I got an email a few weeks ago from a guy named Kevin Willmorth telling me about a website he's put together to explore a concept that seems simple enough, but has missed the boat in manufacturing and design, for some odd reason. Kevin is part of Lumenique, a company that provides product strategy, design, and technical writing for lighting manufacturers.
Kevin's email was to tell me about the concept of Lumen Priority – the website is here – which, when you think about it, makes sense. Kevin's idea proposes keeping the priority of lighting in its output – with solid state lighting technology and the ability for it to act efficiently and still achieve its goal, this is a concept that should be considered. When designing lamps (LEDs, HIDs, OLEDs, whatever), shouldn't the idea be to provide as much output from the source for as long as possible?
The Lumen Priority Concept talks about light depreciation from a lamp, and the various factors that play into decreased levels of light output – voltage loss causing light output depreciation, heat affecting the source, dirt accumulating on the source certainly causes output depreciation, and lamps all just lose output as they age. As a lamp's output decreases, using solid state quality control of the current feeding the lamp, couldn't we alter the level of power going to the source to keep the light output constant?
If you're a manufacturer or designer reading this post, what do you think? If you're a manufacturer, have you considered this concept? Please post in the comments!