Art Lebedev outthinks the room with square Luxofor traffic lights
By Darren Murph 
posted Nov 22nd 2008 12:05PM
posted Nov 22nd 2008 12:05PM
[Via Electronista]
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Abramovich probably has one inside his house...
looks like an apple product.
Apple likes white, this is not white, this is not Apple.
I just love how people reply to a comment completely irrelevant to theirs just to be on top.
wtf.
sudden influx of trolls???
@Danny
Aye and I hate them. Far too bright.
Haha... and this is amazing why? It's square traffic lights instead of circular ones. Way to think outside of the box! /s
i think they are thinking on the perimeter of that box
Ha...looks like Wendys aren't the only ones who don't cut corners.
It's like the Quebec traffic lights; red is square, yellow/orange is diamond, and green is circle. They're like that so colour-blind people can know what the light is.
@Peter: For colour blind people? Are you kidding? Since when are colour blind people not able to tell when one light is lit up and the others arn't?!
i believe the current light protrudes out so that you can see it even at 90 degrees. this concept looks cool but prolly not very practical.
@transltr
If they are colour-blind and can't tell the difference between green and yellow (hypothetically) how are they to tell whether the light is green or yellow if they are the same shape?
@Peter:
The order in which the lights change
@peter:
They see which of the three is lit up. That's why each color has its own light and why it's not just one light changing color. If you have three lights and always accept that, say, the top one is always 'stop' and the bottom is always 'go,' you don't need them to be different shapes. You just see which in the pattern is lit and you act accordingly.
For shapes to need to be in the equation is to suggest that either the order itself can change (square, circle, triangle on Monday/circle, triangle, square on Tuesday) or the three shapes/colors originate from one display. I'm not familiar with the lights in Quebec, obviously, so can you tell me which it is? Or am I missing something entirely?
At night you may not be able to see the other lights, so you just see one light in the dark.
Most Quebec street lights are placed horizontally; and with the ones that are vertical, the red light isn't 2x the size as the others.
We have these in the uk.
Have done for years
Big wow led traffic lights
I think they are thinking of a box :P
I think what we really need (for a government to change every single traffic light in our huge cities) is a traffic light that uses like 1/100th of the power or something minuscule/extraordinary, with current technology this WILL NOT HAPPEN.
"Lebedev's team asserts that using square lights backed with bright laser diodes would make better use of the available space and provide a more noticeable signal"
I wont say fail, but this is not a very convincing argument.
@ Peter: We look at the position of the light. In the U.S., the lights are red, yellow, green (top-to-bottom for vertically-oriented lights, and left-to-right for horizontal).
We color-blind folks don't need special shapes. We've been doing just fine for decades, and will continue for decades to come.
Philadelphia and Denver have converted to LED based lighting with comparable operating and maintenance savings, and it was done YEARS ago. Significantly, you won't see a dead LED on any traffic device in Philadelphia.
Meanwhile there is a thread on the Tufte forum questioning the design of traffic lights:
http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0000NI&topic_id=1&topic=
Advances are being made, but change comes slow to infrastructure.
@trnsltr: Maybe you are thinking of visually impaired people? If your vision is good enough to drive but not great, I can see it helping. It also makes it easier for the average person, it's just a nice way to throw in the layer of aestheticism and practicality that Quebec tends to have.
These are certainly pretty indeed :)
Ahh yes - a modern world. We can dream... but don't plan on cities coughing up the coin for this.
Replacing the millions of lights with these is a pipe dream. It'll happen when the world's population plummets to less than 50 million people.
Yes, city governments are jealous guardians of the people's tax monies.
@ Doug
They may do if it was designed to save a lot of energy.
If the world's population plummets below 50 million, I think they'll be worrying more about continuing the survival of our species, rather than adapting existing traffic lights. 50 million is only 7.5% of our total population.
50 million is actually only 0.74% of the earth's population. You misplaced a decimal.
Uh, I have seen square lights deployed before.
ditto.
Just because it's been done before doesn't mean these aren't cool. I doubt they've ever been done with this much style. I, for one, like them.
