Insects can quickly put a damper on any outdoor gathering, and unfortunately, many of them are attracted to artificial lighting. Luckily, someone is working on this problem, which may mean longer summer nights under the starry sky in the future.
Travis Longcore, a professor of spatial sciences at the University of California, has been working closely with Royal Philips on the issue, according to the New York Times. Their goal is to create a bulb that doesn’t attract pesky insects as soon as it’s switched on.
To tackle the problem, Longcore has been experimenting with Philips LED bulbs that mix red, white, blue, and green light. In his trials, he tested the bulbs against standard LEDs and CFLs at night, hanging them over insect traps in the Santa Monica Mountains. Longcore found that he could tune the Philips LED bulbs to attract 20 percent fewer insects. His results were published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.
“For all invertebrate orders combined, our custom LED configurations were less attractive than the commercial LED lamps or CFLs of similar color temperatures,” Longcore wrote in his study abstract. “Thus, adjusting spectral composition of white light to minimize attracting nocturnal arthropods is feasible.”
Over the years, LEDs have not always been popular among consumers. Many people prefer the “warm” glow of incandescent bulbs, as well as the cheaper price. However, the prices of LEDs are falling, making them more widely available. Now, Longcore says his goal is to create an energy-efficient bulb that could not only deter bugs but provide a similar glow.
It’s worth noting that insect-repelling bulbs could also one day have a positive impact on global health. Many insects, such as mosquitoes, carry diseases that can be transmitted to humans. By reducing their attraction to artificial light, outdoor lovers might be able to avoid them more easily.
At the very least, a bug-deterring bulb would make camping, barbecuing, and other warm-weather activities more enjoyable.
Few things ruin a quiet evening faster than a robot vacuum roaring through the living room. Most of us end up pausing the cleaning run, which defeats the whole purpose of owning one. Matic thinks it has the answer with its new Serene robot vacuum, and the big selling point is how little noise it makes.
The Matic Serene runs at 52 decibels even when cleaning at full power. To put that in perspective, Matic compares it to the hum of your refrigerator. It is available now for $1,695, which is $200 more than the original Matic’s current price.
Outdoor security cameras are not always practical if you live in an apartment or rental. Drilling into an exterior wall may be off-limits, while pointing a regular indoor camera through a window can create another problem once reflections start showing up after dark.
Baseus is trying to solve both issues with the new PrimeSentinel W1, a $69.99 security camera designed specifically to monitor the outdoors through glass. It mounts directly to a window without drilling and uses a 4K Starlight sensor with an F1.0 aperture for full-color monitoring during the day and at night.
This post is brought to you in paid partnership with Best Buy.
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