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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

#231

Post by herf »

aex wrote: post #169
herf wrote: post #134

(Michael from f.lux): this kind of thing is necessary for most buildings, because otherwise people don't get a "day" signal when they spend time indoors. Most of us spend >90% of our time inside. However, we shouldn't mess with light levels like these (or even somewhat lower ones) without some limits, and the main one is some automatic timing to turn things down after it gets too late. Otherwise you will find yoursel…

> Our clocks don't work that well with more than about a 14-15 hour photoperiod ("day") Regarding only natural light, what would be the ideal latitude region for psychology year-round? At 30°N and 30°S days swing between 10 hours to 14 hours through a year. Would it be ideal to live in between 30°N and 30°S, or would you expand/shrink the range? ps. Any resources on geography-psychology relationships would be appreci…

SAD and cancer rates go up somewhat with latitude, definitely by 35-40N. But it is complicated because it doesn't affect everyone the same way. e.g., most of Europe is living above 40N.

In some cases, availability of natural light (due to tree cover, weather, and position in timezone) is as important as latitude.

I would guess that some people are simply better at living at more extreme latitudes or with a weaker circadian signal. Several researchers have tried to use particular genetic markers to explain this, but I don't know a specific one that explains all of it.

Re: Rooms can be as bright as the outdoors

#232

Post by herf »

rsync wrote: post #167
herf wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I think that's right - we have 20,000 lumens in our office and it is pretty cool, except you can't see your screen when it's up all the way. I still prefer daylighting, because it changes the angle of the light and everything else through the day. A couple things: I don't think you necessarily need more light in the morning if you have a well-defined (artificial or real) sunset, and if you've reduced light at ni…

"Yes, I think that's right - we have 20,000 lumens in our office and it is pretty cool, except you can't see your screen when it's up all the way." Can you elaborate ? 20k lumens doesn't seem like that much ... I see residential interior decorating guidelines at about 20 lumens per square foot for non-intense areas like living rooms[1], etc., which implies a 1000 sf office (smallish) conservatively lit with 20k lumen…

My office is not that big, so yes it is quite intense there. But, I should say just that system is capable of delivering >500 vertical melanopic lux (which is a metric based on holding the meter vertically rather than pointing "up"), and this feels remarkably bright.

Re: Rooms can be as bright as the outdoors

#233

Post by herf »

bildung wrote: post #230
lm28469 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you want to take your $4,600 laptop and $1,400 phone, on which people spent decades perfecting color reproduction, and you're paying $13/mo for Netflix to watch shows with multi-million dollar budgets and dedicated colorists, and you start watching Orange is the New Black and you make it yellow, You're projecting way too much my man. What about the people with 70$ monitors using flux while coding at night to avo…

> Type "blue light circadian rhythm study" on google and you basically only find studies supporting that blue light has a negative impact. But the moment you actually evaluate the studies, you'll find that almost all * don't research blue light specifically, but light at all * use unrealistic settings, like 4 to 8 hours bedtime reading (really) * don't properly control for other known sleep affecting factors - and ha…

It is important first to say that sleep optimization is not the only goal with these things, and understanding the timing of melatonin (not just melatonin suppression) is how we find out "when" the circadian clock is set.

The circadian system is loosely coupled to sleep, but it affects many other parts of the body. So if your rhythms are more than 2-3 hours out of sync you will definitely have more trouble sleeping, but this is not the only effect, which is why we work with people studying other topics also.

But overall, yes, I think we'll learn that regular room lighting has at least as big an effect as screens, and that's because in terms of "hours" people spend a lot of them in general illumination, but often only check their phone a few times, or watch a dark movie, which isn't very bright. It's only some of us that code all night in front of a bright screen.

Re: Rooms can be as bright as the outdoors

#234

Post by herf »

2rsf wrote: post #220
herf wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of them have very strict routines about going inside and using super-dark curtains at particular times. I've gotten to email some people above 60N and it is just what they do. In the old Aschoff "bunker" studies where people allowed to keep the lights on as long as they wished, they concluded the human clock was 25.1 hours. We know this isn't true if you provide a proper light-dark cycle, it's much closer to 24…

I live at 59.3 and dark curtains are not too common, most house I saw have some kind of shades or fluffy curtains, both don't block light > they concluded the human clock was 25.1 hours You keep quoting questionable or out dated research, the 25 hours figure seems to be wrong [0] > Early research into circadian rhythms suggested that most people preferred a day closer to 25 hours when isolated from external stimuli l…

Yes this is exactly what I said - it is only a cautionary tale for what we could do wrong, not basic biology.

