new led technology

[orchidphile]

Hi, everyone. I was watching Roger's Orchids on youtube today (Septeber 23). In his Sunday chat, he demonstrates a type of l.e.d. that he says is totally new. It's a black box with a round circle of led lights. When he turned it on, I couldn't believe how it lit up the whole room. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any more information about it in the video. Does anyone know more about this type of light, whether it has a special name, and where you can get one?

[Ray]

Looks to me like a COB LED to which they've attached a dispersing lens.

Unless there is info out there that tells me otherwise, I will not accept that a single, 50 watt lamp can provide sufficient illumination for an entire room of that size.

To the human eye, it might seem very bright, but eyes adjust quite well, while plants do not.

Looking at it scientifically, about the best LEDs out there today put out under 200 lumens per watt. If we use 200, then that's a 10,000 lumen lamp - at its source. Then you add a lens to disperse it over a true hemisphere, and the surfaces it's trying to illuminate - the leaves - are what? - 6 feet away. I doubt there's enough light to qualify as "supplemental" under that arrangement.

[orchidphile]

Is there a better option for a supplemental light? It looks like this company (which I have since discovered is Gemma, based in Sweden) has a variety of sizes, all with the lens to diffuse the light. I have a sun room with very large windows and four skylights, but the skylights face northeast, and the only wall that gets direct sunlight, the southeast wall, has heavy tree cover. When the leaves are off the trees or the trees are not fully leafed out, the light is quite wonderful--very bright, but filtered. In the summer, the higher light plants go outside. The problem is the dark days in autumn and winter, especially before the trees have dropped their leaves. I'm hoping to find something that will allow me to flip one switch to get supplemental light for all the plants. The spotlights I'm using now are a pain, as they don't cover enough area and there is very little room to hang them, what with all the glass.

[plantzzzzz]

I think that anything bright enough to do what you seem to want will be very uncomfortable to have inside your home, and also very annoying to anyone walking by your house. The only option is probably many low(er) power lights hanging directly over your plants.

Gemma LEDs are way too expensive for what they are, there are better companies selling the same stuff in the USA (Timber, Horticultural Lighting Group, etc.). They are sending orchid youtubers free stuff in exchange for reviews. It seems like Roger depends on his channel as a source of income.

[estación seca]

Light decreases with the square of the distance from the source. You won't be able to have one light source good for all the plants without an enormous electricity bill for the light and for cooling the light. You will need to have multiple lights over the plants - light strips or individual lamps.