Tuesday, December 8, 2020

Circadian Lighting: A Bright Idea with Pros and Cons

Disturbances in human circadian rhythms can have a physiological and mental impact and often causes poor sleep patterns. In vertical farms, the absence of natural light means that artificial light settings are vital; if this is lacking, it will dramatically affect the harvest's quality. The SmartCore circadian lighting system provides artificial light that supports human and plant biological cycles in the same way as natural light. The SmartCore solution delivers sophisticated lighting through the colour, intensity and location of light - without complex programming. Where the technology currently stands today, circadian lighting is most beneficial for use in office buildings, hospitals, and other commercial spaces where people work for long hours during the day without access to natural light.

At the end of the evening I just switch to red light and wind down for bed. I have a newborn and it's fantastic to be able to change him or take him downstairs for a bottle without bright light waking him too much. I found I need about 20k lux for much of the day to not feel sleepy or depressed in the daytime. I had to move to California and work outdoors to overcome this, I used to live far north, but even "extremely bright" indoor lights weren't enough to have a positive effect on me. I've paired this with powerful Sowilo light strips, which have excellent warm/daylight white range and brightness, and it's kept S.A.D. in relative check.

So How Does Circadian Lighting Work Then?

Circadian lighting, also referred to ashuman-centric lighting, is lighting that mimics the natural progression of sunlight throughout the day. ‘Circadian,’ refers to the circadian rhythm, the biological clock that runs on a 24-hour day/night cycle for rest and activity. When we talk about circadian lighting, it’s referring to light designed to retrain circadian rhythms for a better night’s sleep. ​While circadian lighting is a logical and well-intended response to the era of indoor living that humanity now finds themselves in, it is not a replacement for exposure to natural daylight. This technology alone falls short of a home intuitively designed to maximize natural lighting, supported by artificial lighting that takes into consideration your lifestyle, behaviors, and habits. Ideally, we would spend our days in the sunshine and our nights under the stars.

Our strategically designed system has the power to positively affect building occupant's productivity, decrease sick days and increase alertness. Sunlight is free for daytime, and soft white bulbs are cheaper than smart bulbs for nighttime. Traditional timers, switches, and the clapper can add ‘automation’ if necessary.

Does Circadian Lighting Work?

I can only turn lights on and off or change the brightness. I'll have to think about getting some ceiling lights with adjustable color temperature whenever I move to a new house. In all honesty, I’ve found it healthier to have fixed color temperature in different rooms, and change what room I’m in throughout the day.

circadian lighting for home

With such a frequent change in light exposure, the astronauts do not receive a sufficient light signal to regulate their circadian rhythms. Lack of a proper daylight signal directly also affects the astronauts’ ability to sleep and stay awake. In this extreme environment, it became clear, very quickly, that the astronauts needed a way to properly regulate their circadian rhythms for their safety and well-being. Color tuning or tunable lighting is not necessarily circadian lighting.

Color Tuning vs Spectrally Optimized LEDs

I’m only in my bedroom when warm lighting makes sense, I’m only in my office when cool lighting makes sense. That helps establish other healthy habits than just sleep, and keeping the bedroom dedicated to sex and sleep is a good practice anyway to combat insomnia. You are exposed to far more blue lights that disrupt circadian rhythm than you may realize and adding more blue light emitting LEDs to your home may actually further disrupt your circadian rhythm. Programming can be challenging.Calculations are required to find the proper intensity and spectrum of light for each time of day.Free online calculatorsare available to help homeowners find lighting measurements needed. Handheld devices, calledspectroradiometers, are used to take lighting measurements to let you know whether you’re meeting the target circadian effective light. As you might remember, exposure to daylight has a profound impact on human health and circadian rhythm.

F.lux use by normal people and other similar stuff is a good canary for how sophisticated a person is. I have recessed lighting in my home with non-serviceable LEDs. I'd like to have a sunrise simulation in my bedroom, so I only need one lamp like this, and the Hue system seems to complicated for that use case. For some reason I can't find figures right now but I recall it being something like 10% of people living in northern Europe get SAD seriously and up to 30% more mildly. We suffer from pretty extreme depression during the dark months which has been largely ignored until recently.

Circadian Lighting Algorithm

On the other hand, going with Phillips Hue or similar will lock me into that ecosystem - which also dictates which lights and switches I could use. While I haven’t gotten my lights set up like this, I do use home assistant, just like the author and it is simply amazing. For things like this, the setup can get quite complex, but the main benefit is that it provides a unified interface to any connected device in your home.

circadian lighting for home

This means that we need to essentially turn our clocks back by 12 minutes each day, which morning sun exposure can help with. It started out as an excuse to learn python, then when I moved I switched my main controller over to a pre-packaged product . I have been doing this in some form or another for a long time. I found if you use warm white bulbs the simplest solution is just to dim them as the night goes on.

Circadian lighting to help you sleep and aid your health and wellbeing is just one of the many features that is easy to achieve due to the elevated control you gain in your smart home. In the beginning of Electric Light, all bulbs were 2500K . Mercury Vapor lights started getting used outdoors, but eventually the lighting industry figured out High Pressure Sodium (blue-free), and Low Pressure Sodium for outdoor lighting. Automotive halogens are much more orange/yellow than the halogens I have in my ceiling fan. I would like to do something like this, but it would mean moving the smart bits from my switches to my bulbs, which I'm just not really willing to do. Right now, if I take a hammer to my Home Assistant server, all my lights still turn on and off at the wall.

A lot of the claims surrounded how we designed and manufactured a light bulb that was modular. People are simply not aware that their blue-heavy LED lights either cause harm to their sleep schedule or simply feel clinical at night. I started a company to pursue circadian lighting and sadly pivoted away from it as a core value proposition because of weak reception from the market.

This lighting is best used in bedrooms, living rooms, or other relaxing spaces. The concept of circadian lighting does have the potential to support a healthier circadian rhythm, however this technology is still being developed. The following are current pros and cons of incorporating circadian lighting technology in your home. I have automations set up to dim the lights around sunset gradually over the course of 30 minutes, which also automatically adjusts the color temperature. Circadian lighting—lighting that changes color to promote sleep at night and energy during the day—is the future.

circadian lighting for home

During these dark months, I’ve risen with a spring in my step and slept as metronomically as a small child – asleep when my head hits the pillow, awake at a regimental 6.32am, with no need for an alarm. NightFall bulbs help create a tranquil evening environment. Use BIOS SkyBlue bulbs in common areas and our NightFall bulbs in individual rooms to maximize the benefits of the lighting technology.

With circadian lighting, this progression is recreated in your home through the use of high-tech adjustable LED Smart bulbs. These Smart bulbs perform on an expensive Smart lighting system with a timer set to increase the brightness and blue light as the day progresses, peaking around midday, and then reducing into the evening. Spectrally optimized LEDs, on the other hand, take a very different approach. They target melanopsin, which is a photopigment in the eye that sends signals to our brain to help regulate our internal clock and a variety of biological functions every day.

We found 48" 4000K LEDs in the ceiling fixtures. She found 3000K tubes (GE? Feit? Philips) at the home store. They're quite pleasant, much better than other 3000K bulbs I've been around. My house has maybe 20 light bulbs in it, most of them under 75 watts, except for a couple of strategic halogen fixtures. Since I got my eyesight procedure 10+ years ago, I soon noticed I was quite sensitive to lights that didn't affect me at all (maybe my vision was too bad to even notice, don't know).

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