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US Streetlights Are Turning Purple

scientificamerican.com

81–90 of 122 posts

Re: US Streetlights Are Turning Purple

#81
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've started wearing blue blockers when going out at night.

Which is why this part of the article was the frustrating icing on top: > One thing that Bullough suggests pedestrians and drivers do to stay safe under purple streetlights—or any lights, for that matter—is to remove sunglasses and blue-light-filtering glasses when walking or driving at night.

Cue "I Wear My Sunglasses At Night": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2LTL8KgKv8

Re: US Streetlights Are Turning Purple

#82
I find it somewhat amusing that they had to find "scientists" to explain this, when the purple tinge is something that LED TV repairmen have been dealing with for around a decade now. However, they're correct that it's because the phosphor layer is getting damaged, probably because they're being driven too hard by the LEDs, which are now being optimised for brightness and recurring revenue instead of longevity and efficiency.

Also, I personally think spirited driving on a purple-lit nearly empty highway at night is a uniquely fun experience with an 80s-retro-futuristic vibe. The streetlights are merely accent lighting at that point; the highbeams are for actual visibility.

Re: US Streetlights Are Turning Purple

#83
I wrote an article about this almost a year and a half ago, and I was wondering how it's held up. I think Scientific American is remiss in not digging a bit deeper, because to me one of the main parts of this story is a commercial phenomenon - street lighting in the US is pretty monopolized, almost all municipal street lights and a good portion of area lights are made by the same company (Acuity). That makes it a lot less surprising that they would exhibit a similar failure around the same time.

Acuity has acknowledged a phosphor defect in their lights and had launched a major warranty repair campaign, but I'm not sure how well that's gone given that new failures are still occurring. At least a year ago, they were struggling with the scale of the problem: it just takes a long time to schedule replacement of failed fixtures when there are so many of them.

Re: US Streetlights Are Turning Purple

#84
post #73

Wow! The comments here! Are we really such neo-phobe curmudgeons? Sodium hallide street lights preferred over LEDs? Golly Hacker News, get a grip and join the modern world!

We live in a late stage capitalist society. Anything new is almost always engineered to be lower quality in order to cut costs and extract more money from us.

Re: US Streetlights Are Turning Purple

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI you can get auto-dimming side mirrors (same mechanism as for rear-view mirrors). I presume it’s a pain to install them after-market, but it can be done and maybe worth it for you if brights bother you enough to wear sunglasses.

When I had some window tinting done on a car, they tinted the side mirrors at no extra charge with excess film. At first, I didn’t like it, but quickly grew to quite like it. (It’s pretty much only annoying for seeing the curb while parallel parking at night.)

I don't think tinting is the same thing as electronic dimming.

Re: US Streetlights Are Turning Purple

#86

Glad I converted nearly all of the lights in my house to halogen, and stocked up on decades of bulbs, before the ban. Nice warm adjustable light. No strobing LED trash fucking up my eyesight.

Incandescent lights are still widely available if you still want them. Nonetheless, modern high quality LED lights can actually exceed the colour rendering index of incandescent lights, though they tend to be a little more expensive. I don't think it's a big deal to pay $15 for a bulb that will still be there in 15 years.

Re: US Streetlights Are Turning Purple

#87
It is not directly related to the article, but the decaying LEDs mentionned in the article made me think of it.

Since we had to switch to LEDs, I had to change lightbulbs waaay more often. I realize they consume less (even if here they would just help heat the house so the energy is not lost), but hell they are crap. They start blinking, their color is shifting, they die quickly, they are super expensive, they are bigger and many lamp I had couldn't be fitted with LEDs unless I found some smaller ones which are even more expensive.

This is my personal anecdotal experience, but I would be interested if any serious study had looked into this kind of issues.

Re: US Streetlights Are Turning Purple

#88
post #87

It is not directly related to the article, but the decaying LEDs mentionned in the article made me think of it. Since we had to switch to LEDs, I had to change lightbulbs waaay more often. I realize they consume less (even if here they would just help heat the house so the energy is not lost), but hell they are crap. They start blinking, their color is shifting, they die quickly, they are super expensive, they are bi…

Phoebus Cartel 2.0

Re: US Streetlights Are Turning Purple

#89
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are 1800K white LEDs as well as phosphor-converted amber made to approximate the look of the classic amber low-pressure sodium. 1800K white can render colors surprisingly well depending on the phosphor mix. I recently put one with claimed (and measured) CRI over 90 into a flashlight and was surprised to see that it actually can render blues reasonably well. I'm inclined to think those are better choices for str…

Each CRI is referenced to an ideal black body radiator at the same temp below 5000k. And there are 7 (or 14) sample points. I’m not disagreeing with you, I agree that a high cri 1800k would be a nice night light. I just recently deep dived into this last week when my kitchen lights all died last week

High CRI is great for the driver while driving. But it ruins his sleep when he gets home, it ruins the circadian cycle of the people living nearby, and it disrupts wildlife.

We don't really need to see shorter wavelength colours like blues to avoid hazards. Night driving is not photography.

Re: US Streetlights Are Turning Purple

#90

> people driving at night may notice a moving object in their peripheral vision more quickly under bluish-white light than under yellowish-white light, [...] Gaining improved peripheral vision under blue-tinged light comes with a trade-off, however: once the moving object comes into focus, it becomes harder to see. If we were switching away from LED to sodium vapor lamps instead of the other way around, they would ha…

No, sodium vapor lights offer great performance in terms of contrast and visibility. Especially in bad weather conditions.

I feel like nobody here ever drove in San Jose at night prior to 2020-ish. Because high-pressure sodium I like, LPS as in San Jose is like viewing a monochrome monitor.
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