Firelight LED Source: Toward a Balanced Approach to the Performance of Solid-State Lighting for Outdoor Environments

Abstract

We report on a blue-amber (“firelight”) cluster of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with extra-low correlated color temperature (~1860 K) optimized for outdoor lighting under mesopic conditions. When compared with common white LEDs, the firelight LED cluster shows considerably reduced indexes of melatonin suppression and skyglow, increased retinal illuminance for elderly people, but a reduced performance of perceiving colors, which, however, can be tolerated at mesopic luminance. In comparison with an almost metameric high-pressure sodium lamp, the cluster exhibits a potentially higher luminous efficacy, similar reaction time and detection threshold of luminance contrasts for achromatic targets, and noticeably improved color discrimination characteristics.

Keywords

• Light emitting diodes
• solid-state lighting
• outdoor lighting
• photophysiology
• light pollution
• psychophysics