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Cree releases LEDs designed for horticulture

173 points by milleramp 4y ago

homero 4y ago
Enterprise grow lights
MrBuddyCasino 4y ago
„By maximizing green content and minimizing red content versus standard lighting LEDs, this LED color enables significant enhancements to luminaire cost and performance.“ I thought plants look green because thats what they reflect? Meaning that the other wavelengths are absorbed for photosynthesis.
- genocidicbunny 4y ago
  Yeah that seems odd to me. Chlorophyll largely doesn't do anything with 500-600nm wavelengths, and that's where this LED outputs a lot of energy. If this was a bulb that could switch between red and green that might be useful for dealing with day/night cycles for plants, but this LED seems like it just outputs more green light than normal?
  - scrumbledober 4y ago
    A graphic on the page notes that these are designed to be used with red 660nm bulbs. A lot of current grow lights are white, blue, and red bulbs. It seems these are aiming to create the blend of blue and white so manufacturers can blend them with red without worrying about the white/blue mix.
  - tiagod 4y ago
    Sensitivity of Seven Diverse Species to Blue and Green Light: Interactions with Photon Flux https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0163121 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... >In contrast to the significant effects of blue light, increasing green light in increments from 0 to 30% had a relatively small effect on growth, leaf area and net assimilation at either low or high PPF. Surprisingly, growth of three of the seven species was not reduced by a treatment with 93% green light compared to the broad spectrum treatments. Seems like green light is not useful for all cases, but I would indeed like to know exactly why that's the case.
    - jakedata 4y ago
      It's possible that some green light improves aesthetics.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - Nomentatus 4y ago
      There's too much green light in sunlight, so to reduce free radical formation, most plants reflect most green light (something you may have noticed.) Converting light into chemical changes (splitting water, then sugar) without causing a lot of damage from free radicals is not trivial.
      - another2another 4y ago
        >most plants reflect most green light (something you may have noticed.) Subtle !
        Nomentatus 4y ago
        A joke on myself, too. I swear our associative minds, knowing that peeps who wear green clothes and buy green cars, like and want more green; decide plants aren't rejecting green light (the obvious physics) but that they must want, love and use green light. An error I made myself until fairly recently.
- reportingsjr 4y ago
  This web page claims that the different frequencies of photosynthetically active light can cause different reactions in plants: https://www.voltlighting.com/grow/best-light-spectrum-plant-growth https://www.voltlighting.com/grow/best-light-spectrum-plant-...
  - ninefathom 4y ago
    That, too. But it's also much easier to sell plants that look the right color to people perusing them. Ever see a commercial or resale garden center using fuchsia-tinted grow lights? No? That's because they're out of business.
    - mediaman 4y ago
      The plants look terrible when the light is on, for sure. But I know of plenty of commercial greenhouses that use them prior to shipping to retail.
      - ninefathom 4y ago
        That's assuming a wholesaler business that ships to retail. There are plenty of us out there who actually let people - even commercial customers - into our greenhouses in person. Until this development by Cree, all of our viable options for LED lighting were huge pains in the posterior (hence I'm still on fluorescent). This is much much simpler, and will definitely accelerate my own switch to LED. In a way, you might say that until now, LED grow lighting was only feasible on a very very large scale, or a very small scale, and the medium-sized local nurseries and greenhouses were just out of luck. Cree seems to have changed that.
- TD-Linux 4y ago
  The red content is intended to be supplied by a separate red LED. A red LED produces red much more efficiently than the phosphor on a white LED, so it saves power to leave red out entirely if you know it will be paired with red.
foobarian 4y ago
Iirc chlorophyll has 2 very distinct absorption peaks [1] so it should be possible to design lights that target those frequencies. But knowing how LEDs work and the hacks with wavelength adjustment we use with phosphorus and others I’m sure it’s not easy. [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Chlorophyll_Absorption_Spectrum.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Chloroph...
- tiagod 4y ago
  Cree acknowledges this in the link, listing "Reduce complicated spectral analysis" as a feature, implying its just an easier way to achieve what is already done with multiple LEDs working together.
- mytailorisrich 4y ago
  I mix 6000K/6500K (daylight) LED strips with 2700K (warm white) ones and plants seem very happy about it and it is OK for humans, too. In fact I previously used only 6000K LED strips (in an insulated box so no other light at all) on cycad and other seeds and got very healthy plants. I think the key for commercial applications like vertical farms is to optimise energy use by trying not to waste electricity on wavelengths that won't do much to boost production.
  - westurner 4y ago
