The Great Purpling

December 6, 2022 2:57 PM

The sky over the city of Vancouver was the color of a television tuned to a Prince concert. (archive.today link)
posted by Etrigan (51 comments total)

"I find so often that companies don't really know what they're buying," Pecht says. "They're looking at price. It's really a supply-chain-management problem."

That's one reason the purpling could be a big deal. It shines a light on how deeply LEDs, especially the cheap white ones, have become interwoven into the global economy. Sure, Acuity has probably fixed the issue and is replacing all the lights. But what happens next time some company in south China solders something wrong and a wave of broken tech propagates across the planet? It's streetlights this time; next time it could be phones, TVs, medical devices.

How quickly we have forgotten about the bad caps of the early 2000s. There is some suspicion that this was industrial counterespionage on the part of a market-leading manufacturer, much like the scenario in another seminal William Gibson story, "New Rose Hotel."
posted by infinitewindow at 3:07 PM on December 6, 2022 [9 favorites]

More from the LED bulb weirdness file: LEDs from Dubai: The Royal Lights You Can't Buy
posted by mmcg at 3:25 PM on December 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

"Sure, Acuity has probably fixed the issue and is replacing all the lights."

uhhh, I'm not sure about that. I've never seen a purple light replaced here in Vancouver, I'd not be surprised to hear the city is on the hook for them, and intends to do very little about the problem. Luckily they are pretty.
posted by Keith Talent at 3:43 PM on December 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

So poor supply chain management intentionally entered into to reduce costs by off shoring, contracting out and patent avoidance.

Also hardly a new thing even for street lights. I think it was even Acuity that had a problem with starters for sodium lights failing prematurely causing outages and cycling a couple decades ago because they'd moved manufacturing to a cheaper (read low wage and environmental regulation country) place.
posted by Mitheral at 3:47 PM on December 6, 2022 [3 favorites]

Now I just have the "Wooooo hoooo hooo hoo" from Purple Rain in my head. And I thank you for that.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:48 PM on December 6, 2022 [4 favorites]

Wow, that is a lot of words to say cheap bulbs might be less reliable. Imagine!

And I'll take purple over a blinking/cycling sodium vapor streetlight any night of the week.
posted by ryanrs at 3:48 PM on December 6, 2022 [17 favorites]

Are there any studies that compare/contrast insomnia rates in places where LEDs have replaced the old style of light in street lights?
posted by aniola at 3:53 PM on December 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

So people placed worried calls to the city. And after all the hue and cry...

I see what they did there.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:55 PM on December 6, 2022 [8 favorites]

I've never seen a purple light replaced here in Vancouver, I'd not be surprised to hear the city is on the hook for them, and intends to do very little about the problem.

This CBC article says they're still under warranty. I know of at least one in my neighborhood that's been replaced, so hopefully they'll get to the rest eventually ... assuming they don't cut the street light maintenance budget to pay for more cops. :P
posted by Gerald Bostock at 3:58 PM on December 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

Given that the shelves at my local home good store are filled with daylight bulbs, I'd say that people have associated LEDs with "awful blue-tinted light". Purple-tinted light doesn't actually sound that bad, other than it's going to be dimmer.

You should buy these bulbs if possible for your home: The Most Incandescent-like LED out there (Technology Connections, 21+ minutes).
posted by meowzilla at 4:37 PM on December 6, 2022 [4 favorites]

I kinda thought people were exaggerating, because people will complain about anything around here. But this autumn I had reason to be driving downtown in the evening for the first time in a while and I'll be damned if I didn't think, "is there, like, a rave or something?"
posted by Horkus at 4:52 PM on December 6, 2022 [4 favorites]

"...the more romantic, orange glow of sodium vapor."

Romantic?

I have never thought of orange streetlights as "romantic".
posted by clawsoon at 5:18 PM on December 6, 2022 [5 favorites]

The pro move is to spec your own LED lights, so you can choose the exact LED chips. Getting a manufacturing run of 20 custom bulbs made in a Chinese factory costs less than $1,000. This is either really expensive or really cheap, depending on how you look at it.
posted by ryanrs at 5:23 PM on December 6, 2022 [4 favorites]

These lights would be a hit in Baltimore.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:32 PM on December 6, 2022 [4 favorites]

I’m visiting my home town and noticed that half the street lights are purple and was wondering what was going on.
posted by Eddie Mars at 5:37 PM on December 6, 2022

Wow, that is a lot of words to say cheap bulbs might be less reliable. Imagine!

