Carpets are wonderful until it comes to the time when you have to hoover up all the dirt that manages to get trapped within the threads. They don’t do anything, they are placed on the ground to give a homely feel and don’t need reinvented in anyway. However, 2 companies have decided to transform carpets as we know them by embedding LEDs in them and making them useful.

Philips, best known as the makers of the handy smartphone controlled LED Light bulbs know as Hue have teamed up with Desso, the leading carpet and floor company to create ‘Light Transmissive Carpets’.

The carpets will be exactly as you have imagined. Underneath the soft tops, the LEDs will display various types of digital signage or information such as arrows, or just to enhance interior spaces. These arrows could be used in the scenario of directing people to exit doors in the case of an emergency, and because they are LEDs, the information which is being displayed will not be permanent on the carpet. The LEDs can be moved freely allowing flexibility, for whatever purpose is required.

Philips Lighting’s marketing and sales director, Ed Huibers says, “This light transmissive carpet solution has been specifically designed to engage with people’s sense directly, and it is our eyes’ natural response to seek out light.  This new technology will allow for information, safety direction as well as inspiration on the carpet which you are walking on, taking advantage of people’s likeness to be guided when moving through unaware places”.

It sounds like a great invention in terms of guiding people to safety or directing them out, with advertisers jumping at this idea. The big question some people have asked is, as we already have our eyes glued to the screen of our smartphone, do we really want to see marketing adverts placed on carpeting everywhere we go.