And having lasers burn your eyes is good how? The only deafening roar is from people screaming in agony when that thing goes off. I want my archaic circles!
Not such a bad idea...maybe it's what we've been waiting for to get their attention from their text messaging, phone call, coffee, food, screaming kids in the back, etc..
"with bright laser diodes"!?
LED does not stand for "Laser Emitting Diodes" dear editors.
I thought that the reason the light are round is
1) maximum diffusion through the curvature of the lens
2) The round seal is much more better to keep out rain and moisture
3) Safety reasons. If a square piece of glass hit you.. well
But thought that all lights would be replaced with LED equivalents... less maintenance and less energy...
Some of those LED lights are simply too bright, I can't believe they didn't fit autodimmers to them. Ever seen a string of LED green lights on a rainy street at night? Holy retina burn, batman!
In my hometown in Germany Traffic Lights using LEDs are already being deployed... Energy-, maintenance- and visibility-wise they are just so much better!
LED traffic lights are common in the US and Canada as well, they started being deployed probably 10 or so years ago. There are still lots of older ones in use, of course.
First off, you're exactly right. Round traffic lights are round for a bundle of reasons. Just because something is old doesn't mean it's bad. Sqaure is bad!
and about LED traffic lights: They just revamped the downtown area where I live including new LED traffic lights. All I can say is if I lived in an apartment down there I'd cry myself to sleep every night.
brandon made me rofl
How kick ass would it be if these were OLEDs?
I've seen destroyed traffic lights, I've never seen a round glass loose, if they are destroyed they are in small blunt bits with the edge near the seal holding on to the remains, there is no logic to saying square 'glass' would be less safe, it's in fact ludicrous, also we don't need glass at all obviously we invented polycarbonates you now, and yes we have the technology to make square things watertight too.. and with LED you don't need to contain a hot bulb that takes a lot of juice, it's just LED.
(Oh additionally if you look at these things outside where people sit in doing 60+Mph with very bright lights on them, called 'cars', you might notice they have square lights too that are in fact much more likely to be broken.)
And yes people, all over the world they are already introducing LED traffic lights for some time now, no need to state the obvious.
Me thinks you love Art Lebedev a bit much. This has already been done, a lot. Get out into the world more, from behind the pile of crapgadgets, dreamgadgets, and vaporgadgets you hide behind.
Amen. I'm glad other people see through Engadget's smoke, mirrors and disillusioned bias.
Don't know about the smoke, but they've apprantely got plenty of glossy Apples to get the disillusioned bias from...
Agreed. Art Lebedev has made for insteresting and useful stuff, but this is just stupid, and unoriginal.
@Samboini: It's not all of Engadget, it's Murph. He's the only Engadget editor I cannot stand.
So because they are square, they are worth 1000 times as much as a normal one?
Its hip to be square?
Reminds me of Dieter on Schprokets.
"You are beautiful and angular."
Oh come on. You guys are so easily impressed. How about this idea: Panels of OLEDs that cover the street, turning green, yellow, red that blink as necessary giving directions, controlling traffic and otherwise freaking out drivers. If the panel idea is too far fetched then OLED striping in the center and on the sides of the roads that do the same thing. In other words, instead of painted striping, use intelligently controlled strips of OLEDs. The signals could be animated and travel along at the speed of the cars on the street. Information conveyed could be the street names, traffic conditions ahead, anything - amber alerts - anything. In our perverse world during idle cycles they could be used to sell advertising , the post office most wanted mug shots or display whatever the season's theme is: Christmas, Thanksgiving. Square traffic signals, phft.
Spherical? I do not think you know what this means. The lights in traffic lights are round (circular) but not spheres.
Why does Lebedev think this will wake up drowsy motorists?
Given how the shields (which block sun) work on these, the indicators of lights facing any direction but North (South in the southern hemisphere) will have direct sun on them much of the day, making the lights difficult to read. They need much better shields.
Well in some places they actually are spheres..
Shields are not necessary for LED traffic lights, atleast not for eliminating light reflection. The leds produce colored light from the start, they don't shine white light through a filter which itself could reflect sunlight, making that light seem like it's turned on. Another application for the shields is to block the view of drivers at the periphery, which isn't neccesary for leds either due to their highly directional nature.
