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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)

#251

Post by lazide »

mschuster91 wrote: post #106
phgn wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the same. For me the article is missing an explanation of why existing artificial skylights cost $30k, and how to avoid those costs.

> For me the article is missing an explanation of why existing artificial skylights cost $30k, and how to avoid those costs. Because people with rare diseases are willing to pay a lot of money for stuff sold by snake-oil peddlers after they have been let down by the traditional healthcare system, and other than people with SAD there's not much of a market for these things.

Having been a study of people for a long time? This impacts everyone, just some to bigger degrees. There is a reason Seattle is such a huge coffee (and antidepressant) consumer, and it isn't because these impacts are rare.

They're just ignored because no one has figured out how to solve it (or that it is a problem for them).

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

#252

Post by lazide »

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…

The market is flooded with fakes and shittily QA'd products (often under previously good brand names) - having a turnkey solution with guaranteed quality would have a lot of buyers, and there is a lot of potential to grow a new solid brand.

If you do, please don't sell to private equity right away. Let us all get a couple years of a real solid product at least.

I'm still pissed at the (well known brand) USB stick I bought (marked high speed!) due to shitty engineering would overheat on any transfer longer than about 10 seconds, then throttle to KB/s read/write speed. Average speed was 1.5MB/s.

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

#253

Post by lazide »

seltzered_ wrote: post #227

I used to think about this deeply, and have flipped the idea around - why can't we be doing more work (including writing and other computer work) outdoors? As a start, I've started https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMobileComputers/ and been going on stretches of doing laptop work outside more. By having a setup where you've either got the screen closer to the face (less glare) or an e-ink display, I've managed being outsi…

The issue I have is that being outdoors is distracting due to constantly changing environment. If I'm trying to deep focus on something, it doesn't help.

Even worse if the environment is somewhat uncontrolled (wilderness, city cafe) as there are potential safety issues if I truly deep focus.

If I'm doing meetings, talking to folks, churning through a bunch of bs tasks, etc. then it's nice.

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

#254

Post by pbhjpbhj »

BoxOfRain wrote: post #223
egypturnash wrote: post #201

When I lived in Seattle, my solution was a 2’ square fluorescent panel I got from a gardening supply place called “The Indoor Sun Shop”. I grew up in the South and got real bad seasonal depression up there; it probably saved my life. I paid all of $300 for it. Plus like twenty bucks for a mechanical timer, because I discovered that there were a lot of mornings where I was too depressed and mopey to turn it on myself.…

I wonder how much the traditional British pessimism has to do with the fact our winters are an SAD magnet if there ever was one, very short days due to the high latitude and the kind of grey soul-penetrating dampness of it being just cold enough to make you miserable but not cold enough for the ground to ever properly freeze for long. I definitely found taking vitamin D supplements helps with the seasonal blues, I'd…

Would you tell us a little about your photophobia, I've never heard of anyone having that before. Thank you.

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

#256

Post by samstave »

kumarvvr wrote: post #47

I'm from India. Lighting in my middle class house, since forever, has been poor. I never consciously felt it when I was still studying. Just that the rooms were dark and I would prefer to play/study outside, or in the front room, where the door was always open, allowing a lot of sunlight. I realized the lighting factor a few years back. Now, My own home has two lights in every room and whenever I am studying/reading/…

An interesting question regarding lighting's effect on studying + retaining material + focus ;

Does the entire space need to be well lit - or the object of your focus (which can require the entire scene (such as a lab etc) - but when it comes to reading and computing. If you have a spot on your book or your computer that was of the sun-like quality, (obviously without glare on screens), would that suffice to aid in focus and retention.

I assume that a well lite complete space serves a more biological soothing and depression help.

So it would be interesting to know if there are differing applications of sun-like light based on the goals.

At late actual night, a sun-like spotlight on your focus might be good. When you're up and active, then light the whole space...

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

#257

Post by samstave »

JoelJacobson wrote: post #109

I live in Sweden (country with severe darkness) and just bought two Virtual Sun united from https://innerscene.com/ NOTE: Be extremely careful when transporting/moving these units, they easily break. The supplier who imported them on my behalf got two shipments with broken units until they finally got one that wasn't damaged. This happened despite FRAGILE markings on the packaging. Innerscene's Virtual Sun is much sm…

What does that amount of product loss due to the OEMs bottom line, let alone the extreme waste directly into the environment.

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

#258

Post by samstave »

traceroute66 wrote: post #61

> Someone should probably start a bright home lighting company Such a thing already exists. Its called a lighting design company. People need to admit that lighting (like cryptography) is hard, and that if you're serious about "doing it right" you need to bring in a suitably skilled professional. Each house/apartment is different and every room within it is different, you'll never be able to magically buy good lighti…

Can confirm. Have worked on so many extremely large scale construction projects, on the tech side, and I see all the lighting plans during the design process...

And I am always dumbfounded when I see the actual results. Even back when software available today, Blender, Sketchup and other design software did not exist ; lighting designers were REALLY good at coming up with nice lighting designs...

Now with the advent of these tools, lighting design today is lightyears from where it was a decade ago - but its still HARD to do well.

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

#259

Post by samstave »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #196
branko_d wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is a super common design technique - you can buy LED ready moulding:

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=crown+moulding+led&ia=web

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

#260

Post by MengerSponge »

formerly_proven wrote: post #93
nine_k wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Warmth" and "naturalness" are produced by high CRI index (90+). I have 8 lamps with CRI 90+ in my living room, at 5000K color temperature, 1500 lumens each. They produce nice light that seamlessly mixes with daytime sunlight from the window: they seem to have the same color. I also have a few LED strip installation over desks and tables, very bright at max dimmer setting. A diffuser is a must, even though it lowers…

Quick guide to CRI 90-95: Can be ok, or not. Depends. Different lights will likely not mix at the same color temperature. 98: Good 99-100 full spectrum cyberlight: As good as Halogen and only ~30x as expensive.

Funny quip I heard a few days ago from a guy designing LED systems for parking garages: "in a public lot your CRI only needs to be good enough to see the difference between blood and motor oil"
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