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Someone should probably start a bright home lighting company (2019)

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Re: Someone should probably start a bright home lighting company (2019)

#191

Post by pharke »

paxys wrote: post #7

https://www.day-lite.com/ already exists, for a lot cheaper than the author's estimates (no one is paying $1000+ for some bright bulbs). Here's some more: https://www.superbrightleds.com/moreinfo/decorative-ceiling-... . https://www.amazon.com/Artika-Residential-Ultra-Thin-Dimmabl...

Those sub $1000 options from daylite don't look very bright, despite the reviews they have very few images that show what they look like in a room and the ones they do have look like a regular LED panel stuck on the wall. I doubt this comes anywhere close to simulating real daylight. It looks like they're just supposed to be a fake window that gives off a little light. Maybe their fake skylights are better, I can't find anything other than a single image. Not even an option to buy one.

Re: Someone should probably start a bright home lighting company (2019)

#192

Post by ghostly_s »

Retric wrote: post #179
kragen wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I mean, SAD lightboxes do use fluorescents.

I spoke to a physiatrist who considered full spectrum light to be essential in the light boxes. Don’t know about the actual research on the topic.

The entire market of SAD lights was fluorescents pre-LEDs, they can be made just as "full spectrum" as LEDs are (by which I mean neither is capable of true full spectrum, just an approximation with appropriate phosphors).

Re: Someone should probably start a bright home lighting company (2019)

#193

Post by JKCalhoun »

rsyring wrote: post #186
hedora wrote: post #184

We just put in lighting for an entire house. Here's what we learned: - Even high-end bulbs flicker badly when dimmed. Maybe flickering all the LEDs in the array with different phases would fix this. - It's illegal to sell bulbs that buzz in California. All our custom fixtures buzz. If you buy high end dimmers, they buzz less, but still buzz. More enforcement of consumer protection laws is needed. Manufacturers should…

FWIW, I just replaced a lot of bulbs in my house with Philips Hue white ambience bulbs because I'm very sensitive to flickering and we dim a lot. So far, no buzz or flicker. They are expensive, and so is everything in their ecosystem, but I finally have a light I like dimming.

My experience with the Philips Hue was: not bright enough. That was admittedly years ago when they were the new hotness. Perhaps they are brighter now.

Also, I don't want "an app for that" with my lighting.

Re: Someone should probably start a bright home lighting company (2019)

#194

Post by avs733 »

hedora wrote: post #184

We just put in lighting for an entire house. Here's what we learned: - Even high-end bulbs flicker badly when dimmed. Maybe flickering all the LEDs in the array with different phases would fix this. - It's illegal to sell bulbs that buzz in California. All our custom fixtures buzz. If you buy high end dimmers, they buzz less, but still buzz. More enforcement of consumer protection laws is needed. Manufacturers should…

this is actually immensely helpful as someone in the middle of a renovation.

We're planning on having a combination of 'direct' light from bulbs and cans as well as dimmable (and tunable color temp) LED strip lighting that throws indirectly into the ceiling. The frustration with residential dimmers (really all residential versions of things) is so true.

Before we moved out for demolition we did some mockup testing and were just blown away by the effect of adding light to spaces. The house already has a ton of windows but the mockups had what would be considered and 'unreasonably high' amount of light by most design standards. That being said, we were so happy with the results, especially in the morning and early afternoon.

Re: Someone should probably start a bright home lighting company (2019)

#195

Post by JKCalhoun »

blagie wrote: post #180
callesgg wrote: post #65

I tried doing something like this last year, I purchased lots of 1000 lumen LED bulbs. The light was blindingly bright to look at and it looks very strange in a room. My takeaway was: * that you need some type of diffuser. * The light leak out of the apartment was crazy. My apartment looked completely insane from the street. * The light warmth is very important. And proper sun coloured lamps don't exist or are crazy…

I found that: 1) Most modern LEDs are surprisingly good for being sun-colored. It's luck-of-the-draw, though. I once bought some very expensive CFL bulbs from B&H, rated as 90+CRI, and they were literally tritone. I bought some bottom-of-the-barrel LED bulbs at Walmart, and they were great (until they started failing a few months later). 2) You can test this yourself with a $1 pair of diffraction glasses. They're sol…

> You can test this yourself with a $1 pair of diffraction glasses.

I'm reading between the lines here: I think you want to see as continuous a spectrum as is possible with LEDs, not three discrete bands (R, G, B)?

I know LED are not spectrally continuous like incandescent (black body) radiation. Maybe the phosphor coating excites in a more continuous spectrum?

> I don't think there's a business model here, though.

I disagree. I would pay a premium if a company could offer a line that hit the mark on all points: temperature, brightness, spectrum, non-flickering.

My alternatives today appear to be a kind of roulette. And a lot of money is wasted at roulette....