    UV Ultraviolet light (UV-A, UV-B, and UV-C,) and near-UV "antimicrobial violet light" are sanitizing radiation. Natural sunlight sanitizes because the radiation from the sun includes UV-* band radiation that is sufficient to radiate organic cells at this distance. EM light/radiation intensity decreases as a function of the square of the distance from the light source (though what about superfluidic wave functions and accretion discs and microscopic black hole interiors (every 30km by one estimate) and Lagrangian points,). "Inverse-square law" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law Ultraviolet: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet > Short-wave ultraviolet light damages DNA and sterilizes surfaces with which it comes into contact. For humans, suntan and sunburn are familiar effects of exposure of the skin to UV light, along with an increased risk of skin cancer. The amount of UV light produced by the Sun means that the Earth would not be able to sustain life on dry land if most of that light were not filtered out by the atmosphere. [2] More energetic, shorter-wavelength "extreme" UV below 121 nm ionizes air so strongly that it is absorbed before it reaches the ground. [3] However, ultraviolet light (specifically, UVB) is also responsible for the formation of vitamin D in most land vertebrates, including humans. [4] The UV spectrum, thus, has effects both beneficial and harmful to life. Ultraviolet > Solar ultraviolet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet#Solar_ultraviolet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet#Solar_ultraviolet > The atmosphere blocks about 77% of the Sun's UV, when the Sun is highest in the sky (at zenith), with absorption increasing at shorter UV wavelengths. At ground level with the sun at zenith, sunlight is 44% visible light, 3% ultraviolet, and the remainder infrared. [23][24] Of the ultraviolet radiation that reaches the Earth's surface, more than 95% is the longer wavelengths of UVA, with the small remainder UVB. Almost no UVC reaches the Earth's surface. [25] The fraction of UVB which remains in UV radiation after passing through the atmosphere is heavily dependent on cloud cover and atmospheric conditions. On "partly cloudy" days, [...] (Infrared light ~is heat. There's usually plenty of waste heat from mechanical friction, exothermic chemical processes with gravity, lossy AC-DC conversion, and electronic components that waste energy/electron_field_disturbance//thermions/heat like steaming water towers sans superconducting channels wide enough for electrons to not start tunneling out without a ground or a negative) Ultraviolet > Human health-related effects > harmful effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet#Harmful_effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet#Harmful_effects UV-A and UV-B protective eyewear (U6 polycarbonate) can be purchased in bulk. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=uvb+ansi+z87+glasses+20+pairs https://www.amazon.com/s?k=uvb+ansi+z87+glasses+20+pairs
swayvil 4y ago
I bought some grow lights last year. Monios. Lightweight. Hang 4' strip on string. Miracle of economic design. A finely tuned spectrum. Blazing fuchsia. Like aliens are landing. Plants like em.
- agentwiggles 4y ago
  Those are remarkably inexpensive!
ninefathom 4y ago
Three words: About. F*king. Time. Anybody in horticulture or botany knows what a BFD this is. Anybody else... it's major. Those of you wondering about the green spectrum, try running a commercial greenhouse with fuchsia-tinted lighting. You'll have a paradise of lush, happy plants that never go anywhere (i.e. they won't sell).
- JohnJamesRambo 4y ago
  Haha why don’t they sell?
  - ninefathom 4y ago
    Because humans are visual creatures, and we like our plant leaves green, and our flowers bright. Rephrased, just like in cooking, presentation is very important in commercial agriculture and horticulture, too. People hesitate to buy things that don't look like they expect. Nothing Cree is doing here hasn't been done before in terms of plant growth, but they've made it hella easier to have a horticultural/agricultural LED installation that fits seamlessly into existing business processes with minimal headache.
    - Grothendank 4y ago
      I think that this will impact interior and home decor as well. Here we want light that will render colors well and be healthy for plants and humans alike. But this was often expensive (thinking of Metal Halide lamps) or compromised on human comfort (thinking of Flourescent grow lamps). Cree has made it more affordable and healthy to bring living plants into human spaces as a general rule. Which is very exciting from a design perspective!
    - JohnJamesRambo 4y ago
      Oh I see. I thought you meant they wouldn’t sell when moved to natural lighting because the plants were less healthy or looked weird.
- tpmx 4y ago
lloydatkinson 4y ago
I wonder if we can get our hands on this, as hobbyists and not a giant factory.
- nathanvanfleet 4y ago
  Try Amazon
- dwater 4y ago
  Cree is a part supplier to loads of manufacturers of commercial products. You can add Cree as a search term when looking for high quality LED lighting (and you'll get lots of knockoffs depending on where you're looking).
- genmud 4y ago
  Digi-Key stocks CREE stuff, looks like they even have this product [1]. Obviously you need to roll your own board, or hand solder/wire them but that wouldn’t be too difficult. 1 - https://www.digikey.com/short/97452z74 https://www.digikey.com/short/97452z74
  - metadaemon 4y ago
    Thank you! Been looking for good lights to start a small vertical farming setup.
- AngryData 4y ago
  I have yet to see a horticultural LED that cannot be bought by regular people. The indoor grow market, especially for cannabis, is humongous. If you can buy them in 10,000 piece lots as a business, they will have no problem offloading them to lower level consumers for a decent markup. Ive made a lot of money myself sticking bare LEDs to chunks of extruded aluminum heatsink and reselling them to growers, and even that makes me feel like im ripping them off because it is so dead simple to do yourself.
