May 10, 2010 – WiFi evolves from radio waves to beams of light.

Smart LED lighting—the use of highly energy-efficient and controllable solid-state light sources both to illuminate a defined space and facilitate optical wireless communication among electronic devices in an office or classroom is now a reality. Professor Thomas Little of Boston University is shipping a new LED-based prototype.

“We now have a working system that’s robust enough to send to others to experiment with,” said Little, co-principal investigator and associate director of the NSF Smart Lighting Engineering Research Center, a program involving BU, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and the University of New Mexico.

Designed for indoor applications such as illuminating a room and transmitting data among laptops, printers, PDAs, thermostats and other devices, LED-based smart lighting could deliver enhanced electronic communication capabilities at a reduced economic and environmental cost. Requiring far less energy than conventional lighting technologies, such as incandescent or compact fluorescent bulbs, and can integrate ubiquitous communication platforms, such as Wi-Fi.

Much more compact, user-friendly and sophisticated than its predecessors, the current prototype, called Smart Light 1 (SL1), consists of a three-by-six-inch board comprised of two sections—one containing an array of nine high-brightness, white LEDs that transmit data to other transceivers, and the other with an array of three photodiodes that receive data. By keying the light on and off at a very high speed to create a pulsed signal, each SL1 board propagates data to laptops and other electronic devices, and is simply connected using a USB cable.

Toward a Commercial-Grade System

“The prototype demonstrates the viability of using modulated LED light at a useful data rate,” said Little. “The next step is to make the system completely self-contained, embedding all functionality within the bulb.” At that stage, each board will serve as an Internet and data communication access point for any electronic device within range, and thus enable multiple devices to communicate with one another. These include high definition video streaming devises like the iPad.

“The goal is to enable any light to be a wireless optical access point, and to do this requires costs comparable to conventional lighting devices,” he said. “Future work in the Smart Lighting ERC will drive towards higher data rates and lower integration costs.”

January 2010. A few years ago I was contacted by a Susan Stankavich who complained that she and her husband were experiencing ill health and their symptoms were getting worst as more cell phone antennas were constructed in their community.

She mentioned that her electricity bill was also increasing at the same time despite the fact that they owned few electronic devices as they were both electrically sensitive. She wondered if her electrical bill was affected by the radiation from the cell phone antennas.

I discussed this with Dave Stetzer, power quality expert in Wisconsin, and he told me that some watt-hour meters give inaccurate readings because they are calibrated for a pure 60-Hz sine wave. Higher frequencies cause the meter to spin more quickly, giving the impression that you are consuming more electricity than in fact you are.

I asked the Stankavichs to send me their electricity bills for the past few years and I compared the values to local weather conditions to see if that could account for the difference in readings. I also compared the monthly bills to the installation of antennas and to other things that they did in their home.

The results are shocking! See the attached pdf.

In brief, the annual cost of electricity increased in the Stankavich home by $1000 (from $1400 per year to a whopping $2400) and this increase corresponded to the construction of an antenna nearby and not to unusual weather patterns or changes in usage.

Dave Stetzer suggested that they install a choke at their watt-hour meter and immediately their electrical bill began to fall. The choke was install on March 7th 2005 and they noticed a difference in their monthly bill by April. That year the amount they paid for electricity dropped by $600 and they did this by buying a few meters of electrical wire and a clip.

By the way, the electrical utilities know about this. Ontario Hydro identifies this as a problem in their 1996 Power Quality Reference Guide. They state that harmonics (these are multiples of the fundamental 60 Hz frequency) can generate additional torque which can cause improper operation and thus generate ‘incorrect readings’ on watt-hour meters

I don’t know how wide spread this problem is but if you want to test it on your own home, this is what you need to do. Buy approximately 2 meters of 12 or 14 gage building wire at a hardware store. Strip the ends. Wrap this wire around the electrical line that connects to your electrical meter at the side of your home. Ten coils around the line should be sufficient and then connect the two stripped ends with an electricians plug. That’s it. This is called a choke and it reduces (or chokes out) the high frequencies on the line leading to you watt-hour meter. The meter should become more accurate and the electricity bills should be lower if there was indeed some high frequency interference on the line.

If you decide to test this I would be interested to know what happens.

November 2009.

Magda Havas gave an interview to Bottom Line/Personal and this is what they wrote: Don’t stand in front of the Microwave. Radiation Dangers from phones, plasma TVs and computers, too . . .

Click here for pdf.

November 2009.

Prevention magazine has created a video about the dangers of Compact Florescent Bulbs. What is notable about this video is that they don’t mention the dangers of ultraviolet radiation or mercury but instead focus on the radio frequencies that they emit. Some scientists believe that the bandwidth of the radio waves from CFL bulbs are potentially dangerous to the human body because the frequencies are biologically active.