One aspect of our modern world we cannot live without is light. We crave for natural lighting all the time but what is essential in today’s non-stop world is light when the sun does not provide it—at night, since we now fill our days into night with activity—and light indoors where natural light cant reach—since modern architecture and the cities we build hardly every sleep.
All this lighting we needed, other than the sun’s, we got from a series of technologies that started from the bonfire and progressed to candles, torches, lanterns, gas lights and finally electric light. We can thank Thomas Alva Edison for inventing the light bulb, a quantum leap over any of the previous technologies. It meant accessible lighting for millions and eventually billions.
Over the last century we have used this technology with relatively small levels of improvement from the original. Regular light bulbs were augmented by more efficient fluorescent lighting and in the last decade we’ve had compact fluorescent lights or CFL’s (which are funny looking but more efficient).
Today, we are at the brink of making another shift—to LED lighting. Everyone is making this quantum leap and the technology ahs spread so fast that the market is flooded with manufacturers and suppliers of LED lighting, with brands (from China and other manufacturing countries) being sold at amazingly low prices compared to a few years ago. The only problem is that the price is offset by a lack of quality and many who purchased and installed these fixtures are now regretting the choice.
My motto is you get what you pay for and lighting is an investment that one should make wisely. As with all important things, get the best and most reliable brand from a company with an established track record.
Thomas Edison went into the business of making electrical appliances after inventing the incandescent electric lamp in 1876. In 1890 he and his partners formed the General Electric Company. Today’s GE traces its roots back 132 years ago. It has never looked back in terms of innovation and the fact is that a GE scientist helped discover the 1st LED used for lighting purposes.
LED stands for light emitting diode. It tool several decades of development from those funny red numbers in your old calculators to the efficient and low-energy fixtures we have today. That development route was necessary and a company like GE took the time and expense for this development to create LED lighting products that have a tiny .05% defect ratio from over 25million linear feet of LED in the US and counting.
Over 50 system failures can happen in LED – and GE has solved all of them, much like Edison did when he tried hundreds of prototypes before he got the right light bulb.
GE’s product range in LEDs covers applications in architectural lighting (from lighting up house facades to entire building complexes), indoor and outdoor lighting and signage lighting. They have also made themselves a niche in street and highway lighting, something that they have historically been doing all these years.
GE’s history with the Philippines goes a long way too, over half a century in fact. The lighting around the famed Luneta was GE (as shown in an archival picture with this article). Their landmark lighting continues to this day, as seen in the lighting of Burnham Park in Baguio. It makes the park a great place to visit in the evenings. Internationally, GE has recently lit a global icon, the London Bridge. The bridge was seen by billions recently because of the Olympics.
You don’t have to be an Olympian to have gold-medal quality in lighting. The innovation continues with GE’s new LED replacements for the popular LFL, those long fluorescent lights we are so familiar with but for which we always have to change. The new GE is so much more efficient and long lasting… and will fit the original holder, so you do not need to spend for replacing anything but the lighting fixture. GE’s new LEDs also can replace your CFL (compact fluorescent lights). Lighting quality does not change when shifting to LEDs and cost saving accrue to you if you do indeed shift.
LED is a terrific technology. The shift is happening as we speak but it is a shift that needs to be done with quality in mind. Lighting is very important in our daily modern lives. We all need to get the best lighting technology and products that are energy efficient and attractive at the same time. Our lighting, especially in these times of climate change and disaster mitigation, is all the more important. You don’t want to have to turn on the light when you need it and get only darkness.
The bright idea is to go GE. Its founding father, Edison, said. “I find out what the world needs. Then, I go ahead and invent it.” Edison’s creation led to continuing innovation and invention, which sees GE leading to this day in lighting and LEDs. There’s no going wrong with a company built on leadership and genius.
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Feedback is welcome. Please email the writer at paulo.alcazaren@gmail.com.
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GE Lighting’s authorized distributor for LED is CYA Industries, Inc. (tel. 643-3456 loc. 401 to 403, 631-8282, 945-9627). For more information log on to their website at: www.cyaindustries.com