- DiabloD3 4y ago
  Digikey, Mouser, etc, all carry Cree parts. Rapidled.com also carries all the important parts used for DIY grow lamps, and probably will end up carrying them when they get released.
rgmerk 4y ago
While these might be new to Cree’s offerings, LED grow lights have been widely available for a few years now. They’re even used in “vertical farms” to grow herbs (other than cannabis) hydroponically indoors, exclusively in artificial light, with very little human intervention: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jun/10/ocado-invests-in-vertical-farms https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jun/10/ocado-inves... Pick the sci-fi scenario of choice here, the tech exists and is economically viable, at least for high value crops that place a very high premium on freshness.
- deltarholamda 4y ago
  They are new to Cree, who is a more mainstream manufacturer. The growlights that power the vertical farms (which are, let's be honest, mostly weed farms) come from vendors (e.g. Fluence) that are more specialized, and therefore are fairly expensive. About $1500 per 4x4 foot grow area, last prices I saw. I dunno if this will ever be economically feasible outside of high-value crops. A Spyder rig from Fluence draws about 630W. But yep, it is at least a step forward, and way better than the weird fluorescent/MH/HID options.
  - rgmerk 4y ago
    My point on the "sci-fi scenarios" was more for crewed exploration and settlement of space in the medium and long term future. While there are plenty of other reasons to be skeptical about that, the ability to supply them with some fresh food without requiring magic biotechnology is certainly one barrier crossed off the list.
  - zokier 4y ago
    I think you might be confusing lighting fixtures (what fluence makes) vs actual leds (what cree does). I suspect fluence is probably using osram leds for their products.
    - DiabloD3 4y ago
      IIRC Osram bought Fluence, so they're all Osram now.
etrautmann 4y ago
PPF = Photosynthetic Photon Flux, in case you're curious like I was.
Zak 4y ago
The new development here seems to be that these are white LEDs that can be specced in terms of blue/green ratio, rather than metrics based around human vision (color temperature, tint, and color rendering index). Cree and other manufacturers have been offering horticulture-specific LEDs for some time, both red/blue and red/blue-weighted white like these. Here are some of their competitors: Samsung: https://www.samsung.com/led/lighting/applications/horticulture-lighting/ https://www.samsung.com/led/lighting/applications/horticultu... Osram: https://www.osram.com/os/applications/horticulture-lighting/index.jsp https://www.osram.com/os/applications/horticulture-lighting/... Nichia: https://led-ld.nichia.co.jp/en/product/lighting_hortisolis.html https://led-ld.nichia.co.jp/en/product/lighting_hortisolis.h...
- nomel 4y ago
  What's the benefit of white vs narrowband leds?
  - Retric 4y ago
    Benefits of white is it looks more natural for people buying/inspecting plants, think aquariums etc. Benefits of narrower band LEDs is it’s more energy efficient and cheaper, think indoor lettuce / pot farms.
    - dylan604 4y ago
      I tried using these lights when I moved my plants into the garage one winter. The light from the blue/red is so harsh on the eyes. I totally hated it. I get the zero energy wasted on the light the plants don't need/don't use, but after that I assume that the savings from using LEDs was way more than the old full spectrum hot lamps so emitting more human friendly light is well worth it to me.
      - seszett 4y ago
        In my greenhouse I use half white, half blue/red lights. The resulting colour is not uncomfortable, and I can just turn off the blue/red lights when I want to inspect the plants in white light. To be honest though, I have no idea whether it saves a noticeable amount of energy compared to using just white lights.
FounderBurr 4y ago
Cree has to be one of the most abused brand names in the history of commerce. I’d love to find out how they manage that and stay on top.
- Maursault 4y ago
  > I'd love to find out how they managed to stay on top. Me too. "In May 2019, [Cree] sold its Lighting Products division to Ideal Industries... In March 2021, the company sold its LED Business to SMART Global Holdings for up to $300 million... In October 2021, the company changed its name to Wolfspeed."[1] I'm pretty confused by this announcement. How is "Cree" doing anything, when their name changed to Wolfspeed and they no longer have a lighting products or LED business? What gives? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfspeed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfspeed
  - tarheels100 4y ago
    I grant you, it is a confusing time line, but let me clear this up. Cree sold its consumer lighting products business (think LED light bulbs with "Cree" stamped on them) to Ideal Industries. Then, as the company expanded into other semiconductor areas, they rebranded as Wolfspeed. Finally, Wolfspeed sold the LED components division (think tiny LED chips that go into products) to SGH, effectively spinning it off as a new company called "Cree-LED".
    - Grothendank 4y ago
      How in god's name do you obtain this kind of intel? Putting together these kinds of corporate merger/acquisition narratives is always a major pain for me!
      - tarheels100 4y ago
        Being in the industry helps. Not that this is privileged information, but it would be a bit difficult to figure out from the outside.
jjeaff 4y ago
