How to improve your WFH lighting to reduce eye strain
Comments
Karrot_Kream
BenoitEssiambre
I'm in a basement and had fairly good success with certain "led shop lights" to make the space feel more like it has natural light (though I could improve things further).
I do find however, that using diffuse lighting and minimizing shadows is what makes lighting feel artificial.
Natural sunlight has very parallel rays that create very evenly lit surfaces with very sharp shadows. Whereas most artificial light has radial rays around the light source that diminish in intensity with the cube of the distance and thus create fading gradients on surfaces and weak shadows especially if you have many of them.
I find I miss the feel of parallel rays of natural light so I try to find lights that have for example, parabolic reflectors to make the rays more parallel and position a few of them farther away from me pointed towards my visual field to try to replicate natural sunlight coming through a window.
One challenge however, is that it's surprisingly difficult to get good parallel rays from artificial light sources because of conservation of etendue ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etendue ). I wish there were more options on the market.
toddmorey
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.
gehwartzen
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 course instead of being replaceable bulbs they were all SMDs directly soldered onto little PCBs making it a bit of a project … but so worth it!
Karrot_Kream
In general I think the population at large, and especially programmer types, know way too little about lighting given how ubiquitous both lighting and photography/videography is in our everyday life.
Good on you for fighting the warm light fight!
Der_Einzige
They claim to know a lot but then none of them build proper Cf Lumen or F.Lux style tooling (i.e. super easy default instead of requiring tons of setup) for turning ALL blue light off (red shifting) IN THE DEFAULT OS as the primary way to use your device at night. None of that wussy shifting the color temperature brown shit that doesn't meaningfully reduce blue light hazard.
I can literally preserve my whole night vision and have zero eye strain in pitch black conditions by red shifting my computer screen. No one supports this because we are stupid.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_effects_of_high-ene...
The laser pointer community of all groups understands this stuff well. They recommend green lasers because they use the lowest power for the highest visibility at night. Blue lasers are easy to get super powerful, but unlike a lower powered green one, which usually will only temporarily blind you if you make a mistake - a powerful blue laser will straight up destroy your eyes forever. Permanent blindness.
Karrot_Kream
> The laser pointer community of all groups understands this stuff well
This has been my major frustration also. Different enthusiast communities all discover these things independently and talk about them in their own domain language. Night photography and astral photography talks about red shifting as well.
onli
I don't really get that impression. To the contrary: How dangerous blue light is supposed to be is commonly repeated, with many products for filtering it out, like glasses, and software in all devices that does the red shifting. Android has it by default, Linux does, macOS - is Windows missing? Or is there something in the implementation of those measures that you object to?
But note that the wikipedia article you link states clearly that the eye strain attributed to blue light has no scientific evidence. That's also what I found out last time I looked into it - all those very strong statements about how dangerous blue light emission is supposed to be has no equivalent scientific studies that prove them. I think there was also a prominent article about that here on HN.
I think the effect might be completely made up, as it is something that is easy to believe and to subjectively feel that it works, by a placebo effect basically.
c0balt
> They claim to know a lot but then none of them build proper Cf Lumen or F.Lux style tooling (i.e. super easy default instead of requiring tons of setup) for turning ALL blue light off (red shifting) IN THE DEFAULT OS as the primary way to use your device at night.
Probably not what you are aiming for but for Linux this is a somewhat solved problems. The default DM, Gnome, has built-in color shift with a time schedule AFAIK. For Wayland and xorg there are also numerous other solutions that do a display-level redshift, I can recommend wl-sunset for Wayland.
scns
KDE does too
amarcheschi
Along light temperature there's light cri as well, which measures how faithful to real life a light is. New standards such as Tm30 came out recently as well
wyager
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 compete with tungsten bulbs (e.g. Arrilite series)
Ideally you want to be looking for something with a color temperature in the 3500K (mid-morning) to 6500K (clear blue noon day) range and a CRI of 95+. Also bug manufacturers to start using better color quality metrics like TM-30.
wonger_
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.
nicoburns
These guys do very high quality lighting aimed at homes and offices: https://www.waveformlighting.com/
toddmorey
using surplus cinema lighting equipment is genius.
sumea
I am quite sensitive to glare. I have tried many setups in my windowless office with low ceiling height and have found linear up-down pendant lights the best option. Up-light is more important as it bounces soft light from ceiling. When I want to work in dimmer environment in the evenings, I switch off the down-light.
