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How to improve your WFH lighting to reduce eye strain

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Re: How to improve your WFH lighting to reduce eye strain

#281

Post by dvcolgan »

I struggled for years to find a lighting set up for my work from home environment. I eventually realized that it was the quality of light not necessarily the quantity of light I needed to address.

On a whim, I purchased two of those plant grow lamps with full spectrum, lighting, and pointed them upwards perched on a tall pedestal reflecting off of the ceiling.

This has worked far better than any other lighting strategy I’ve ever tried and seems to have mostly solved my seasonal affectedness disorder. It has been 0° and windy outside lately with no sun and I’m doing fine.

I am in fact a plant.

Re: How to improve your WFH lighting to reduce eye strain

#282

Post by MetaWhirledPeas »

Monitor brightness down, ambient light up. Monitors are promoted as having crazy brightness, but this is exactly what you don't want for long hours of staring at the screen. You need it as dim as possible without making it hard to see. I run mine at 20% of the factory default.

And of course turn the lights on and/or open a window. No more cave coding.

My other suggestion is sunglasses for every moment you spend in sunlight. This makes a huge difference.

The bottom line is to simply quit making your eyes adjust to extreme swings in brightness.

Re: How to improve your WFH lighting to reduce eye strain

#283

Post by ropejumper »

close04 wrote: post #264
ropejumper wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cold LED headlights also strain your eyes more as the driver. It's much less comfortable to look at IMO.

Unfortunately I can't compare between 2 modern cars equipped with similar lights save for the color temperature. I haven't seen modern LED headlights with warm color, so when I think of warm color headlights my brain immediately goes to my experience with cars as old as the mid '70s, with filament bulbs. This evokes memories of almost blindly searching for the road right in front of me, compared to today's "I can see…

I'm comparing more to 2010s cars :)

I think it's a pretty good balance between visibility and comfort. But I can definitely see your point.

> Are there new cars with warm LED lights?

I don't know actually, but I've definitely not seen any on the road. I wonder why, as far as I know it's not a technical issue.

Re: How to improve your WFH lighting to reduce eye strain

#284

Post by thanhhaimai »

gehwartzen wrote: post #132
toddmorey wrote: post #44

Earlier 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…

I'm curious what is the percentage of the population that prefers 3000k warm light. I personally disliked it. My mind constantly notices the distortion in color accuracy, and it's an unpleasant feeling. My preference is 5000k "day" light.

Re: How to improve your WFH lighting to reduce eye strain

#286

Post by Carrok »

MisterTea wrote: post #242
quickthrowman wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buy Lutron Diva dimmers and dimmable LED lamps (you probably call them ‘bulbs’), problem solved. For the Lutron Diva, you probably want this one: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Lutron-Diva-LED-Dimmer-Switch-fo... Philips sells dimmable LED lamps that work well. I sell electrical work for a living and this is what I use on my own home. If you want higher grade, commercial LED fixtures have built in drivers with heat sink…

I use Shelly dimmers as they offer you the ability to use their cloud app thing or completely roll your own including flashing new firmware into the ESP controlling the thing.

I also have Shelly but haven’t been able to flash them. Do you have a link?

Re: How to improve your WFH lighting to reduce eye strain

#287

Post by sysworld »

wyager wrote: post #56
toddmorey wrote: post #44

Earlier 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.

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…

Ah mate, I'd settle for manufacturers to even publish colour quality of there lights, even if it's just CRI. At least here in NZ, like 99% of the consumer lights say nothing about colour quality, and many are pretty average (not to mention flicker).

Re: How to improve your WFH lighting to reduce eye strain

#288

Post by sysworld »

benoliver999 wrote: post #188
michaelteter wrote: post #2

This is another +1 for WFH. Many office environments have terrible lighting, and there's very little you can do about it.

Oh god they just replaced our horrible fluorescent tubes with dazzling white LED. From bad to worse.

I have a friend who setup lighting in there garage where he works on servers, he was really proud of his new lights, when I came in, I was shocked to see he picked the worst lights possible, blinding blue/white, flickering, shining directly into your face.

I don't know how he does it, but I can't stand it.

Also, at work we have fluorescent tubes, it's so bad. Sometimes when I work weekends (by my self), I'll leave them off when I get in, just use natural light. It's so much nicer. Also helps that the building "A/C" is off too. I quote it because it's a sad excuse for A/C which barely cools, just makes a huge amount of noise for doing nothing.

Re: How to improve your WFH lighting to reduce eye strain

#289

Post by sysworld »

keeptrying wrote: post #280

Place your monitor in front of or next to a window so you can look out of a window so your eyes can refocus and you can look out into the world. Do NOT place your computer in front of a wall - this literally makes me feel depressed.

So much this!

Though were I currently live, this means looking out onto the neighbours fence. Hoping to move soon to get a betting working space.

Re: How to improve your WFH lighting to reduce eye strain

#290

Post by blackeyeblitzar »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #23

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…

Is there a way to diffuse light from overhead recessed lighting? For me the ‘soft’ LED bulbs I have aren’t enough. I wish there was some kind of diffusion cover I could put on the outside of the recessed housing that softens the light further but also doesn’t look like I hacked something together.

But I also wonder - why has there been such wide adoption of overhead recessed lighting? To me they’re a big part of why lighting in modern homes looks harsh.

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