5 Things to Know:  October 17

Sacramento's KCRA reports that stress research at the UC Davis California Lighting Technology Center is moving out of the lab and into hospital rooms. The work began when Toyota asked the center whether interior lighting could ease the nerves of passengers riding in autonomous vehicles. Researchers partnered with the university’s Center for Mind and Brain and built a “stress lab”: a dark room, a silent panel of judges, an improvised speech delivered under glaring light. Once stress was measured, each participant recovered under a single spectrum, either red, blue, green, white or amber.

Amber stood out, with participants showing physical signs of calming. The center’s working theory is that warm amber reads to the body as sunset.

The UC Davis California Tower, a hospital now under construction, will use nighttime amber lighting in patient rooms to help with navigation and reduce falls, while nurse stations get tunable fixtures matched to shift schedules. Night-shift staff can choose bright white light for alertness; day-shift staff can dial toward amber.

For lighting people pitching tunable white into healthcare, the published data will carry more weight than a local news TV segment.

Since the NFL season kicked off last month, a steady stream of lighting people have messaged us to point out Cree Lighting ads running during football games.

Readers who have followed our coverage of the collapse of Cree Lighting USA’s commercial and industrial business will want the distinction. The Cree Lighting residential brand is alive and well under Feit Electric, which acquired the brand and its trademarks, with residential products moving to Feit in summer 2025.

Feit and Lowe’s launched Cree Lighting Home nationwide this year, and the brand has appeared in Lowe’s NFL campaign. Feit President Alan Feit marked the moment on LinkedIn, noting the company was also named Lowe’s Supplier of the Year for Electrical & Lighting and took over the Good Earth Lighting business.

For a name that spent much of the past year in unflattering headlines, a Lowe’s football spot for Cree Lighting Home is a welcome change of scenery.

China’s Aladdin Lighting Network (alighting.cn) reports that Guangzhou projector maker Guangdong DSD Technology helped deliver a Guinness World Record holder: the world’s largest permanent circular water screen projection.

Uzbek media outlet UzDaily places the installation at a new musical fountain complex in New Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where a Guinness judge certified the 2,617.23-square-meter (28,172-square-foot) projection. That tops the prior mark of 2,400 square meters (25,833 square feet). The same fountain also took the record for world’s tallest outdoor musical fountain at 232.69 meters (763 feet).

DSD says it supplied the engineering projection system and handled product development, design and installation. The company makes laser projectors ranging from 4,000 to 40,000 lumens for water shows, night tourism, theme parks and outdoor lighting displays.

Guinness records come in very specific shapes, and “circular” is doing real work in this one. Still, the project shows Chinese projection suppliers competing for landmark attraction work well beyond China, a market where lighting and projection often share the same bid.

WFIE 14 News reports that Indiana investigators have charged two people in what they describe as a family-run operation stealing copper wire from highway lighting projects near Evansville. Construction crews estimate more than $367,000 in wire was stolen along I-69, including from a work zone installing new lights at the I-64 interchange.

The family business, as investigators tell it, ran through the region’s scrap yards. Tri-State yards told authorities that Jason Fulks and relatives were selling large amounts of copper. Fulks, arrested earlier this month after a traffic stop, now faces a warrant in the case. Natalee Fairchild, 35, and Sherry Beasley are charged with corrupt business influence. Fairchild is accused of selling more than 1,600 pounds of the wire, and police say she pocketed nearly $9,000.

Surveillance video, license plate readers and cell phone data built the case. INDOT says it is evaluating the impact on the project.

Evansville joins a long list. Copper theft from roadway lighting has made headlines in Minnesota, Nevada and Los Angeles, where solar-powered lighting is being piloted as a longer-term fix, with less copper in the ground to steal.

Most of our readers spend their days on the built environment, indoors and out. But nearly all of us know someone who corners us at a family dinner to complain about LED headlights that seem bright enough to light a parking lot. Washington appears to have heard them.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is reopening Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 108, the rule governing headlamps, taillights and reflectors, with glare first on its list. The agency also plans to revise rules for LEDs, automatic high beams and replaceable light sources, study headlamp height and aim, streamline testing for plastic optics, and align U.S. requirements with international standards.

For the first time in more than 25 years, NHTSA will use negotiated rulemaking, with Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy appointing up to 18 committee members from lighting manufacturers, safety groups, research institutions and engineering associations.

Comments and membership nominations are due November 9. Automotive lighting suppliers will want a seat at that table. Whether it produces headlights your brother-in-law stops complaining about is another matter.