Lighting

Last month, Ikea and teenage engineering launched the Frekvens collection of lighting and speaker modules. Now teenage engineering has added a bunch of CAD files to the mix so that owners can print off some nifty hacks.

Never one to approach the design of regular household items without plenty of pizzazz, Dyson has introduced a new lamp called the Lightcycle Morph with the ability to assume a range of positions and give off different kinds of light.

More than two years ago, Ikea announced a collaboration with Sweden's teenage engineering to develop a range of lighting and speaker modules. The limited edition Frekvens collection will now go on sale from February.

The UK's Adaptalux has added flexible Xenon flash arms to its macro photography lighting arsenal, together with an IR emitter to trigger them.

The UK's Matthew Perks has been running a YouTube channel for about five years, where he walks viewers through the ins and outs of making their own gadgets. For his latest project, he's rescued some broken televisions and computer monitors and turned them into artificial daylight panel lighting.

Electronic devices are made possible thanks to rare-Earth metals, but these are rare and relatively expensive. Now, scientists have found a way to combine common elements into electronically-useful compounds, which could find their way into tunable lighting and solar panels.

​Though most of make use of radio waves to wirelessly transfer data to and from our work mobile devices and computers, there is another way. Signify has just launched a new lighting range called Trulifi that leverages light waves to send and receive wireless data throughout the workplace.​

There’s no shortage of portable lighting options out there for campers or people living in developing countries. But the Lumir K lamp is aiming to be the right mix of inexpensive, safe, bright, portable and efficient, using any old cooking oil as a fuel source to light up an array of LEDs.

With the year winding down in a hurry, ​here's a look at the best camping gear we put through the wringer in 2018. After all, spending time outdoors is what gear innovation is all about, right?

Self-driving cars can't make eye contact to signal their intentions, so Volkswagen is testing several systems that turn a car into an interactive information display to project information onto the road for drivers and display interactive information to other road users.

A year ago, Philips Lighting (now called Signify) announced results of a study which showed that its ClearField red LED lighting didn't disrupt the behaviour of bats – unlike traditional streetlights. Now, the Dutch town of Zuidhoek-Nieuwkoop has become the first place to use the system.

Light bulbs – we all need them, but truth be told, they're just a little bit boring. Smartbunch is hoping to change that with its modular light that lets you design your own table lamps and overhead lights with its LED triangles that snap together to make all manner of 3D shapes.