I think it is a pretty cool fact that because of the ability to use LED lights in this manner where they emit only the ranges of light wavelengths that are beneficial to plants, you can actually capture sunlight with solar panels. Convert that light to electricity. Then re-emit that electricity as light through these narrow range LEDs as well as store it and emit it over longer periods of time. You actually end up with more plant growth than would be possible if the plants were directly in the sun.
- ozcap 4y ago
  That wouldn’t be possible to get a higher output of the suns energy after going through a solar panel as well as a lighting circuit. Plants benefit more from the intensity of light rather than a slightly preferable spectrum.
  - marmadukester39 4y ago
    Is this true?
    - camtarn 4y ago
      The bit about plants benefitting more from intensity is, as far as I understand it, false - plants are only sensitive to light in fairly narrow wavelengths, which is why grow lights aren't necessarily white. (Source: partner is a professional horticulturist who sourced grow lights for the botanic gardens he works at) However, GP may be right about the conversion efficiency destroying any gains that you might get from re-emitting light in only those wavelengths. The energy conversion efficiency of even the most efficient LEDs seems to only be about 50%, with the rest emitted as heat. (Source: just a quick Google, so take with a grain of salt) And then you've got the solar panel efficiency on top of that, plus any necessary voltage conversion. Definitely quite a tough ask.
  - jjeaff 4y ago
    I don't think you are correct here. It may vary by plant species, but plants grown under grow lights in the correct spectrum grow significantly faster than a control plant in direct sunlight.
anarajpur524 4y ago
AngryData 4y ago
Im surprised by the number of people here that didn't know Cree has been making horticultural lights for years or know that there are multiple other companies making high performance horticultural lights for many years. I was building grow panels and lighting setups for cannabis years ago to get people off from using shitty blurple LEDS or shitty sodium bulbs or florescent bulbs and whatever other super inefficient garbage that people have been buying. I find it incredibly sad so many companies are scamming people selling 20+ year old lighting tech for plant growth. Oh sure they save 20% on initial setup costs, only to pay multiple times more than that "savings" in energy costs the first year alone.
- DiabloD3 4y ago
  Cree hasn't sold one tuned just for agriculture. Instead, people have been using two specific CRI90 variants of the CXB3590, which are quite generic (but the highest PPF/watt on the market until these new ones).
quirkot 4y ago
Wanna see a whole boatload of LED companies making lights for horticulture? Here is a list of 117 firms that will have booths at the upcoming MJBizCon (cannabis convention): https://mjbiz22.mapyourshow.com/8_0/explore/exhibitor-categories-parent.cfm/#/show/cat-exhibitorcategoriesparents|17 https://mjbiz22.mapyourshow.com/8_0/explore/exhibitor-catego...
EricE 4y ago
Horticulture - ha! Just call it what it is for - weed!
- steve_adams_86 4y ago
  I don't actually know anyone who bothers growing cannabis with their setups. I see it online, but mostly I see people who just like growing flowers, herbs, cucumbers, lettuce, etc. At the industrial scale I know cannabis is a significant driver of light sales, but I suspect growing food is a huge driver as well.
socialismisok 4y ago
I've had nothing but terrible experiences with cree bulbs, often lasting less than a year.
j_m_b 4y ago
LED growlights have been commonly available for years. I was using them a decade ago for horticulture. I don't see how an LED company could even NOT be making them. The cannabis industry alone is huge. Seems like Cree is very behind the 8ball in this space if they are just now entering the market.
- youngNed 4y ago
  > very behind the 8ball in this space if... This doesn't make sense. Being 'very behind' the 8ball is no disadvantage.
TheCowboy 4y ago
Question for anyone. I tried researching grow lights and I found mixed information regarding UV emissions. It seemed like maybe some or all grow lights emit UV based on some sources, and then other sources don't mention it at all. Ideally, it would be nice to have a grow light that doesn't emit UV so I don't have to worry about eye protection and could have the light in common spaces. This is just for 'normal' house plants during winter, not for growing anything for consumption.
lightedman 4y ago
After over a decade of me griping at them to get it done. They're late to the game and adjusted color range and adjustable color temp lighting has been done for over half a decade. And Cree doesnt even manufacture their own stuff. You cant guarantee quality control, as I recently learned with their XHP35 series. Different color temps come from different manufacturers and the difference in quality of the top cover is drastic. One set, just touching the top cover causes the silicone to shear away, the other, you can rub and bump, nothing happens to the silicone. I'm not exactly impressed, here.
DiabloD3 4y ago
Finally. People have been using Cree CXB3590 3000k CRI90 for flowering, 5000k CRI90 for veg for top tier grow rigs for a while now, nice for Cree to recognize that. Also, they quote "up to 3.25 PPF/watt", which is kind of unheard of. That'd make it the most efficient product on the market by a rather large margin. The highest commercially produced finished products are only hitting between 2.75 and 3.0. Presumably, they're not taking into account efficiency loss from the power supply itself (which would put it closer to 3.0 in reality given your typical Meanwell HLG series PSU that virtually everyone uses).