I also try to buy lightning fixtures that are designed anti-glare although they are more expensive. You can also make pendant lights yourself with led strips and aluminium profiles.
Your eyesight and glasses also matter a lot. My glasses are quite worn with lots of scratches. They definitely make issues worse.
bongodongobob
I agree up until golden hour. It's a very specific style of lighting and isn't any better or worse. It's not the best time to take a picture, it doesn't have the best light. It's a specific kind of light.
camhart
A big thing not often spoken about with eye strain is dry eye caused by the lack of blinking due to focusing on screens too close to our face. This is an evolutionary phenomenon--close dangers cause extreme focus without blinking. Extreme focus on close items reduces our blinks.
Our eye lids have glands in them that release oils on your eye with each blink. These oils help prevent the watery part of your tears from evaporating. When it evaporates your eyes dry out causing discomfort and potentially pain.
If you don't blink enough, the oil doesnt get on your eyes and eventually, in extreme cases, the glands can even die. A lack of oil in tears can cause extreme eye fatigue and even pain.
This is why dry eyes is on the rise. Remember to blink!
I actually built a little web app to count my blinks. See https://dryeyestuff.com/. Not perfect, just a prototype. 100% free.
humblepie
I, too, experienced dry eyes and found it challenging to consciously blink regularly. A few years ago, someone gifted me one of these "3-D puzzles" (similar to this: https://www.amazon.ca/Bookend-Miniature-Bookshelf-Birthday-B...). I kept it on my desk and it helped me somewhat regulate my constant focus on the screen by prompting me to glance at it occasionally. That's just something that worked for me.
amadeusw
Optometrist recommended I take daily fish oil and give it a month to see result. Sure enough, roughly a month later, I stopped having dry eyes. My eyes feel good even now during winter, when both outside and inside air is quite dry.
freefaler
btw, if you have 2 different monitors on different lengths from your eye you change focus more frequently and your eyes feel better.
A laptop + big monitor is less irritating for the eyes as long as they aren't put exactly on the same line.
mjcohen
When you get old enough, your eyes stop focussing.
amelius
Interesting. Could an external stimulus trigger a subconscious blink?
chasd00
> Could an external stimulus trigger a subconscious blink?
you could set something up where a water gun squirts you on a random interval between 2-5 minutes. heh i think i would kill someone if they did that to me.
camhart
I'm not aware of any triggers to cause subconscious blinking. That'd be fantastic if there was an option though.
The web app can trigger a notification if your blinks / minute drop too low. Only challenge is modern browsers throttle websites that aren't visible, so the blink counting gets messed up.
dpig_
Someone just shared an extension that inserts random jump scares onto social media sites that you want to avoid. Maybe adding jump scares to work applications can help people blink more often, too.
amelius
Maybe you could set up the conditions for a Pavlovian response.
E.g. let your app give a signal (e.g. beep or buzz) every 30 seconds if you don't blink. Then train yourself to blink if you hear the signal.
Edit: Yes, it can be done: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyeblink_conditioning
DonHopkins
You could also lie less often, because you blink less frequently when you lie. ;)
https://ris.utwente.nl/ws/files/23166678/HICSS47_Do_Liars_Bl...
notjoemama
I want to add something I noticed about coloring diffuse light. In an older home, the "white" walls may have yellowed a bit and bouncing light off them will color what is diffused. This sameness has a backrooms kind of feel to me. But, repainting with fresh and more-white white paint, I can bounce yellow or warm colored light and it ends up being pleasing.
bensandcastle
The 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 plane we selected for to minimize eye strain and the felt sense of vergence/accommodation conflict.
