DISQUS

jayne lello · 6 months ago

this is fascinating and a DEFINITE advantage, especially in Maine, bug capital of the world (assumption from a bug bitten patriot)... I look forward to NOT watching the poor moths endure head injuries as they bump, continually, into the night lights of the woods camps and town porches, and wait, anxiously, to enter whenever an outside door opens and shuts..... this should be headline news.

Uncle B · 5 months ago

Low-light, Northern Climate dweller here . . .I await LEDs cheap enough to use as "Grow Lights" for indoor veggie operations! Salads, and everything green, for that matter, require oil to transport to my front door, and I hope, by using local nuclear power, and LEDs, to profit from indoor hydroponics! I am also tinkering with the aquaponics notions, so where are the new cheaper high efficiency LED grow lamps anyway?

mark · 5 months ago

To Uncle B,

I think indoor grow lights need UV to work well. If LEDS don't attract bugs due to lack of UV, it sounds like you are out of luck.

Plants use light energy and convert it to tissue. If the LED uses less energy to make light then the laws of physics say that there is therefore less energy in that light. So regardless of the UV issue, it seems to me the laws of physics makes LED use to grow plants spurious.

In physics, you can't get something for nothing.

Ziggy · 5 months ago

To Mark,

Or maybe they produce way less heat.

Ziggy · 5 months ago

Uncle B: http://www.homegrownlights.com/index.html

Tez · 5 months ago

huh... this seems potentially false by my experiences, I'll explain.

Last summer I was in ecuador and I had an LED based headlamp. After the sun went down, there was a CONE of insects swarming in the light of the lamp (the headlamp was my hand- having it on my actual head would prove more than disgusting). This happened with my LED based flashlight as well, and if I had either light on while I was getting into my tent, I would have to sleep with many dozen of the critters that had followed me in.

This is of course anecdotal, and I don't intend for you to infer that this will be the case for you. In Ecuador there were quite the orders of magnitude more insects present compared with the US, and many fewer light sources to draw them in with. This may therefore be treated as a "less visible" light rather than a completely "invisible" light as implied by the article.

Saber · 5 months ago

There are LED plant grow light available. I have no idea how well they work.

Shran · 5 months ago

UV-LEDs are available as well, has someone tested the whether those attract bugs ?

Dave · 5 months ago

LEDs come in light wavelengths from IR to UV. Just pick the right LEDs. Google UV LEDs.

wmallett · 5 months ago

Thanks for all the great comments, guys, glad to see a discussion going. You can get UV LEDs, but most standard residential LED lighting emits almost no light in the UV range (with, for Tez, an emphasis on the almost; in the jungle on a dark night that "almost none" would, to jungle bugs, probably seem more like "a whole lot.") While the human eye doesn't register UV light, plants do; so an LED grow light would contain UV light, which would make it attractive to insects. Hope that clears up any questions; again, thanks for all the great comments!

Coc Nballz · 5 months ago

This is NOT true. I repeat NOT TRUE. Anyone who has spent anytime in the outdoors can tell u stories of bugs dive bombing your LED headlamp. If u dont believe me try it yourself. Im not saying the same amount of bugs come at both lights but i promise bugs will still come.

ben · 4 months ago

tranditional bulb makes more heat,that attract bugs

David Rosen · 4 months ago

FACT CHECK PLEASE. Who told you that insects are only attracted to UV? If this were the case then they wouldn't be attracted to ordinary incandescent bulbs since they emit very little UV, or in any case a simple UV filter would make any light non-attracting to bugs while keeping it white.

Note that "bug lights" are *yellow* for a reason -- insects are attracted to blue light as well as UV (google it). They are less attracted as you go up in wavelength in the spectrum. So some *yellow* to *red* LEDs might not attract insects. Maybe green would be okay too -- or better than white or blue anyway.