Buy a Godox LA 200D light, a tall light stand on a tripod, set it up in the corner of your room, and point it up at your ceiling at an angle.
It’s like having indoor daylight.
How to improve your WFH lighting to reduce eye strain
171–180 of 309 posts
Re: How to improve your WFH lighting to reduce eye strain
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the history of LED lighting, it took quite a bit of work (hybrid phosphor technology, etc) to get them to emit warm color temperatures. The exact color temp can be a personal preference, but I think a lot of people aren't privy to the difference the color temperature of "white" light can make! I want to go on a guerrilla campaign around my neighborhood and replace porch light bulbs with warm equivalents.
I just went through this with my car. All the OEM overhead interior lights were horrible 6000k+ type bulbs that not only made the interior feel like a hospital room but completely ruined my night vision turning me into the classic “Jesus!! You’re going to kill someone!” dad whenever my kids would fiddle with them at night. I cannot overstate how much of a difference it made switching them all to 3000k warm whites. Of…
How do you feel about LED headlights (assuming your car has them)? Great for safety or too bright and tiring?
Re: How to improve your WFH lighting to reduce eye strain
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you source lightbulbs? I have yet to find a reliable LED bulb that doesn't hum or flicker on a dimmer despite being advertised as "dimmable" . . .
Philips Ultra-Definition 60w equivalent bulbs are amazing and really reasonably priced. They also work really well with standard dimmers with extremely low flicker.
I've heard good reviews, but half of my Philips UD bulbs have died since I installed them roughly six months ago. All the bulbs in enclosed fixtures have died (despite the bulbs stating they were suitable for enclosed fixtures), and maybe 1/6th of the bulbs in open fixtures have died.
Re: How to improve your WFH lighting to reduce eye strain
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
While the color temperature situation has improved, the actual spectral quality of most consumer LED lighting still leaves a lot to be desired. CRI makes an effort to measure this, although it's a low-granularity measurement. I personally buy surplus cinema lighting equipment and use it to light my house. I have a bunch of fancy cinematic LEDs with high CRIs that produce decent light, although they still can't fully…
Where do you buy the surplus cinema lighting equipment? And how do you mount it inside your house? I went down a high CRI office lighting rabbit hole last year and I could only find expensive, new photography lights.
Also, MediaLight provide great high CRI options bias lighting for your TV or monitor, further reducing your eyestrain when watching TV at night: https://www.biaslighting.com/
Re: How to improve your WFH lighting to reduce eye strain
#175The natural light and diffuse light are good tips. Next is to get a big screen eg. 85" 4K and put it 1.5m away. That should be your main display. I don't have that all the time, but then I get some variety, 85" @ 1.5m a lot of the time, laptop some of the time, driving/walking etc. for longer range. 1.5m is the midpoint of focus for the muscles in your eyes. I built augmented reality displays and this was the focal p…
I would disagree with 1.5m, but I do recommend checking how close you are to your monitor. Let's assume you have a reasonably sized office monitor (27" or so). Extend your arm with your hand as a fist, forward. If your screen is closer to you than your knuckles, it's too close. Now, for the height: all monitor stands are too low. If you keep your head straight and look at the monitor, you should be looking at the upp…
all monitor stands are too low. If you keep your head straight and look at the monitor, you should be looking at the upper third.
Re: How to improve your WFH lighting to reduce eye strain
#176One slightly different approach I haven't seen mentioned here - I use grow lights in my office. They're way brighter, so simulate sunlight better, are full spectrum, and as a bonus my plants are super happy. I use 5 of these with a diffuser: https://www.amazon.com/SANSI-Daylight-Spectrum-Sunlight-Gree...
Do you wear sunscreen?
Re: How to improve your WFH lighting to reduce eye strain
#177I'm working on something like the lamp depicted in the images[0]. It's bright, diffuse, dimmable, flicker free, and high CRI. [0] https://getbrighter.com
How would this compare to something like the Godox LA 200D, which claims an output of 100,000 lumens? I use two of these lights on tall stands pointed at my ceiling, which seems to work very well
Re: How to improve your WFH lighting to reduce eye strain
#178does anyone know if there is a phase-shifter for led lights? a way to shift each led 60hz cycle to create more-uniform light?
You’re probably better off using a high quality converter to DC and DC lights
in theory all the switching dc supplies will be operating on the same AC cycle thus the same led frequency
Re: How to improve your WFH lighting to reduce eye strain
#179Strategically increasing the amount of light I'm exposed to was a game changer.
Turns out we're bad at gauging how much light is in our environment. Few would suspect that the amount of lux we're exposed to indoors is often far less than 1% of the lux outside. A typical corporate office has under 500 lux, vs 50k+ midday-if you're at home and haven't put much thought into the lighting situation, the lux could be in the low double digits. You can get a free app "Lux meter" to measure yours now.
We evolved to be outside a lot, and light regulates aspects of our biology. We probably shouldn't stay two orders of magnitude beneath the factory recommended exposure levels for months at a time. Hence clinical or sub-clinical SAD,sleep and mood disturbances etc [see references].
One solution is high wattage LEDs: https://www.benkuhn.net/lux/
I've had several ~250w LEDs over the years (these are huge and actually draw 250w, they aren't 250w equivalent). 250w might be overkill, and 80w is fine for me and a lot more practical. If you get one , be warned that depending on the wattage you'll probably have to build your own stand for it as most fixtures aren't rated for that high wattage.
Related to light amount is of course light timing. This may be more important than getting a steadily high amount of lux during the day. Get lots of light in the morning, and not a lot at night (just low intensity bulbs, maybe just red ones, starting 1-2h after sunset is nice). That helped my sleep a ton. Check out Huberman LAb, he talks about light amount and timing ad nauseam.
[1] Office workers sleep better and are more active with more lighting: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4031400/
[2] "Day and night light exposure are associated with psychiatric disorders: an objective light study in >85,000 people" https://www.nature.com/articles/s44220-023-00135-8
[3] "Time spent in outdoor light is associated with mood sleep circadian rhythm related outcomes" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8892387/
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Re: How to improve your WFH lighting to reduce eye strain
#180This is worth considering in the context of driving at night. I used to get terrible eye strain, causing fatigue and sleepiness. Obviously not good. Then I bought a Saab 900. It had a 'night mode' that disabled all dials except the speedo. The lights went off and the dial went down. (It came back on if it needed to alert you of something, say low fuel.) [0] This made a radical difference, and led me to the dash-brigh…
Related, the color of your dash matters, the modern backlit screens (both dash and entertainment) emit much white and blue light. Mazda and Bmw (traditionally, less the last 5 years) seem to consider human ux more than others - hence orange lighting. Modern ambient (orange or green) can be nice.
You can usually turn the infotainment screen off completely at night. However, for some manufacturers, this means the screen displays black, but is still powered, ie. the backlight is on, which can be annoing.