Willis Tower upgrades antenna lighting

The Willis Tower recently received an upgrade to its antenna lighting that allows one person to use a smartphone or computer to change the lighting color in a matter of seconds.

Previously, lighting changes meant a crew of two electricians had to journey to the 109th and 110th floors of the 1,729-foot tower and manually place color pallets over each light. The process could take up to four hours. When the lighting was no longer needed, the crew would need to remove the palettes by hand, as well.

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It isn’t just the speed with which the colors can be changed that has been upgraded, but also the amount of colors available. The old technology could only display 12 colors. The new technology produces so many colors, some of them aren’t even detectable by the human eye. It can also light up each antenna with several color rings or animate up and down the antennas.

The LED lights emit 337,248 lumens and are expected to save the tower more than 70% in antenna-lighting energy costs.

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