I think the real meat of it is the implication that having cheap outsourcing plus one vendor supplying pretty much everybody can result in waves of bad outcomes ("next time it could be . . . medical devices").
posted by joannemerriam at 5:50 PM on December 6, 2022

No it couldn't. The medical device supply chain is separate from general electronics. Commodity electronic components come with disclaimers prohibiting use in aviation, nuclear, and medical devices where failure can result in injury or death.
posted by ryanrs at 6:38 PM on December 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

Medical device companies go out of business. Example. Lots more if you look.
posted by aniola at 6:43 PM on December 6, 2022

big if true
posted by some loser at 6:45 PM on December 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

Acuity's LEDs aren't the priciest ones out there. But that doesn't mean the company itself caused the problem. According to Acuity's 10-K filing, the company's 19 factories in North America make a few precision components and do assembly. But Acuity outsources the actual LEDs from "third-party vendors" in Asia. Those vendors are typically building products at scale, trying to squeeze out every efficiency they can without infringing on the patents on the high-quality, higher-priced versions. Sometimes that makes for a less-good LED. (Acuity's spokesperson declined to answer questions about the company's LED vendors.)

That kinda makes it sound like these Asian vendors are selling substandard LEDs. The reality is that white LEDs and the high-intensity blue LEDs they are based on, were invented in Japan, and most of the research is happening in Japan, Korea, and China.

Asia cranks out LEDs at scale because they are good at it. Better than the US and Europe.
posted by ryanrs at 7:24 PM on December 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

Buy your LEDs from Cree (US) or Philips (Euro), not Acuity
posted by Rash at 7:25 PM on December 6, 2022

Cree sold their LED manufacturing in 2021.
Philips sold off 80% of their LED business in 2016.
posted by ryanrs at 7:28 PM on December 6, 2022

"It was a startling switch from the more romantic, orange glow of sodium vapor. Less Paris by moonlight, more Porsche on the Autobahn."

Writer's showing their age. I was so excited when white LEDs started popping up in streetlamps specifically because it reminded me of the mercury vapor lamps of childhood in the 70s. By the 80s they were all orange, and I never did grow to like the sickly effect sodium vapor had on colors at night.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 7:34 PM on December 6, 2022 [9 favorites]

Light company: "We were dreaming when we made these, forgive us if they go astray."
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:36 PM on December 6, 2022 [8 favorites]

One cool thing about the LED lights, which I learned about in a Daily Hive article:

LED street lights installed at 125 signal-controlled intersections in Vancouver in recent years are credited for reducing collisions at the intersections by 21% and reducing traffic-related fatalities and injuries involving pedestrians by 65%.

No word on whether this still holds when the lights turn purple!

There is one a couple blocks from me, and it is kinda cool but also weird. I feel like I am in Cyberpunk 2077 when I am standing underneath it.
posted by tinydancer at 7:37 PM on December 6, 2022

Ryanrs, I'm in a related industry, would love to know who you might be referring to. I know a few places for higher volume, but they'll only let you order a small quantity once as a sample. Some clients actual would happily pay $50 per bulb if it's exactly what they want.

Meowzilla, those are the best, I recommend them to all my clients as the best accessible bulb option. I hope they are not being phased out!
posted by jellywerker at 7:38 PM on December 6, 2022

I noticed a lot of purple streetlights last year in rural North Carolina. I'll pass those areas again in time to report back here.
posted by ob1quixote at 7:56 PM on December 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

That number is if you have a board design ready to go, and the factory just makes the pcbs and solders them. But you can definitely get stuff like that made in any quantity, down to 1 unit. You end up paying ridiculous one-time setup costs, but we're only talking hundreds of dollars, not $10k. So if you can amortize it over 10-20 bulbs, maybe that makes sense in certain circumstances.

It's more time and effort if you want to design something special like that color-changing dimmable bulb. But a design like that is solidly within reach of a $50k kickstarter, I'd think.

