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Rooms can be as bright as the outdoors

benkuhn.net

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Re: Rooms can be as bright as the outdoors

#61

Post by kazinator »

taneq wrote: post #58
saagarjha wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it not? I thought the motors inside of them caused that to happen?

Yes and no. Motors pull a much higher current when they're starting up than when they're running, so your wall socket voltage is going to dip when you start a motor. That said, it shouldn't dip enough to be particularly noticeable, and if it is then that can point to a problem in your power supply or wiring.

It might not be noticeable, or as noticeable, with a 150W incandescent bulb, which has thermal inertia in the filament. What's going on here is that these are fast LEDs.

Re: Rooms can be as bright as the outdoors

#62

Post by BenoitEssiambre »

apinstein wrote: post #13
GuiA wrote: post #4

Every few years some company/research lab will claim they have a technology that’ll simulate sunlight coming through a window, but it still isn’t something one can buy. The moment we can buy eg a 3ft by 1ft panel that we can just mount on a wall and feels like an actual sunlit window for a few thousands dollars or so, interior design is likely going to get radically different. (And that’s not to mention the sci-fi dr…

When we were building out an office that only had a few windows I went looking for, and found one of these. Unfortunately it’s $60k instead of $2k. According to reviewers that saw it, it’s amazing. Apparently it uses some nanoscale material that produces (mimics?) Rayleigh scattering. https://www.vox.com/2015/2/18/8060673/skylight-artificial-li...

I don't think the trick is the Rayleigh scattering, I think it's the parallel rays. Notice how all the pictures have well defined shadows of parallel rays?

Re: Rooms can be as bright as the outdoors

#63

Post by benkuhn »

wheels wrote: post #51

I usually eschew labels, preferring simply "sleep weirdo", but I fit the pattern of "Non-24 Sleep-Wake Disorder", with my sleep and waking times drifting progressively later at semi-regular intervals. The result is that I'm often awake through the night. (This week I'm going to bed around 9:00 a.m.) Even with that, I've noticed some pretty big productivity swings based on the season. Interestingly, this hit me very h…

Have you tried buying higher CRI LEDs? Halogens have very good color rendering compared to typical LEDs (100 vs ~80 for typical LEDs), but you can buy specialty bulbs with closer-to-natural spectra. I haven't dug much into off the shelf options, but one of my coworkers did and got excited about these lights: https://store.yujiintl.com/collections/high-cri-led-lights/p...

Re: Rooms can be as bright as the outdoors

#64

Post by sojmq »

ferros wrote: post #23

I always feel better with bright lights and have considered trying something like this before, however two things always stop me. 1) Concerns about eye damage. 2) Concerns about skin damage.

I was thinking about that. Putting a microsun in your peripheral vision? Can't that mess with your eyes in the long run?

Re: Rooms can be as bright as the outdoors

#65

Post by derefr »

> Other than “we’ve been doing it for a while,” there seems to be no reason to expect that being in a 100x dimmer environment all day wouldn’t be awful. Indoor darkness seems to be one of those things that we don’t question only because it’s been that way forever.

An interesting question is: what average light levels existed in the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness for humans, given the types of things our ancestors spent their days doing?

Consider: many humans were savannah persistence-hunters; but many humans were also jungle and arboreal-forest gatherers. And either way, we probably liked to find trees to climb and use as protection, when we could (as chimps do.)

So, given that, are human brains calibrated for "sun-baked African plains" daytime brightness, or "under a forest canopy" daytime brightness, or somewhere in between?

Re: Rooms can be as bright as the outdoors

#66

Post by ta0987 »

knzhou wrote: post #10
asdf333 wrote: post #2

i have seen articles about excessive blue light from led bulbs being bad for your long term eyesight i wonder if this has similar problems

It can't be much worse than being under the blue sky.

The blue sky's spectrum doesn't have a giant spike like this:

https://www.benkuhn.net/img/lux/ledspec.png

Re: Rooms can be as bright as the outdoors

#67

Post by Mountain_Skies »

jrockway wrote: post #41
spectramax wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you checked the CRI? Its not bad but not great either - 84 as per the specs. There are a lot of Chinese cheap LED fixtures available on Amazon and no one seems to care about the CRI - it defines how colors appear in your room.

I bought some LEDs on Amazon and uploaded charts showing the wavelength distribution. The LEDs were awful and the charts made it very clear why. Amazon deleted my review and the item currently has 5 stars. The best lights I have are some warm white LED strips from eBay. I glued them to the top of my workbench (it's a desk under some shelves basically) and it is a joy to work there. I measured them and they are pretty…

Did the CRI for the LEDs you bought match that which was listed or did they even have a CRI stated? I'm willing to spend extra for high CRI but so much junk on Amazon outright lies about being UL listed, it wouldn't surprise me if they started lying about CRI once they realize it is a selling point.

Re: Rooms can be as bright as the outdoors

#68

Post by gligorot »

wheels wrote: post #51

I usually eschew labels, preferring simply "sleep weirdo", but I fit the pattern of "Non-24 Sleep-Wake Disorder", with my sleep and waking times drifting progressively later at semi-regular intervals. The result is that I'm often awake through the night. (This week I'm going to bed around 9:00 a.m.) Even with that, I've noticed some pretty big productivity swings based on the season. Interestingly, this hit me very h…

I absolutely hate LEDs. I don't know why, but I just hate them. Especially the white ones.

The yellower are similar to a mid summer day and I can cope with them, but there's always this feeling of something being off. I guess it's connected to us humans being used to non-sun light being (similar to) a fire - mainly consisting of yellow/orange tones.

Also, I don't exactly remember from where I read this, but when a (town) changed the street lights to LED's, a lot of people started having sleep problems, and it supposedly was connected to the blue light emmiting properties of (lower quality?) LEDs.

Re: Rooms can be as bright as the outdoors

#69

Post by muti »

GuiA wrote: post #4

Every few years some company/research lab will claim they have a technology that’ll simulate sunlight coming through a window, but it still isn’t something one can buy. The moment we can buy eg a 3ft by 1ft panel that we can just mount on a wall and feels like an actual sunlit window for a few thousands dollars or so, interior design is likely going to get radically different. (And that’s not to mention the sci-fi dr…

I remember seeing a DIY video on how to make a light panel that simulates light coming from very far away using large Fresnel lenses from old TVs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JrqH2oOTK4

Re: Rooms can be as bright as the outdoors

#70

Post by simple_phrases »

armagon wrote: post #7

This is great to see, for I've been wondering lately why being outdoors is more pleasant (in clement weather) than indoors. Is it the unpredictability? the humidity? the noises? the sunlight? In that same vein, I've wondered how to simulate outdoor conditions inside, especially something approximating more light, in part because I think a family-member is mildly susceptible to seasonal affective disorder. I can't wai…

Furniture, flooring and carpeting contribute towards indoor air pollution. For example, glues used in laminate flooring can release formaldehyde into the air for decades at room temperature or warmer.
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