https://cdn.specpick.com/images/photonics/press_banner_01.jpg712370

SORAA, the pioneer in GaN on GaN LED technology and illuminator of the world’s most famous historical buildings, museums, hotels, and luxury retailers, today announces their entry into the consumer market with Helia, the healthy light environment for homes. Helia, which was named a CES 2017 Innovations Award Honoree, is situated at the intersection of health and smart home. It combines healthy and beautiful full spectrum LED lighting with a secure, expandable network of smart home sensors. The result is an intuitive, energy-efficient lighting system that brings the benefits of dynamic, natural sunlight indoors.

Recent advances in science have unveiled the crucial impact of light on our sleep patterns and health. We evolved under sunlight, and specialized cells in our eyes respond to its blue light wavelengths to synchronize our internal clocks and set a circadian rhythm. Natural sunlight is bright and filled with blue light in the morning to wake us up. As the sun sets, blue light recedes, signaling our bodies to prepare for sleep. However, in our modern world, we live under artificial lights and in front of LED screens - which are often packed with blue light content. Numerous studies now conclude that even common levels of blue light exposure in the evening, primarily coming from our artificial lighting sources, can negatively impact sleep and longer-term health. Today more than 60% of Americans report sleep problems.

Helia takes on these concerns with a unique, new approach – replicating the timing and visible spectrum of natural sunlight. Using Soraa’s advanced LED technology coupled with an enterprise-grade networking and sensor platform, Helia adapts to your environment automatically, based on your home’s sunrise and sunset times, tuning for your habits and health. Helia bulbs provide plenty of blue light in the morning to wake you up. During the day, museum-quality light makes your surroundings come alive. And in the evening as you wind down, Soraa’s patented BlueFree LED technology removes blue light completely, while retaining a beautiful, soft white color.

Other smart bulbs can change color during the day and night, but since they are all made with standard LEDs, they emit up to 20 times more blue light and can make your rooms unnaturally yellow. Instead, Helia lights up your surroundings beautifully, without compromising color quality. Guided by Soraa’s expertise in color science, which has already benefited extraordinary places such as the Palace of Versailles and the Cartier Mansion, Helia emits a tailored spectrum, white light to render beautiful and vivid colors throughout the day and night.

With Helia, smart home lighting finally becomes simple to install. Just screw in your Helia bulbs, turn them on and they will automatically connect to one another over the existing power lines in your house and start working together - before you even open the app. No wireless hub or internet connection is required to provide seamless integration with no wireless dead spots. You can then refine your lighting experience with the Helia app by providing information about where your house is located and when you usually wake up in the morning and go to sleep at night.

Helia goes beyond being app-connected to be truly intelligent and intuitive thanks to sensor technology that you find in today’s most modern, energy-efficient office environments - which know when a space is occupied and vacant. When you walk into a room, Helia knows to light the space, and when you leave, Helia automatically turns off the lights to conserve energy. Ambient light sensors conserve even more energy by knowing natural light levels and dynamically adjusting the brightness of the lights to maintain consistent, comfortable light levels. And, since it knows when you go to sleep and when you wake, Helia will only bring up soft night light when you walk into a room, such as a bathroom, in the middle of the night. Helia also learns your patterns to keep your home safe. You can simply tell Helia you are going on vacation and it will recreate your daily movement’s room-to-room while you’re away.

The Helia system was also designed to be able to keep pace with the latest innovations in sensors, connectivity and smart capabilities. The Helia Dynamic White BR30 bulbs feature an innovative Smart SNAP port that future-proofs the system and protects your investment. Smart SNAP Modules provide a simple, plug-and-play approach to adding and upgrading the Helia system. The initial Dynamic White + Presence Smart SNAP provides dynamic lighting control along with presence and ambient light sensing. Future Smart SNAPs from Soraa and partners will enhance the value of the Helia system over its lifetime.

For consumers who want to connect their Helia lighting system to popular IoT cloud services, Helia has created the Cloud Connect accessory. Simply plug the Cloud Connect into an outlet near your home Wi-Fi router. Your system will be connected to Helia’s secure cloud and ready for Amazon Alexa Voice commands, remote control when you’re away from the home and IFTTT compatibility. Additionally, Helia lighting systems connect seamlessly to popular IOT ecosystems.

Helia will be available initially in the North America market Spring 2017 at Helia.com and will be sold as Room Kits, allowing consumers to easily order the precise number of bulbs and Smart SNAPS needed to outfit an entire room(s) with healthy lighting.