173 points by milleramp 4y ago

Enterprise grow lights

„By maximizing green content and minimizing red content versus standard lighting LEDs, this LED color enables significant enhancements to luminaire cost and performance.“ I thought plants look green because thats what they reflect? Meaning that the other wavelengths are absorbed for photosynthesis.

genocidicbunny 4y ago
Yeah that seems odd to me. Chlorophyll largely doesn't do anything with 500-600nm wavelengths, and that's where this LED outputs a lot of energy. If this was a bulb that could switch between red and green that might be useful for dealing with day/night cycles for plants, but this LED seems like it just outputs more green light than normal?
- scrumbledober 4y ago
  A graphic on the page notes that these are designed to be used with red 660nm bulbs. A lot of current grow lights are white, blue, and red bulbs. It seems these are aiming to create the blend of blue and white so manufacturers can blend them with red without worrying about the white/blue mix.
- tiagod 4y ago
  Sensitivity of Seven Diverse Species to Blue and Green Light: Interactions with Photon Flux https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0163121 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... >In contrast to the significant effects of blue light, increasing green light in increments from 0 to 30% had a relatively small effect on growth, leaf area and net assimilation at either low or high PPF. Surprisingly, growth of three of the seven species was not reduced by a treatment with 93% green light compared to the broad spectrum treatments. Seems like green light is not useful for all cases, but I would indeed like to know exactly why that's the case.
  - jakedata 4y ago
    It's possible that some green light improves aesthetics.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Nomentatus 4y ago
    There's too much green light in sunlight, so to reduce free radical formation, most plants reflect most green light (something you may have noticed.) Converting light into chemical changes (splitting water, then sugar) without causing a lot of damage from free radicals is not trivial.
    - another2another 4y ago
      >most plants reflect most green light (something you may have noticed.) Subtle !
      - Nomentatus 4y ago
        A joke on myself, too. I swear our associative minds, knowing that peeps who wear green clothes and buy green cars, like and want more green; decide plants aren't rejecting green light (the obvious physics) but that they must want, love and use green light. An error I made myself until fairly recently.
reportingsjr 4y ago
This web page claims that the different frequencies of photosynthetically active light can cause different reactions in plants: https://www.voltlighting.com/grow/best-light-spectrum-plant-growth https://www.voltlighting.com/grow/best-light-spectrum-plant-...
- ninefathom 4y ago
  That, too. But it's also much easier to sell plants that look the right color to people perusing them. Ever see a commercial or resale garden center using fuchsia-tinted grow lights? No? That's because they're out of business.
  - mediaman 4y ago
    The plants look terrible when the light is on, for sure. But I know of plenty of commercial greenhouses that use them prior to shipping to retail.
    - ninefathom 4y ago
      That's assuming a wholesaler business that ships to retail. There are plenty of us out there who actually let people - even commercial customers - into our greenhouses in person. Until this development by Cree, all of our viable options for LED lighting were huge pains in the posterior (hence I'm still on fluorescent). This is much much simpler, and will definitely accelerate my own switch to LED. In a way, you might say that until now, LED grow lighting was only feasible on a very very large scale, or a very small scale, and the medium-sized local nurseries and greenhouses were just out of luck. Cree seems to have changed that.
TD-Linux 4y ago
The red content is intended to be supplied by a separate red LED. A red LED produces red much more efficiently than the phosphor on a white LED, so it saves power to leave red out entirely if you know it will be paired with red.

foobarian 4y ago

Iirc chlorophyll has 2 very distinct absorption peaks [1] so it should be possible to design lights that target those frequencies. But knowing how LEDs work and the hacks with wavelength adjustment we use with phosphorus and others I’m sure it’s not easy. [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Chlorophyll_Absorption_Spectrum.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Chloroph...

