Ecosystem Tech Rundown: LED Lighting

From high intensity discharge lamps used in commercial farming, to power saving carbon fluorescent bulbs that grow greens without breaking the bank, there are a full spectrum of options that urban agriculturalists have traditionally used to grow their crops, but when it came to finding the perfect lighting system for the Ecosystem, Grove had to get creative.

The Problem.

Horticultural lighting was never meant to cohabitate with humans. Heat, vibration, and blinding lumen output make metal halide, high pressure sodium, and plasma lighting options unusable, while other lighting sources like T5, T8’s, and CFL’s although cheap, don’t shine down the full color spectrum needed to support vibrant growth.

When it came to choosing a light source for the Ecosystem, LEDs (light emitting diodes) quickly rose to the top of the list of options. Their low power draw and long life fit with Grove’s sustainable philosophy, but a problem still persisted; the color and intensity of LED’s would annoy users, while an under-optimized spectrum could lead to lackluster plant growth.

So Grove kept searching.

True to their roots.

With a team hailing from MIT, Bose, Apple, and Space X, Grove is firmly rooted in engineering, so when the search to find a lighting solution that could achieve a balance between efficiency and aesthetic didn’t bear fruit, Grove went back to the drawing board and decided to engineer a superior system. The Grove Lamp.

A mountain to climb.

From jump street, Grove’s engineers knew it wouldn’t be an easy solution.

The elements that needed to be pulled together to create a seamless, enjoyable user experience, while also growing vibrant crops just didn’t exist. Software had to be written, electronics had to be soldered and the programming to tie it all together had to be created from scratch.

It was a huge job, but Grove had an advantage.

Walking the talk: Experience over knowledge.

It’s easy to talk about food production, nature connection, and urban agriculture, but Grove lives it. Each member of the team has had an Ecosystem growing away in their home since day one, so the design and engineering team had deep wells of personal experience to draw from when tackling the puzzle of creating the ‘perfect’ LED lamp.

100,000 cups of coffee, 5,000 all nighters, and 40,000 hours of operational lifespan later, the Grove Lamp was born.

At first glance, the light shining down from above the first and second grow beds of the Ecosystem appears white, but upon closer inspection, the first bits of genius behind Grove’s engineering process begin to reveal themselves.

Bright Ideas

By delving deep into the science behind color mixing Grove’s lead electrical engineer, Mike Z combined broad spectrum white, blue, green, deep red, far red, and royal blue to create a spectrum that generates rapid plant growth, and a pleasant white glow that can be custom tuned through the Grove OS app.

But Grove’s commitment to aesthetic and customer comfort didn’t stop there.

Healthy aquaponic aquariums have tea colored water indicative of a living system, but the engineers wanted to ensure that the aquarium’s water visibility was crystal clear, so special diodes were integrated to inhibit algae growth and promote water clarity.

Technically advanced.

Where other grow lights take over a room, the Grove LED seamlessly enhances it. Through painstaking engineering we’ve created the market’s first fully dimmable horticultural LED that can be directly controlled from the palm of your hand, using the Grove OS app or with a simple flick of the Ecosystem’s front control dial.

The upper grow area is a high power array specifically designed for growing hardy crops. 84, 3 watt LED diodes, with a mixed color spectrum, shine down onto the growbed. The Lower area uses all white LEDS, 42, 1 watt diodes to nurture smaller plants and seedlings.

Mirroring Nature.

There are no light switches in nature. The sun gradually rises in a hue of greens, blues, and yellows, builds in intensity throughout the day, and then dips down into the west in a blaze of orange and red. The Grove Lamp mirrors this cycle, gently lighting up the Ecosystems grow beds throughout the day and shifting the color from orange/red, to strong blue/white at midday then back to a warm sunset while gradually dimming as the day moves towards evening.

Powering down.

An incredible amount of complex engineering has gone into making the Grove Lamp, and the Ecosystem itself, function seamlessly. So the next time you’re kicking back and enjoying the simple pleasures the Ecosystem brings into your life, remember, hidden above the lush grow beds exists the one of the most revolutionary light sources ever created.

Originally published at blog.grovelabs.io.