CS115 The Times Square Ball Case Study 20150330 ©2015 Lumileds Holding B.V. All rights reserved.

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provided new LUXEON solid state lighting technology that

substantially increased the brightness, energy efficiency, and

color capabilities of the Ball. And Philips Lighting brought all

the technology together, engineering a completely re-thought

Ball based on the spectacular and unique light show created

by Focus Lighting.

“We should all look this spectacular at our 100th birthday

party,” said Jeffrey Straus, President of Countdown

Entertainment. “The combination of Waterford Crystal and

Philips lighting technology has created a dazzling new look

for this worldwide tradition of celebrating the New Year.” Jeff

continues, “What’s great about the LUXEON LEDs is that we

can actually now individually light each of the 672 Waterford

crystal triangles on the Ball in a different color, from a

color palette of over 16 million. It just creates this fantastic,

kaleidoscopic effect.”

“What’s great about the LUXEON LEDs is that we can actually now individually light

each of the 672 Waterford crystal triangles on the Ball in a different color, from a

color palette of over 16 million. It just creates this fantastic, kaleidoscopic effect.”

– Jeffrey Straus President of Countdown Entertainment

The Solution – Building the Ball

The story of the New Ball begins in 2006, when Philips

Lighting—lighting partner since 1998 with Countdown

Entertainment, the owner of the Ball, and the Times Square

Alliance—began talking about making the change to solid

state lighting. The previous Ball, created for the December

1999 celebration and therefore called the “Millenium Ball”, was

a sphere-within-a-sphere. The exterior of the Ball was illumi-

nated by 168 Philips Halogená Brilliant Crystal light bulbs,

Inside were 432 Philips incandescent light bulbs (208 clear, 56

red, 56 blue, 56 green, and 56 yellow), and 96 high-inten- sity

strobe lights, all computer controlled.

With the approach of the 100th anniversary, Philips Lighting

proposed a whole new approach using industry-leading

solid state lighting technology. LUXEON LEDs could provide

the same or better color mixing with much finer granularity,

much faster on/off/dim response time, better digital program

flexi- bility, and much more light using far less energy than any

other lighting option. Because of the never before possible

capabilities of LUXEON LEDs, they imagined a Ball that

behaved almost like a color video screen wrapped around a

sphere.

First, Philips Lighting did away with the two-sphere structure.

The new Ball builds on the same 6-foot diameter, external

geodesic sphere as its predecessor. This framework is made

up of 168 triangular panels, each made up of four smaller

triangles. Each of the 672 small triangles contains three