Shields keep the sun off. Just like any other device, if the sun shines directly on it, it has to be brighter than the sun in order to be seen. A lot brighter.
It has nothing to do with what is what color. If you wanted to see a white light you'd have the same issue.
And LEDs are not very directional. It depends on what reflector is used. Many LEDs have very directed light because the LEDs are so dim that it need to be concentrated to be bright.
The lights in stoplights that aren't LEDs are cone shaped. They look like big floodlamps, not like spheres.
Not in my part of the woods, here the lamps in classical traffic lights are roundish bulbs.
they do look nice, but not a great deal of point to them:)
OMFG! square instead of round... GROUND BREAKING!! What will they think of next...
Why not get rid of the nearly archaic 3-light design completely and just have a single light that changes colors? It's not like you ever have more than one of the lights/colors on at the same time, so if the lights are using diodes anyway, why not simply pack them into a single housing?
Then you could make them... are you ready for this? RECTANGULAR! That would make even *better* use of the available space and provide an even *more* noticeable signal (bigger) to drowsy motorists. Man, I should be on Art Lebedev Studios' payroll, lol.
The color blind guy driving next to you won't live long enough to file a complaint.
...yes really, there are color blind people driving next to you...
Ever heard of people that are COLOR BLIND?
@trappy. Yes, I have. Used to have a supervisor that was color blind actually. I'd forgotten that that was the reasoning for the 3 lights.
@ Jason
I hope you don't work in the VFX/Entertainment industry as having a color-blind supervisor would have been fun!
Considered the price of the Optimus, this'd ruin any country's economy when massively applied.
Just what America needs in a time of recession to fix its budget deficit ;)
Try this for additional referance...
Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices.
Installation decision for these are cost, durability, and power consumption. This is a beautiful design, but it really isn't anything special since it's been tried before. Typically new designs like these fails due to insufficient benefit in any of the three metrics I already mentioned..
Hey, it's your tax dollars at work.
Luxofor = Luxury Stoplight
In Russian, stoplight is pronounced Svetophor (svet = light) and Lux is a prefix meaning luxury.
You know, I had a better idea.
A display showing how long before the light changes beside it. That way, you can time it so you hit the green just right, or know from a distance whether you can make that green.
They've got lots of them in China and Singapore and so on, sometimes a digital timer, sometimes almost like an hourglass with bars that disappear. But really, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Already have those, too. Typically designed for pedestrians, they are completely visible from a car and countdown to exactly when the light will turn from green to yellow. We have them all over Milwaukee -- and we're not what you'd call "cutting edge."
Really? Cause thats amazing if so
I wish my town had that shit lol
The orange image on the left is close to what ours look like.
http://www.monomo.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/countdownlight.jpg
Like I said, they are made for pedestrians, and are mounted above the Walk / Don't Walk guy, but they are completely visible from the car. When you are approaching a light that has been green for some time, it does make it easy to know if you have any chance at making it -- although I'd wonder how many people speed up thinking 3 seconds is "plenty of time" when it really isn't.
I think NY has them too. I didn't think they were that new, but can't seem to find any info on them in the US...
I wonder if this post was meant in sarcasm? I'm having a really hard time reading it as anything but...There is no innovation here, the design is pretty bland, and the rationale is completely lacking.
My guess is that, with newer light technology, the shape of the light doesn't really matter. The argument -- the only one I can see -- is that a square light fills the entire area, whereas a circular light does not. Therefore, a square light will give off more light. Maybe that is true (and I've seen square lights), maybe not. Either way, it is not an innovation by any stretch.
And then "Now drivers see green light when they are allowed to make the turn, but no light at all if they have to wait. There should be some symbol to display, to show the turn is not allowed (using two color diodes)." I can only assume they mean to indicate when a turn is not allowed, like the common red / yellow arrows.
There are a handful of companies that I'd love to be: Art Lebedev is one of them. They get the benefit of the doubt for innovating when they are really just putting a pretty spin on pretty common ideas.
Here in the UK a lot of our traffic lights are LED now. They're still round like they usually are but just with these brighter LEDs. They do make a difference when you're driving though.
Especially in British weather.
OMG! Those are AMAZINGGGG!
wow, that looks very high-tech.
I would be much more compelled to walk on the streets if
the traffic lights were that cool.
Too bad the global economy is dead; its
not like most countries can afford this.
The whole package looks very MOMA.
Cool beans.
I'm going to weigh in on this one. Most of you are gadget guys, and that is cool. I'm a professional driver though. I drive more in one day, than most of you drive in a week. You can blast the design all you want. You will be wrong, but you will still give your comments. I have seen many drivers, even the ones who "claim" to be good drivers, fly through a light to total a car. I see more accidents at intersections than any other area. This is coming from a person who does this for a living. Think about that one for a minute. You can pontificate on every single gadget on the market, but don't you dare try to put down a person who comes up with a way to help save lives. Countless people die every year from traffic accidents. Each year children are struck in intersections because sun glare caused a driver to not see a red light.
How would you feel if it was your child who was hit by a car? What if it was you?
Those of you who put is brilliant idea down should hang your heads in shame. The pity is that you probably wont because you can't see past your own selfish lives.
We are not putting down innovation...
But this thing SUCKS ASS and is utterly stupid,there is no technical advantage to the shape of the traffic light. Are we suppose to aww and eat up this shite design?
I can pull this crap out of my ass! Hey what about a square seat for the crapper? make it out of gunmetal brushed metal and charge $1,000+ for it...
Shitpickle
Should I call you troll or Elizabeth Dole?
If a bigger light would stop more accidents, then they would make lights bigger.
Truth be told, it would likely reduce them for a while and then go back to normal, as people got used to barely paying attention to the new ones as much as they did the old ones. Same with the high mounted brake light (Liddy light, named after Elizabeth Dole).
So us picking on a design isn't pathetic. What is pathetic is that someone like you would think we're against the design because it would save lives and somehow we don't want that.
WTF??? I personally think the whole world should adopt Finland's driving test, then there would be so many fewer accidents (and a LOT less drivers :P)
In Canada lots of Traffic Lights are already square ...Since a couple years ..
What part of Canada is that?
french canada.
Why are they building traffic lights instead of keyboards no one can afford?
So they can sell traffic lights to governments that will make sure your taxes will afford.
Uhhh we have those in my city!
Wow what an invention....
The problem with everything being squares is that all the shapes are all the same.
Color blind people wouldn't know the difference.
Yes. Right angles. That's exactly what's been missing from Morgan's design all this time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrett_A._Morgan#The_Garrett_Morgan_traffic_signal
Is the writer being sarcastic or serious?
Welcome to Taiwan:
http://www.hobbiesplus.com.au/signspotters/P9160082c.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yowXiZ6Nb9I
Is there a good reason for having the green, yellow, and red lights in separate lights and housings? Why not just one big housing that can display all three colors?
And how much will old "Art" charge for these? "1 Million Dollars" in the tone of DR Evil......EACH!
Uhhh...
Why not just have ONE light that can switch between Red, Yellow, and Green? How's THAT for simplicity! You could, of course, have a separate light for turn arrows.
Or.... why not use more roundabouts? Get rid of the damn things entirely.... street lights are kind of archaic for most situations....
Yes, one light with the ability to display directional arrows as well. Easily done with modern technology.
Roundabouts seem to have fallen out of favor lately. Don't like them myself. I'd prefer over/underpasses or the new high through put intersections with the early turning lanes and all that.
Apparently the artist has not lived in a snowy environment. Here in Colorado snow would stack up on the square top and obscure the view of the light above it. We see it occasionally on the round hoods, but not very often as it usually slides off.
Great point PepsiGuy...
I think the designer is being a little impractical (an artist? Say it ain't so). The reason we went to LED stoplights was reliability and efficiency, and they designed them to be round for convenient drop-in replacement of existing lights. It's hardly a good use of tax payer's money to run around making a square peg fit in a round hole.
Sounds like typical application of government funds to me, so who knows?
Also In snowy environs the LEDs wouldn't produce enough heat to melt the snow that obscures them.