tiagod 4y ago
Cree acknowledges this in the link, listing "Reduce complicated spectral analysis" as a feature, implying its just an easier way to achieve what is already done with multiple LEDs working together.
mytailorisrich 4y ago
I mix 6000K/6500K (daylight) LED strips with 2700K (warm white) ones and plants seem very happy about it and it is OK for humans, too. In fact I previously used only 6000K LED strips (in an insulated box so no other light at all) on cycad and other seeds and got very healthy plants. I think the key for commercial applications like vertical farms is to optimise energy use by trying not to waste electricity on wavelengths that won't do much to boost production.
- westurner 4y ago
  UV Ultraviolet light (UV-A, UV-B, and UV-C,) and near-UV "antimicrobial violet light" are sanitizing radiation. Natural sunlight sanitizes because the radiation from the sun includes UV-* band radiation that is sufficient to radiate organic cells at this distance. EM light/radiation intensity decreases as a function of the square of the distance from the light source (though what about superfluidic wave functions and accretion discs and microscopic black hole interiors (every 30km by one estimate) and Lagrangian points,). "Inverse-square law" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law Ultraviolet: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet > Short-wave ultraviolet light damages DNA and sterilizes surfaces with which it comes into contact. For humans, suntan and sunburn are familiar effects of exposure of the skin to UV light, along with an increased risk of skin cancer. The amount of UV light produced by the Sun means that the Earth would not be able to sustain life on dry land if most of that light were not filtered out by the atmosphere. [2] More energetic, shorter-wavelength "extreme" UV below 121 nm ionizes air so strongly that it is absorbed before it reaches the ground. [3] However, ultraviolet light (specifically, UVB) is also responsible for the formation of vitamin D in most land vertebrates, including humans. [4] The UV spectrum, thus, has effects both beneficial and harmful to life. Ultraviolet > Solar ultraviolet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet#Solar_ultraviolet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet#Solar_ultraviolet > The atmosphere blocks about 77% of the Sun's UV, when the Sun is highest in the sky (at zenith), with absorption increasing at shorter UV wavelengths. At ground level with the sun at zenith, sunlight is 44% visible light, 3% ultraviolet, and the remainder infrared. [23][24] Of the ultraviolet radiation that reaches the Earth's surface, more than 95% is the longer wavelengths of UVA, with the small remainder UVB. Almost no UVC reaches the Earth's surface. [25] The fraction of UVB which remains in UV radiation after passing through the atmosphere is heavily dependent on cloud cover and atmospheric conditions. On "partly cloudy" days, [...] (Infrared light ~is heat. There's usually plenty of waste heat from mechanical friction, exothermic chemical processes with gravity, lossy AC-DC conversion, and electronic components that waste energy/electron_field_disturbance//thermions/heat like steaming water towers sans superconducting channels wide enough for electrons to not start tunneling out without a ground or a negative) Ultraviolet > Human health-related effects > harmful effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet#Harmful_effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet#Harmful_effects UV-A and UV-B protective eyewear (U6 polycarbonate) can be purchased in bulk. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=uvb+ansi+z87+glasses+20+pairs https://www.amazon.com/s?k=uvb+ansi+z87+glasses+20+pairs

swayvil 4y ago

I bought some grow lights last year. Monios. Lightweight. Hang 4' strip on string. Miracle of economic design. A finely tuned spectrum. Blazing fuchsia. Like aliens are landing. Plants like em.

agentwiggles 4y ago
Those are remarkably inexpensive!

ninefathom 4y ago

Three words: About. F*king. Time. Anybody in horticulture or botany knows what a BFD this is. Anybody else... it's major. Those of you wondering about the green spectrum, try running a commercial greenhouse with fuchsia-tinted lighting. You'll have a paradise of lush, happy plants that never go anywhere (i.e. they won't sell).

JohnJamesRambo 4y ago
Haha why don’t they sell?
- ninefathom 4y ago
  Because humans are visual creatures, and we like our plant leaves green, and our flowers bright. Rephrased, just like in cooking, presentation is very important in commercial agriculture and horticulture, too. People hesitate to buy things that don't look like they expect. Nothing Cree is doing here hasn't been done before in terms of plant growth, but they've made it hella easier to have a horticultural/agricultural LED installation that fits seamlessly into existing business processes with minimal headache.
  - Grothendank 4y ago
    I think that this will impact interior and home decor as well. Here we want light that will render colors well and be healthy for plants and humans alike. But this was often expensive (thinking of Metal Halide lamps) or compromised on human comfort (thinking of Flourescent grow lamps). Cree has made it more affordable and healthy to bring living plants into human spaces as a general rule. Which is very exciting from a design perspective!
  - JohnJamesRambo 4y ago
    Oh I see. I thought you meant they wouldn’t sell when moved to natural lighting because the plants were less healthy or looked weird.
tpmx 4y ago

lloydatkinson 4y ago

I wonder if we can get our hands on this, as hobbyists and not a giant factory.

nathanvanfleet 4y ago
Try Amazon
dwater 4y ago
Cree is a part supplier to loads of manufacturers of commercial products. You can add Cree as a search term when looking for high quality LED lighting (and you'll get lots of knockoffs depending on where you're looking).
genmud 4y ago
Digi-Key stocks CREE stuff, looks like they even have this product [1]. Obviously you need to roll your own board, or hand solder/wire them but that wouldn’t be too difficult. 1 - https://www.digikey.com/short/97452z74 https://www.digikey.com/short/97452z74
- metadaemon 4y ago
  Thank you! Been looking for good lights to start a small vertical farming setup.
AngryData 4y ago
I have yet to see a horticultural LED that cannot be bought by regular people. The indoor grow market, especially for cannabis, is humongous. If you can buy them in 10,000 piece lots as a business, they will have no problem offloading them to lower level consumers for a decent markup. Ive made a lot of money myself sticking bare LEDs to chunks of extruded aluminum heatsink and reselling them to growers, and even that makes me feel like im ripping them off because it is so dead simple to do yourself.
DiabloD3 4y ago
Digikey, Mouser, etc, all carry Cree parts. Rapidled.com also carries all the important parts used for DIY grow lamps, and probably will end up carrying them when they get released.

