LIGHTING DEVICE

• US 20120025740A1
• Filed: 03/30/2010
• Published: 02/02/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 04/08/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Signify Holding B.V. (Signify N.V.)
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Inventors: Schenk, Tim Corneel Wilhelmus, Deixler, Peter, Feri, Lorenzo
• Granted Patent: US 9,131,550 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 315/312
• CPC Class Codes: H05B 45/59 for reducing or suppressing flicker or glow effects
• CPC Class Codes: H05B 47/19 via wireless transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H05B 47/22 with communication between the lamps and a central unit

Abstract

It is presented a lighting device (2) arranged to embed light quality data in light emanating from the lighting device. The light quality data pertains to a status of the lighting device (2), e.g. with respect to its end of operational life. The light may be detected by a monitoring device (3) external to the lighting device (2). The monitoring device (3) can then help to determine the status of the lighting device (2), whereby maintenance operations of the lighting device (2) may be carried out.

Maintenance personnel may thus replace lighting devices and/or light sources in need of maintenance as indicated by the status of each lighting device, before any lighting device in the system has reached an end of operational life.

Claims

1. A lighting device comprising:

at least one light source,

circuitry for establishing a status of said lighting device, and

a controller arranged to control a light output of said at least one light source based on said status, thereby embedding light quality data pertaining to said status into light emanating from said lighting device.

2. The lighting device as claimed in claim 1, wherein said light quality data relates to a number of burning hours of the light source to date.

3. The lighting device as claimed in claim 1, wherein said circuitry comprises a memory having a data structure in which the number of burning hours to date of said light source is associated with an expected light output power for said burning hours, and wherein said light quality data pertains to said expected output power.

4. The lighting device as claimed in claim 1, wherein said light quality data is embedded into said light only after a predetermined number of burning hours of said lighting device.

6. The lighting system as claimed in claim 7, wherein the monitoring device furthercomprises:

a monitoring device communications interface arranged to transmit instructions to said at least one lighting device based on said status of said at least one lighting device.

7. A lighting system comprising:

at least one lighting device claimed in claim 1, and

at least one monitoring device for determining a status of the at least one lighting device, the monitoring device being external to said at least one lighting device and comprising

a sensor arranged to detect incident light from said at least one lighting device, and

a processor arranged to determine said status based on light quality data embedded into said incident light.

8. The lighting system as claimed in claim 7, wherein said at least one monitoring device further comprises:

a monitoring device communications interface arranged to transmit instructions to said at least one lighting device when said status is determined to indicate an end of operational life of said at least one lighting device; and

wherein said at least one lighting device further comprises;

a lighting device communications interface arranged to receive said instructions,

wherein said controller is arranged to control said at least one lighting device in accordance with said instructions.

5. (canceled)

9. A method for facilitating maintenance of a plurality of lighting devices in a lighting system, each lighting device being arranged to emit light in which light quality data pertaining to a lighting device status is embedded, wherein the method comprises:

detecting said light at a monitoring device external to said plurality of lighting devices, and determining, in said monitoring device, said status based on said light quality data.

10. The method as claimed in claim 9, further comprising identifying said plurality of lighting devices.

11. The method as claimed in claim 10, wherein said identifying is based on respective lighting device identifiers embedded into said light for each of the plurality of lighting devices.

12. The method as claimed in claim 11, further comprising providing instructions to at least one lighting device when said determining indicates an end of operational life of said at least one lighting device of said plurality of lighting devices.

13. The method as claimed in claim 12, further comprises presenting, by said at least one lighting device, said status visually of said at least one lighting device.

14. The method as claimed in claim 10, further comprising embedding said light quality data into said light of each of the plurality of lighting devices only upon request from said monitoring device.