PM me if you want details. I have done this, sorta.
posted by ryanrs at 7:58 PM on December 6, 2022

I saw this last week and one thing I wondered when reading the article is what's really happening with the color. White LEDs like this don't combine RGB LEDs to produce white; rather, they produce near-UV and UV light which then causes a fluorescent coating on the interior of the bulb to absorb the UV and re-emit it as white light. The distinctive purple color is exactly the color you see produced by UV bulbs, so I'm suspecting that these "purple" bulbs with the worn-away coatings are putting out a lot of UV.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:08 PM on December 6, 2022

They're not putting out UV. The underlying light-emitting semiconductor produces a very pure spectral output. It's just a very deep blue/purple, with zero UV.
posted by ryanrs at 8:11 PM on December 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

This has happened all over my town recently. I think they are fixing it because they are seem to be correcting back to white.
posted by thivaia at 8:12 PM on December 6, 2022

> I noticed a lot of purple streetlights last year in rural North Carolina. I'll pass those areas again in time to report back here.

they're still there

i'm all about weird creepy stuff but something about these things, i hate em. makes my brain want to evert. thank devils they stay on that side of the border cuz if these were on my street or all over my town i'd probably end up all Dreams in the Witch House
posted by glonous keming at 9:01 PM on December 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

I've never seen a purple light replaced here in Vancouver

FWIW the first purple one I saw in Vancouver was many months ago in Mount Pleasant, I think on E 8th Ave, and that one definitely has been replaced. I originally thought it was part of some art installation.
posted by WaylandSmith at 9:20 PM on December 6, 2022

I live in New York CIty. I noticed the change-over from mercury vapor lamps (temp: 5000-6000K) to LEDs (also 5000-6000k) immediately. It was not a color problem.

The "old-style" (1990s) mercury vapor lamps in front of my home had a complex housing and diffraction setup to shine light more-or-less downwards, towards the street and the pavement.

The replacement LEDs, with a "similar" color temperature, had no inconvenient, expensive housing. Instead, they shined directly into my living room. I had to erect wooden blinds to avoid being blinded every time i walked towards the street-facing side of the building.

I complained to relevant city officials and elected representatives, but no one cared. Someone's cousin made beaucoup bucks on that contract, and it doesn't matter how bad the results are for people who have to live under these fuckups. (In my case, not literally underneath -- I had the "reasonable" expectation that being on a level with streetlights would not cast blinding searchlight beacons into my home. My mistake!)

Shocking no-one, these LEDs are now turning purple because someone in the long supply chain starting with a mayor's niece's cousin's best friend cheated us.
posted by your postings may, in fact, be signed at 10:36 PM on December 6, 2022 [4 favorites]

I love that opening line. If you know, you know.
posted by JoeZydeco at 1:04 AM on December 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

If you know, you know.

The original line has the possibly singular distinction of having changed meanings 180 degrees in a generation due to technological advances.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:12 AM on December 7, 2022 [6 favorites]

Haven't seen the purple lights, but in my neighborhood the streetlights have been switched to rings of white LEDs, which shine through the trees like pinhole cameras, making hundreds of light circles on the sidewalk that swirl in the wind. I like it.
posted by AzraelBrown at 6:18 AM on December 7, 2022

The original line has the possibly singular distinction of having changed meanings 180 degrees in a generation due to technological advances.

Which itself might be one of the most Gibsonian things around. Metapunk!
posted by FatherDagon at 7:06 AM on December 7, 2022 [2 favorites]

The sky was all purple
There were people runnin' everywhere
Tryin' to run from the destruction
You know I didn't even care
posted by kirkaracha at 7:29 AM on December 7, 2022

The sky above the television tuned to a dead channel was the color of a different, much older television tuned to a dead channel.

https://at.tumblr.com/jellyfishdirigible/683103127590879232/348s0fzldxs5
posted by subdee at 8:12 AM on December 7, 2022 [3 favorites]

The streetlights have gone purple in a few spots in our neighborhood. Usually goes a few months before they replace them. Putting on an old paisley shirt and froofing one's hair into a tangle, you can take shots that really look like a 1990 Sub Pop press kit photo.
posted by bendybendy at 8:52 AM on December 7, 2022 [2 favorites]

Given that the shelves at my local home good store are filled with daylight bulbs, I'd say that people have associated LEDs with "awful blue-tinted light".