rgmerk 4y ago

While these might be new to Cree’s offerings, LED grow lights have been widely available for a few years now. They’re even used in “vertical farms” to grow herbs (other than cannabis) hydroponically indoors, exclusively in artificial light, with very little human intervention: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jun/10/ocado-invests-in-vertical-farms https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jun/10/ocado-inves... Pick the sci-fi scenario of choice here, the tech exists and is economically viable, at least for high value crops that place a very high premium on freshness.

deltarholamda 4y ago
They are new to Cree, who is a more mainstream manufacturer. The growlights that power the vertical farms (which are, let's be honest, mostly weed farms) come from vendors (e.g. Fluence) that are more specialized, and therefore are fairly expensive. About $1500 per 4x4 foot grow area, last prices I saw. I dunno if this will ever be economically feasible outside of high-value crops. A Spyder rig from Fluence draws about 630W. But yep, it is at least a step forward, and way better than the weird fluorescent/MH/HID options.
- rgmerk 4y ago
  My point on the "sci-fi scenarios" was more for crewed exploration and settlement of space in the medium and long term future. While there are plenty of other reasons to be skeptical about that, the ability to supply them with some fresh food without requiring magic biotechnology is certainly one barrier crossed off the list.
- zokier 4y ago
  I think you might be confusing lighting fixtures (what fluence makes) vs actual leds (what cree does). I suspect fluence is probably using osram leds for their products.
  - DiabloD3 4y ago
    IIRC Osram bought Fluence, so they're all Osram now.

etrautmann 4y ago

PPF = Photosynthetic Photon Flux, in case you're curious like I was.

Zak 4y ago

The new development here seems to be that these are white LEDs that can be specced in terms of blue/green ratio, rather than metrics based around human vision (color temperature, tint, and color rendering index). Cree and other manufacturers have been offering horticulture-specific LEDs for some time, both red/blue and red/blue-weighted white like these. Here are some of their competitors: Samsung: https://www.samsung.com/led/lighting/applications/horticulture-lighting/ https://www.samsung.com/led/lighting/applications/horticultu... Osram: https://www.osram.com/os/applications/horticulture-lighting/index.jsp https://www.osram.com/os/applications/horticulture-lighting/... Nichia: https://led-ld.nichia.co.jp/en/product/lighting_hortisolis.html https://led-ld.nichia.co.jp/en/product/lighting_hortisolis.h...

nomel 4y ago
What's the benefit of white vs narrowband leds?
- Retric 4y ago
  Benefits of white is it looks more natural for people buying/inspecting plants, think aquariums etc. Benefits of narrower band LEDs is it’s more energy efficient and cheaper, think indoor lettuce / pot farms.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    I tried using these lights when I moved my plants into the garage one winter. The light from the blue/red is so harsh on the eyes. I totally hated it. I get the zero energy wasted on the light the plants don't need/don't use, but after that I assume that the savings from using LEDs was way more than the old full spectrum hot lamps so emitting more human friendly light is well worth it to me.
    - seszett 4y ago
      In my greenhouse I use half white, half blue/red lights. The resulting colour is not uncomfortable, and I can just turn off the blue/red lights when I want to inspect the plants in white light. To be honest though, I have no idea whether it saves a noticeable amount of energy compared to using just white lights.

FounderBurr 4y ago

Cree has to be one of the most abused brand names in the history of commerce. I’d love to find out how they manage that and stay on top.

Maursault 4y ago
> I'd love to find out how they managed to stay on top. Me too. "In May 2019, [Cree] sold its Lighting Products division to Ideal Industries... In March 2021, the company sold its LED Business to SMART Global Holdings for up to $300 million... In October 2021, the company changed its name to Wolfspeed."[1] I'm pretty confused by this announcement. How is "Cree" doing anything, when their name changed to Wolfspeed and they no longer have a lighting products or LED business? What gives? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfspeed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfspeed
- tarheels100 4y ago
  I grant you, it is a confusing time line, but let me clear this up. Cree sold its consumer lighting products business (think LED light bulbs with "Cree" stamped on them) to Ideal Industries. Then, as the company expanded into other semiconductor areas, they rebranded as Wolfspeed. Finally, Wolfspeed sold the LED components division (think tiny LED chips that go into products) to SGH, effectively spinning it off as a new company called "Cree-LED".
  - Grothendank 4y ago
    How in god's name do you obtain this kind of intel? Putting together these kinds of corporate merger/acquisition narratives is always a major pain for me!
    - tarheels100 4y ago
      Being in the industry helps. Not that this is privileged information, but it would be a bit difficult to figure out from the outside.