We could then throw graphics as close as ~30cm, or at infinity using vergence adjustments, even though the accommodation was at a fixed 1.5m. Graphics felt best at that distance, but they also felt ok in the range 0.5-10m, which suited nearly all productivity scenarios.
frabert
85" @ 1.5m is insanely big for me, do you not get sore having to dart your eyes about to read the corners?
JumpCrisscross
> do you not get sore having to dart your eyes about to read the corners?
I wouldn't be surprised if this is what makes it healthier. Not only are you exercising your eyes, you're also giving them a chance to let you know when they need a break.
stevenAthompson
I do almost exactly this, but instead use a cheapish 65" 4k/60hz TV instead. I can see bits of my surroundings with my peripheral vision, but only with the parts of my vision that are already blurry.
I suspect that 85" was chosen to maximize immersion for gamers (cover the entire field of view), rather than to minimize eyestrain. For me doing development work on a 65" from about 1.5m is close to ideal.
gehwartzen
I have a 4k projector setup which I use from time to time instead of my regular 27” monitor. It makes a pretty big difference especially as it is reflected light. I can sit in front of it for hours without any noticeable eye strain.
It’s fine for doing graphical work or web browsing but really not ideal for things like code or excel as I lose my place too often with my eyes having to dart around further. Might just be sitting too close though.
neves
I made a glasses with the focus optimized for 1.5m. A lot easier on my eyes for working than my progressive lenses.
stevenAthompson
How did you go about that? Can you just take your prescription someplace and have them made?
zhengyi13
Tell your optometrist you want that, and they'll write the prescription.
Last I went, they wrote me two different prescriptions: one with an up-close focal point for books/screen work, and a second one with the focal point further out for driving.
DavidVoid
Not OP but look into "computer glasses". Usually they're optimized for distances a bit closer than 1.5 meters, but I'm sure that can be changed.
bongodongobob
I used to work in the optical industry, that's not what computer glasses are, they are just blue blocker lenses.
walterbell
Any lens can be customized for desired focal length, including distance, intermediate (e.g. computer) or closeup/reading.
michaelteter
This is another +1 for WFH. Many office environments have terrible lighting, and there's very little you can do about it.
mjcohen
My eyes are sensitive to glare, so in my last job I took to wearing the visor I wore outside also inside. Got some weird looks but it was a lot easier on my eyes.
toddmorey
I remember standing up on office chairs to twist the florescent tube bulbs above my desk just enough to turn them off. That light was just awful.
It helped a lot until maintenance would come in at night and "fix" the light and I'd have to do it all over.
bunderbunder
The over-bright lighting, monitor glare, and eye strain are a favorite conversation topic at my workplace since RTO.
thanatos519
Amen. I wear a ballcap at the office.
Twirrim
Ours are absolutely atrocious.
I forgot just how bad it got until they did a big office move a couple of months ago. Previous to that I'd been way out on the edge with large windows behind me (with some shading film on them). My move now put me in the centre of the floor with barely a window in visible range, stuck under these godawful, far too bright lights.
The first day in that space reminded me just how much I'd hated that aspect of things before the pandemic.
nluken
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.
empressplay
You can have both though, overhead white lighting for the day and lower temperature lamps for the evening. It's not a binary choice.
Nevermark
I once used shop lights aimed at my ceiling to get through a winter, while avoiding depression. Four pairs on stands around the room, behind the furniture aimed at a vaulted ceiling.
It worked very well. Every day felt like summer.
I quickly learned to turn off the sun and go back to regular lighting around 5pm.
In my next house, where I am now, I have large cove molding rectangles with recessed bands of LED lighting, all bouncing off the ceiling.
It’s great, because it’s really bright, but so even. Like a good day outside. You feel very awake, alert, & energized, but it is very relaxing too.
They dim, but perhaps for the same reasons as the article mentioned, that isn’t always as relaxing. So I have different accent lighting & lamps in each room to create different evening moods.
For working at home, for many years, the combination has been great.
marcyb5st
For me the revolution was to get a rather expensive monitor [1] with a great reader mode that lessen the flicker considerably. When I game with it and I turn off reader mode my eyes really feel the difference even though I spend way less time gaming than working.
