<link href="//maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.1.1/css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet" id="bootstrap-css"> <script src="//maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.1.1/js/bootstrap.min.js"></script> <script src="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.2.1/jquery.min.js"></script> <!------ Include the above in your HEAD tag ----------> <div class="container"> <div class="row"> <h2> The innovators: levitating lightbulbs take design back to the future</h2> <p>Like many young boys growing up at a time when Michael J Fox skated about Hill Valley in the Back to the Future series, Simon Morris dreamed of one day having a hoverboard like the device that appeared in the sequels. Chris Wright, the chairman of Faradion, with the sodium-ion electric car battery. The innovators: cheaper batteries could help electric cars hit the mainstream Read more Working in display design years later, the idea stuck with the New Yorker as he worked with magnets in order to make shoes and skateboards levitate above a surface for exhibitions and shows. By using the repelling poles of magnets – one embedded in the shoe and the other on a stand – the item would seemingly float in mid air. Then came his lightbulb moment. “Wouldn’t it be cool if you could power the bulb wirelessly and levitate it?” he asked. The result is Flyte, a low-power lightbulb that levitates and rotates in the air using a series of magnets and which is powered without touching the surface – through a system usually seen on high-end kitchen counters. The eye-catching <a href="https://levina.co/products/light-bulb">Floating light Bulb</a> is the first step in what 38-year-old Morris and his team say could be a new method of powering items such as music speakers, which would levitate and turn in the air. Morris, who describes himself as an art scientist, developed his interest in gravity and suspension when he moved from his native United States to Stockholm and worked with brands such as Nike to create displays in which items would be made to appear to float in the air. The next step was an attempt to power something – in this case a lightbulb – while it levitated. The solution came by using induction, wherein an electromagnet with a current flowing through it can generate a current in another body placed nearby. Induction hobs in kitchens create an electromagnetic field which, when in contact with magnetic material like an iron pan, transfers or “induces” energy into the metal and heats food. “Working on the technology, you can’t help thinking how you could make it go further. One of the ideas I was thinking about was how you could combine levitation with other technologies and at the time induction was really interesting. It was really promising because the idea of coupling two coils together to send electricity through the air would be perfect with levitation,” Morris said. The Flyte bulb works by a combination of induction and magnetism. The unit is formed of a base, which is connected to a standard power supply, and the specially made lightbulb. While gravity pulls the lightbulb towards the base, it is pushed up by the opposing force of the magnetism. At the same time, the bulb is being powered by induction. The electromagnetic field heats the coil in the bulb, as it would heat a pan on a cooker. “The lightbulb contains a cap. Inside the cap is a magnet. Inside the magnet is a coil and that coil receives the electricity and powers the light. It is powering the light through the coil using magnetic levitation,” Morris said. “It is simple but in this kind of combination it has not been applied that often – levitation and induction. We are combining these two types of technologies.” In practice, this works by placing the bulb at the centre of the wooden base. When the light comes on, the unit is in operation and can be turned on and off by tapping the surface of the base. The light is unlikely to provide illumination for bedtime reading however. While a standard 40W bulb gives a brightness of about 450 lumens – the unit of measurement for light emitted by a source – the Flyte has a maximum brightness of 60 lumens. The device is less a functional light and more a cross between a decorative lamp and a piece of art, say the creators, and also the first step in what they could create with the combination of the technologies. Priced at $299 (£190) for one unit, the company has pre-orders for 2,300 lamps, which will begin to be shipped next month after a successful Kickstarter fundraising campaign that brought in over $600,000 (£385,00), more than five times its original target. “The wow factor is that this lamp is levitating and it is not only levitating but it is being powered through mid air. It could definitely be considered expensive for some people but what we are trying to get is [to show] that this is what you can do. This is our first product but we can take it much further,” Morris said. As well as lighting up the bulb, the pad on which it levitates above can be used as a wireless recharger for mobile phones. This type of inductive charging is becoming increasingly common in the consumer electronics market. Wireless charging pads are now available in some McDonalds restaurants and Starbucks cafes in the UK. The levitating technology could be used as a speaker system that would rotate in the air just as the bulb does in the Flyte product, said co-founder Daniel Mascarenhas. “Imagine a few points in your living room where the speakers are floating,” he said.</p> </div> </div>