Re: Rooms can be as bright as the outdoors

#235

Post by lm28469 »

bildung wrote: post #230
lm28469 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you want to take your $4,600 laptop and $1,400 phone, on which people spent decades perfecting color reproduction, and you're paying $13/mo for Netflix to watch shows with multi-million dollar budgets and dedicated colorists, and you start watching Orange is the New Black and you make it yellow, You're projecting way too much my man. What about the people with 70$ monitors using flux while coding at night to avo…

> Type "blue light circadian rhythm study" on google and you basically only find studies supporting that blue light has a negative impact. But the moment you actually evaluate the studies, you'll find that almost all * don't research blue light specifically, but light at all * use unrealistic settings, like 4 to 8 hours bedtime reading (really) * don't properly control for other known sleep affecting factors - and ha…

> Full sunlight has up to 30000lux of blue light alone

Well yeah that's the whole point, blue light during the day is perfectly fine, that's how your body knows it's time to get shit done, sitting in front a screen after sunset during X hours _will_ fuck up your rhythm and blocking blue light will moderately mitigate the issue.

> else people in scandinavia would have severe problems with their circadian rhythms.

They do, just like you do when we switch to winter time. It's not a "problem" though, it's just our body's natural response. The problem arise when you shift your rhythm so bad that it impact your life / work schedules.

> If you filter those out, the result ist basically zero quality studies.

It's 100% a fact that blue light is the light which impact the production of melatonin the most, and that melatonin directly regulate your circadian rhythm.

Re: Rooms can be as bright as the outdoors

#236

Post by scotty79 »

I'm building my own bright lamp recently. I bought 20 Philips bulbs, 1500 lumens each. I attached sockets for them in 5 by 4 array to a 40 by 40 cm board. I'm gonna attach the board to the ceiling and hang transparent ikea kitchen cabinet lining below the lamp so it spreads light a bit so it's not too bright to look directly at it.

It takes about 250W and gives over 10 lux from 1m.

My current setup are two 100W led reflectors pointed at the white ceiling. Thet give over 200 lux at my desk but are very greenish. It shows up on the camera (with any whitebalance) and is even slightly visible to the naked eye.

New lamp should be significant upgrade in terms of colors and light strength. Total cost is around 50$ because I bought lightbulbs very cheap and used cheapest available sockets, plus few hours of very relaxing work. Reflectors were even cheaper. Just 20$ and hanging them was less than an hour.

Re: Rooms can be as bright as the outdoors

#238

Post by bufferoverflow »

abakker wrote: post #16

I’ve got 5 of these in my office. https://www.superbrightleds.com/moreinfo/industrial-led-ligh... . They are fantastic. I have several more of the longer fluorescent replacements in my wood shop. More light is magnificently better for energy and productivity in pretty much all environments. I would still prefer skylights to bulbs, but these are a good solution for dark rooms.

84 CRI is not very good.

Re: Rooms can be as bright as the outdoors

#239

Post by NKCSS »

jsilence wrote: post #202

It is possible to recycle old LCD monitors into articficial windows that have a very real feel to them. The diffraction lenses for the backlight direct the light in a way that makes it appear sun like. Of course this is only about the direction and not about the spectrum, but it might be possible to find LED strips with a high CRI. Any feedback would be appreciated. DIY directions on YT: https://www.youtube.com/watch…

Came here to recommend the same thing, and I think it's an even better solution, as it makes the light appear to come from further away and the diffusion prevents bright spots.

Re: Rooms can be as bright as the outdoors

#240

Post by Brakenshire »

RussianCow wrote: post #30
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.

For those like me who didn't know what CRI is, it stands for color rendering index, and appears to represent how well the colors of things appear when lit by a light source. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_rendering_index [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-CRI_LED_lighting

Unfortunately it’s relatively limited, there are only a small number of wavelengths which are measured, and you can game it by tuning the peaks of the bulb to match up with those points.

There are better measures, but almost no manufacturers use them. I think just having the output spectrum and eyeballing it will do the trick.

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