Art Lebedev outthinks the room with square Luxofor traffic lights

We can only imagine that at least a few staffers over at Art Lebedev Studios get paid to do nothing but conjure up ideas, because this one is just marvelous. And marvelously simple, but that's beside the point. The Luxofor traffic light concept improves upon a nearly archaic design that still relies on spherical fixtures when there's really no need. 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 to drowsy motorists. The roar of "why didn't I think of that?" being simultaneously stated is downright deafening.

[Via Electronista]

[holycow @ Nov 22nd 2008 12:08PM]

Abramovich probably has one inside his house...

[Flashpoint @ Nov 22nd 2008 12:23PM]

looks like an apple product.

[Mobius_1 @ Nov 22nd 2008 12:41PM]

Apple likes white, this is not white, this is not Apple.

[holycow @ Nov 22nd 2008 12:43PM]

I just love how people reply to a comment completely irrelevant to theirs just to be on top.

[silverblackvoid @ Nov 22nd 2008 11:56PM]

wtf.
sudden influx of trolls???

[ilh @ Nov 23rd 2008 8:26AM]

@Danny

Aye and I hate them. Far too bright.

[Skazer @ Nov 22nd 2008 12:10PM]

Haha... and this is amazing why? It's square traffic lights instead of circular ones. Way to think outside of the box! /s

[Jack H @ Nov 22nd 2008 12:14PM]

i think they are thinking on the perimeter of that box

[Steve Miller @ Nov 22nd 2008 12:25PM]

Ha...looks like Wendys aren't the only ones who don't cut corners.

[Peter @ Nov 22nd 2008 1:12PM]

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.

[transltr @ Nov 22nd 2008 2:00PM]

@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?!

[dark star @ Nov 22nd 2008 2:17PM]

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.

[Peter @ Nov 22nd 2008 2:11PM]

@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?

[transltr @ Nov 22nd 2008 2:16PM]

@Peter:

The order in which the lights change

[FreeRange @ Nov 22nd 2008 2:26PM]

@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?

[Surur @ Nov 22nd 2008 2:39PM]

At night you may not be able to see the other lights, so you just see one light in the dark.

[Peter @ Nov 22nd 2008 3:02PM]

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.

[Danny @ Nov 22nd 2008 3:28PM]

We have these in the uk.

Have done for years

Big wow led traffic lights

[Mobius_1 @ Nov 22nd 2008 4:21PM]

I think they are thinking of a box :P

[Dave Chappelle @ Nov 22nd 2008 9:17PM]

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.

[EricC @ Nov 22nd 2008 10:03PM]

@ 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.

[keithwwalker @ Nov 23rd 2008 2:09AM]

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.

[kidcanuck @ Nov 23rd 2008 5:37AM]

@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.

[toxicpiano @ Nov 22nd 2008 12:11PM]

These are certainly pretty indeed :)

[Doug @ Nov 22nd 2008 12:12PM]

Ahh yes - a modern world. We can dream... but don't plan on cities coughing up the coin for this.

[BigD145 @ Nov 22nd 2008 2:21PM]

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.

[Bill @ Nov 22nd 2008 2:24PM]

Yes, city governments are jealous guardians of the people's tax monies.

[adrian @ Nov 22nd 2008 2:41PM]

@ Doug

They may do if it was designed to save a lot of energy.

[Ignatius @ Nov 22nd 2008 8:29PM]

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.

[EtherGnat @ Nov 22nd 2008 10:03PM]

50 million is actually only 0.74% of the earth's population. You misplaced a decimal.

[Joe Jance @ Nov 22nd 2008 12:13PM]

Uh, I have seen square lights deployed before.

[Evan @ Nov 22nd 2008 12:22PM]

ditto.

[Juaquin @ Nov 22nd 2008 4:34PM]

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.

[Thomas @ Nov 22nd 2008 12:17PM]

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!

[TrafficGeek @ Nov 22nd 2008 12:35PM]

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..

[xfrz @ Nov 22nd 2008 2:20PM]

"with bright laser diodes"!?
LED does not stand for "Laser Emitting Diodes" dear editors.

[iEye @ Nov 22nd 2008 12:19PM]

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...

[UnixSystemsEngineer @ Nov 22nd 2008 12:42PM]

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!

[ichatjonny @ Nov 22nd 2008 1:33PM]

In my hometown in Germany Traffic Lights using LEDs are already being deployed... Energy-, maintenance- and visibility-wise they are just so much better!

[tiuk @ Nov 22nd 2008 1:46PM]

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.

[dg @ Nov 22nd 2008 7:37PM]

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.

[Ghen @ Nov 22nd 2008 8:42PM]

brandon made me rofl

[anantha92 @ Nov 23rd 2008 1:03AM]

How kick ass would it be if these were OLEDs?

[Wwhat @ Nov 23rd 2008 3:17AM]

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.

[Maztec @ Nov 22nd 2008 12:20PM]

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.

[Samboini @ Nov 22nd 2008 12:38PM]

Amen. I'm glad other people see through Engadget's smoke, mirrors and disillusioned bias.

[loocas @ Nov 22nd 2008 12:59PM]

Don't know about the smoke, but they've apprantely got plenty of glossy Apples to get the disillusioned bias from...

[dg @ Nov 22nd 2008 7:41PM]

Agreed. Art Lebedev has made for insteresting and useful stuff, but this is just stupid, and unoriginal.

[Mongoos150 @ Nov 23rd 2008 11:43AM]

@Samboini: It's not all of Engadget, it's Murph. He's the only Engadget editor I cannot stand.

[Mobius_1 @ Nov 22nd 2008 12:21PM]

So because they are square, they are worth 1000 times as much as a normal one?