How to improve your WFH lighting to reduce eye strain

Not 100% sure of the details but I think it’s more like a digital pwm system.

I had dimmers installed when we rewired our house and I thought they were rubbish. Replaced those with Varilight v-pro and they were noisy. Discovered that I could switch between leading edge and trailing edge modes (or something like that) and the sound went away. Love them now.

A lot of the guidelines that are used to light a scene for a camera are also quite useful for lighting a room for yourself, just with less light needed as the human eye has a much higher dynamic range than a camera sensor:

* Use diffuse light. This usually means multiple light sources bouncing and diffusing light off surfaces (ceilings, walls, etc) or diffusers.

* Minimize shadows. Shadows lead to contrast which can lead to eye strain. Use multiple, maybe directional, light sources to illuminate shadows.

* Minimize highlights. Windows without blinds let in lots of light which leads to contrast and can lead to eye strain. Curtains and blinds are great ways to diffuse light.

* Uniform color temperature. Try to make sure all your lights have the same color temperature. Small variations are okay but large color temperature variations lead to color contrast which also tends to be hard on eye strain.

* Select your color temperature based on needs and feeling. A lot of people prefer warmer color temperature lights and cool temperature lights are known to be more stressful for folks with anxiety-related conditions, but if your work requires accurate color representation, or you find yourself mentally trying to compensate for color temperature, then change the temperature to what you find most productive yet relaxing.

* Wall color. Remember that "white" light that reflects off colored surfaces will take on a hue similar to the reflected surfaces. Walls of different colors can cause challenges for uniform color temperature, and warm colored walls can take cold lights and turn them warm.

A side effect, of course, is that your room will become a lot more photogenic. It's no coincidence since photogenic rooms are often just easiest on the eye to look at.

"Golden Hour" is considered a great time for photogenic events, photographs, and videos. "Golden Hour" lighting tends to be diffuse, not too strong, and warm toned. Humans tend to really like this style of lighting and if you do too, you might want to recreate some of these properties in your office.

Many people overlook how spaces are lit from an aesthetic perspective as well as a from the functional perspective this article is written from. Lamps and other eye-level lighting sources do more than just help eye strain as the article suggests; they also work wonders from an interior design perspective, and make spaces feel way more livable. I always find homes overly reliant on overhead lighting struggle to shake the more sterile feel of offices, where overhead dominates.

This 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-brightness dial that nobody ever touches. Turns out if you turn that way down, reducing the contrast between you and the road, it's actually enough to get you 90% there. Because you probably don't drive a 1992 Saab (more's the pity).

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIfzUqYEkiw