characteristics of ‘first generation’ bad blue LED lighting (2017).

AVOID lighting above 3000K at night…2700K soft-white is better.