It's me. I hate incandescent bulbs. You say blue tinted is awful, I say yellow tinted light is awful. And so we battle, or join and become Sweeden I guess?
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:04 AM on December 7, 2022

I saw some of these on the highway on recent vacation. I approve of the purple light. A++ would drive past again.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:05 AM on December 7, 2022

Supposedly the lights in Chicago's Lower and Lower Lower Wacker used to be green leading to the underground parts of the city being nicknamed "The Emerald City". This was before I arrived and I do feel like I have missed something even if Lower and Lower Lower Wacker are as far from actually magical as you can get.
posted by srboisvert at 12:40 PM on December 7, 2022

That's one reason the purpling could be a big deal. It shines a light on how deeply LEDs, especially the cheap white ones, have become interwoven into the global economy. Sure, Acuity has probably fixed the issue and is replacing all the lights. But what happens next time some company in south China solders something wrong and a wave of broken tech propagates across the planet? It's streetlights this time; next time it could be phones, TVs, medical devices.

There is no need to necessarily throw China into this problem though. I just had a rough 17 days of covid and goddam Halls wraps their cough drops in paper that sticks to the cough drops. When I am coughing I don't want to fight with a suck wrapper and then pop a cough drop that results in paper in the back of my throat but here I am and there goes a Hall exec in a Beemer he bought with his bonus for shaving .001 cents off per drop of the material costs. Domestic production can be just as shite and improperly incentivised. (In the case of Halls we can go full South Park and blame Canada. Scarborough in particular where they are all made).

The problem isn't globalization as much as it is the culture of savage cost cutting profit maximization reputation mining to the point where everything, no matter who makes it, is gradually getting shittier. There are a few exceptions who are still building up reputations but I am old enough to know they too will soon be mining that reputation value.
posted by srboisvert at 1:13 PM on December 7, 2022 [5 favorites]

Sulfur lamps have the best spectra as well as other good characteristics:

The sulphur lamp is remarkable in several respects:

Sulphur bulbs are twice as efficient as other sources of high quality white light.

They produce almost no ultraviolet light and very little infrared; this makes them easier to use with plastic fixtures or fibres.

The full-spectrum light that is produced is extremely good for visual acuity and feels much like sunlight.

The bulb is very simple, a hollow quartz sphere with sulphur and argon gas, so it is environmentally benign and does not degrade in use.

The light source is very bright so the light can be efficiently distributed over large spaces.

The light output and colour does not degrade over time, and it is fully dimmable down to 30%.

But they’re too big and bright for most home uses.

It's hard for me to believe we couldn’t miniaturize magnetrons, however, and I don’t see why you’d spin the bulb these days, when you could spin the microwaves so much more easily.

But even as is, I’m surprised I haven’t heard of someone putting one in their attic and having a skylight-like fixture in multiple rooms of their house.
posted by jamjam at 3:54 PM on December 7, 2022 [2 favorites]

otoh, sometimes the entire horizon towards Langley (South of Vancouver) lights up a bright purple.

Not streetlights - it's cannabis greenhouses that forgot to put down their shades for the night.
posted by porpoise at 4:15 PM on December 7, 2022

I have never thought of orange streetlights as "romantic".

Don't recall the exact words but I remember reading early enthusiasms for these new sodium streetlights from last century, appreciations of the wonderful golden light emitted by them.

A few of the white LED streetlights around me have gone purple (unlike our experience a couple months ago at the conclusion of our Alaska cruise -‌- every light in Victoria was purple; I'm not surprised Vancouver is also affected).
posted by Rash at 7:50 AM on December 8, 2022

International Dark-Sky Association
posted by neuron at 11:16 AM on December 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

On my phone so I can't quote properly, but yes the purple lights I remembered from last year were still there.
posted by ob1quixote at 8:57 PM on December 30, 2022 [1 favorite]

The full-spectrum light that is produced is extremely good for visual acuity and feels much like sunlight.

I've been watching astrophotography videos lately, and one thing that's bemoaned is the replacement of the old orange streetlights with full-spectrum streetlights. With a fairly narrow orange band you at least had a chance of filtering out some of the light pollution while taking pictures of the night sky.

But with the new, improved streetlights, you're kinda fubar. They interfere with all the things you're trying to take pictures of.
posted by clawsoon at 6:50 AM on December 31, 2022