I wonder if OLEDs will be even better since they shouldn't flicker during productivity (from what I read at least).
[1] was one of the LG ultrawide 34" but it was a few years ago and can't find it anymore.
homebrewer
There shouldn't be any flicker in any mode if you avoid monitors that use PWM for backlight control (which anyone who's sensitive to flicker probably should do). I was stupid enough to buy one with low frequency PWM (didn't have money for anything else at that moment) and "solved" the problem by setting brightness to 100% (which sets duty cycle to 100%), but it destroyed image quality.
wvenable
It might be time for me to upgrade my monitors (they are very old). I never thought too much about flicker, etc. Does anyone have any good recommendations for just decent 24" monitors for coding?
skirmish
Maybe ask on Monitors Reddit [1], people there are usually helpful (although often very gaming-oriented, so you should make it very clear it is for coding/office work).
energy123
One regret I have is buying a monitor that lacks a very high brightness setting. Not good if you have a sun-lit room.
zonkerdonker
If you've got the budget for it, e-ink monitors are becoming more available recently, and I've heard that they make a huge difference for eye strain. There are still only a few companies manufacturing panels that large, and I think the framerate can be pretty jarring for anything other than text, but I have been keeping an eye out for when the prices drop.
lazerwalker
For most people, using e-ink for general-purpose computing tasks is going to be so jarring and unpleasant that it's extremely difficult to recommend to anyone who doesn't have severe eyestrain issues and has tried and failed more typical accommodations. I adore e-ink for reading, and own several e-ink readers in various form factors, but the tradeoffs just don't make sense for a desktop computer for most people unless staring at your monitor for eight hours a day is causing you physical harm.
marcyb5st
Not me, sorry. At the time I did watch a bunch of reviews on YouTube, but since the purchase I haven't kept up
lawn
I've been considering the "programmer" monitors from BenQ, but I don't know if they truly help.
[0]: https://www.benq.com/en-us/monitor/programming/rd280u.html
hammock
What is reader mode and how do I activate it? Is reader mode a low refresh rate?
zyxin
Might just be normal mode? I know that some gaming monitors strobe the backlight in order to reduce motion blur, maybe reader mode just turns that off.
hirvi74
Is no lighting considered too little? I like to sit in the dark with nothing but a computer monitor for light. I have noticed this greatly reduces eye-strain and distractions, but perhaps that is just me.
dekhn
For me it really depends on the situation. When I'm gaming or watching a movie, I prefer effectively no light. In fact, I built an enclosed space in my garage that is light tight. Then I have an overhead LED strip with variable intensity control. I find that programming and video calls both work best if I have a reasonable level (about 50% of what a typical office overhead would provide). I absolutely love complete darkness but after a while I start to feel like a cave troll.
Sohcahtoa82
You're an exception.
For most people, sitting in the dark with only their monitor giving off light massively increases eye-strain.
rusty-ux
Do what works for you. If it’s comfortable and you don’t notice lingering issues it’s probably fine.
Kiro
Same here. Sounds like people are describing their yoga studios in this thread. Not for me.
smrtinsert
This used to work for me as well, but one day my eyes just gave out. I now need a setup similar to the article. I use two diffuse light sources at corners in the room, with BenQ light bar in front, and (almost most importantly) a warm lamp backlighting the monitor. I might replace the backlight with an RGB bias light of some sort, but it has to be there or everything gets painful fast.
freefaler
Yeah, light behind the monitor is a great idea. Reduces contrast between the bright monitor and dark background.
I've used this for years and it makes working during the evening so much better.
jjcm
One 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...
stevenAthompson
What do you use as the diffuser? I also use these, but they're a bit too bright and I find myself shutting them off because the light isn't diffuse enough.
wzyoi
I was wondering how practical it is to create 3D renders of your room instead of photos for the blog post.
I think I found an answer: in this case, it's insanely practical.