jjeaff 4y ago

I think it is a pretty cool fact that because of the ability to use LED lights in this manner where they emit only the ranges of light wavelengths that are beneficial to plants, you can actually capture sunlight with solar panels. Convert that light to electricity. Then re-emit that electricity as light through these narrow range LEDs as well as store it and emit it over longer periods of time. You actually end up with more plant growth than would be possible if the plants were directly in the sun.

ozcap 4y ago
That wouldn’t be possible to get a higher output of the suns energy after going through a solar panel as well as a lighting circuit. Plants benefit more from the intensity of light rather than a slightly preferable spectrum.
- marmadukester39 4y ago
  Is this true?
  - camtarn 4y ago
    The bit about plants benefitting more from intensity is, as far as I understand it, false - plants are only sensitive to light in fairly narrow wavelengths, which is why grow lights aren't necessarily white. (Source: partner is a professional horticulturist who sourced grow lights for the botanic gardens he works at) However, GP may be right about the conversion efficiency destroying any gains that you might get from re-emitting light in only those wavelengths. The energy conversion efficiency of even the most efficient LEDs seems to only be about 50%, with the rest emitted as heat. (Source: just a quick Google, so take with a grain of salt) And then you've got the solar panel efficiency on top of that, plus any necessary voltage conversion. Definitely quite a tough ask.
- jjeaff 4y ago
  I don't think you are correct here. It may vary by plant species, but plants grown under grow lights in the correct spectrum grow significantly faster than a control plant in direct sunlight.

anarajpur524 4y ago

AngryData 4y ago

Im surprised by the number of people here that didn't know Cree has been making horticultural lights for years or know that there are multiple other companies making high performance horticultural lights for many years. I was building grow panels and lighting setups for cannabis years ago to get people off from using shitty blurple LEDS or shitty sodium bulbs or florescent bulbs and whatever other super inefficient garbage that people have been buying. I find it incredibly sad so many companies are scamming people selling 20+ year old lighting tech for plant growth. Oh sure they save 20% on initial setup costs, only to pay multiple times more than that "savings" in energy costs the first year alone.

DiabloD3 4y ago
Cree hasn't sold one tuned just for agriculture. Instead, people have been using two specific CRI90 variants of the CXB3590, which are quite generic (but the highest PPF/watt on the market until these new ones).

quirkot 4y ago

Wanna see a whole boatload of LED companies making lights for horticulture? Here is a list of 117 firms that will have booths at the upcoming MJBizCon (cannabis convention): https://mjbiz22.mapyourshow.com/8_0/explore/exhibitor-categories-parent.cfm/#/show/cat-exhibitorcategoriesparents|17 https://mjbiz22.mapyourshow.com/8_0/explore/exhibitor-catego...

EricE 4y ago

Horticulture - ha! Just call it what it is for - weed!

steve_adams_86 4y ago
I don't actually know anyone who bothers growing cannabis with their setups. I see it online, but mostly I see people who just like growing flowers, herbs, cucumbers, lettuce, etc. At the industrial scale I know cannabis is a significant driver of light sales, but I suspect growing food is a huge driver as well.

socialismisok 4y ago

I've had nothing but terrible experiences with cree bulbs, often lasting less than a year.

j_m_b 4y ago

LED growlights have been commonly available for years. I was using them a decade ago for horticulture. I don't see how an LED company could even NOT be making them. The cannabis industry alone is huge. Seems like Cree is very behind the 8ball in this space if they are just now entering the market.

youngNed 4y ago
> very behind the 8ball in this space if... This doesn't make sense. Being 'very behind' the 8ball is no disadvantage.

TheCowboy 4y ago

Question for anyone. I tried researching grow lights and I found mixed information regarding UV emissions. It seemed like maybe some or all grow lights emit UV based on some sources, and then other sources don't mention it at all. Ideally, it would be nice to have a grow light that doesn't emit UV so I don't have to worry about eye protection and could have the light in common spaces. This is just for 'normal' house plants during winter, not for growing anything for consumption.

lightedman 4y ago

After over a decade of me griping at them to get it done. They're late to the game and adjusted color range and adjustable color temp lighting has been done for over half a decade. And Cree doesnt even manufacture their own stuff. You cant guarantee quality control, as I recently learned with their XHP35 series. Different color temps come from different manufacturers and the difference in quality of the top cover is drastic. One set, just touching the top cover causes the silicone to shear away, the other, you can rub and bump, nothing happens to the silicone. I'm not exactly impressed, here.

DiabloD3 4y ago

Finally. People have been using Cree CXB3590 3000k CRI90 for flowering, 5000k CRI90 for veg for top tier grow rigs for a while now, nice for Cree to recognize that. Also, they quote "up to 3.25 PPF/watt", which is kind of unheard of. That'd make it the most efficient product on the market by a rather large margin. The highest commercially produced finished products are only hitting between 2.75 and 3.0. Presumably, they're not taking into account efficiency loss from the power supply itself (which would put it closer to 3.0 in reality given your typical Meanwell HLG series PSU that virtually everyone uses).