Re: Someone should probably start a bright home lighting company (2019)

#196

Post by JKCalhoun »

branko_d wrote: post #70
callesgg wrote: post #65

I tried doing something like this last year, I purchased lots of 1000 lumen LED bulbs. The light was blindingly bright to look at and it looks very strange in a room. My takeaway was: * that you need some type of diffuser. * The light leak out of the apartment was crazy. My apartment looked completely insane from the street. * The light warmth is very important. And proper sun coloured lamps don't exist or are crazy…

I used "rails lights" (the kind they often use in boutiques) and pointed them up at the ceiling (rails are mounted on walls, not the ceiling). There is almost nowhere in the apartment where you can look directly at a light source. The result: bright but pleasantly diffused light.

Very cool. I had considered something like this: install "crown moulding" a few inches shy of the ceiling and running rope lighting along where it will not be seen — but can scatter across the ceiling.

Re: Someone should probably start a bright home lighting company (2019)

#197

Post by davidgay »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #193
rsyring wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I just replaced a lot of bulbs in my house with Philips Hue white ambience bulbs because I'm very sensitive to flickering and we dim a lot. So far, no buzz or flicker. They are expensive, and so is everything in their ecosystem, but I finally have a light I like dimming.

My experience with the Philips Hue was: not bright enough. That was admittedly years ago when they were the new hotness. Perhaps they are brighter now. Also, I don't want "an app for that" with my lighting.

They recently announced new, brighter lights.

Re the app: then don't use it, just program the hub directly yourself - see https://developers.meethue.com/.

It all runs locally on the hub - I've set it up for auto-day/night colour switching, plus manual override via a switch. I also used a light meter to more precisely tune the colour temperature ;)

Re: Someone should probably start a bright home lighting company (2019)

#198

Post by medstrom »

Udo wrote: post #116
thewakalix wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Ideas can be harmful” is gibberish?

The amount of self-importance on display is what makes it sound like gibberish. A: "I have the most ground-breaking idea ever!" B: "Okay, let's hear it?" A: "No, it's too dangerous, it may well destroy the world, but trust me it's brilliant and completely novel." It's a religion at that point.

Can you link me to when anyone on LessWrong has behaved like your "A"?

Re: Someone should probably start a bright home lighting company (2019)

#199

Post by medstrom »

playpause wrote: post #136
jakobov wrote: post #100

I wonder what one gains by using super bright lights. The pupil will adjust to counter the effects of lighting. Adding more lux just makes your pupil smaller. Or am I missing something? Maybe its non linear? Or maybe the idea is to reach the minimal pupil diameter? Or maybe happiness is somehow dependent on pupil diameter?

My guess is it's some complex neurological response triggered by 'knowing' (or being sufficiently convinced) that one is surrounded by bright outdoor sunlight, rather than a physiological response powered by the light absorbed by the retina. What matters is the brain's estimate of the current lux value, which would take pupil size into account. This is just a guess.

1. It's not all about eyes. The skin also reacts to light.

2. Even though your pupil shrinks, you get a larger total number of light rays into the eye. Your visual cortex adjusts the image so you don't realize that a sunlit scene is a million times brighter than a lamplit scene. These extra rays may still affect something hormonal.

Re: Someone should probably start a bright home lighting company (2019)

#200

Post by blagie »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #195
blagie wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found that: 1) Most modern LEDs are surprisingly good for being sun-colored. It's luck-of-the-draw, though. I once bought some very expensive CFL bulbs from B&H, rated as 90+CRI, and they were literally tritone. I bought some bottom-of-the-barrel LED bulbs at Walmart, and they were great (until they started failing a few months later). 2) You can test this yourself with a $1 pair of diffraction glasses. They're sol…

> You can test this yourself with a $1 pair of diffraction glasses. I'm reading between the lines here: I think you want to see as continuous a spectrum as is possible with LEDs, not three discrete bands (R, G, B)? I know LED are not spectrally continuous like incandescent (black body) radiation. Maybe the phosphor coating excites in a more continuous spectrum? > I don't think there's a business model here, though. I…

Correct. You can see a continuous spectrum on some bulbs, and bulbs split into three (R, G, and B) for others. It's very obvious. You can't tell a CRI of 80 from 85, but in my experience, it doesn't matter very much.

You're correct that the alternatives now are a kind of roulette. A new company would add one more bullet (or empty chamber) into the barrel. There is no way for a customer to know "Company X solves this problem correctly." If you run LightBulbX and do everything right, and I run LumiNosiTechNo and have the same marketing pages as you, people won't know better.

If reputation builds up somehow, LightBulbX is just as liable to get bought up by an investor who milks that reputation by selling $2 products for $1000.

A value proposition isn't the same as a viable business model. I think there's a clear value proposition which many people would in abstract pay for in an abstract world of perfect transparency and information, but we're not in that world. I don't think there's a viable business model.

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