The reason is it's a blog of a senior designer at Shopify. He has the skills to make this easy for him, and showcasing them is smart.
zombiwoof
I love we have a society where we are approaching AGI and a popular story is humans who figure out how to light their home office
OccamsMirror
> approaching AGI
I don't see how we're approaching AGI? I think an argument can now be made that it seems possible. But I would need a convincing argument that LLMs are anything more than an early stepping stone.
pyaamb
Are there any solutions that involve reflecting mirrors that allow you to add variation to the apparent viewing distance so your eye muscles are exercised more vs staring at the same distance for too long?
rusty-ux
Cool idea. Would love to see prototypes of this. This is essentially what happens at an optometrists office when you go for an eye test.
sitzkrieg
switching to light editor themes that more closely matches ambient lighting will reduce eye fatigue a ton too
iforgot22
From my experience, if you're going to do just one thing in this list, it should be taking breaks. It's also the only thing you can reliably control even in the office.
andrewfromx
I started leaving most warm nightshift on MacOS and iOS on 24/7. Made a huge difference. Now when I see a normal not warm screen it hurts.
01100011
I am sensitive to bad CRI and color temp(3100K FTW). I really like the cheap "torchiere", floor lamp/uplights on Amazon but am finally giving up on them due to issues with poor CRI. I find standard screw-in LEDs from Philips to be the best, easily available source of light.
rusty-ux
Amen. Honestly the IKEA lamps are the best - super cheap and you can swap out the bulbs with high quality dimmable philips. What torchiers are you swapping to?
darkwater
Sooooo, I always saw offices with neon bulbs, so, very very cold light (well, actually "hotter" in Kelvin degrees...) and very bright. So I copied this in my home office, which is a 12 square meter (130 square foot) room with 6x 7000K bulbs, each emitting about 800 lumen. Am I doing totally wrong, according to TFA? Should I replace them with warm bulbs? I'usong GU10 bulbs.
Karrot_Kream
Color temperature preferences tend to be very dependent on the person. I personally find warm color to be the most relaxing but find myself straining when viewing a screen in too warm of an environment. Warm tones will tend to slightly desaturate a picture and my eyes and brain strain to "compensate" for the desaturation. I find it best to keep my office environments a bit warm, but still on the cold side.
rusty-ux
This article is just what worked for me. Some people are more light color sensitive, if you like your cool lighting and a lot of light and it works - go for it.
irunmyownemail
Light on my desk for light under the monitor, light from behind me which bounces off the angled ceiling and only light themes no dark themes.
winrid
Note that most IPS displays have 0 PWM flicker. I use a couple IPS gaming monitors. IPS displays look better for code vs OLED anyway, IMO.
C-Loftus
Are there any communities of others online dealing with general eye strain? Or other blogs / videos that have helped others? I have had chronic eye pain for a while now and could really benefit from hearing what has helped others. I have not found doctors to be helpful
I have a pretty normal Dell office monitor but not sure if I would benefit from an upgrade. I have relatively normal overhead lighting and try to take breaks or use a screen reader as much as I can, but haven't had much luck reducing pain.
nozonozon
Many monitors allow adjustment of the individual R G and B components. This has been the single biggest help for me. I typically use R 45 G 35 B 15 or at night R 25 G 15 B 0 and that has helped me stay productive for longer without eye strain.
marcinreal
I know of such a community: https://ledstrain.org/
While it's informative, I would proceed with caution. Many users there indulge in a level of obsession that is not helpful. The basics of reducing eye strain are actually simple:
1. Don't use a display at unnecessarily high brightness. 2. Make sure there's plenty of natural light around you (avoid LEDs if possible). 3. Take frequent breaks and look off in the distance. (If you're in a social setting, assume an air of mystery with your ponderous gaze.) 4. Reduce your level of stress. Stress makes nothing better and everything worse. Enjoy life! Stretch regularly to reduce muscle tension in the body. 5. Probably diet helps, but that's a whole can of worms. Don't obsess over it, but try to reduce inflammatory foods.
camhart
There's a good chance its due to dry eye. If so, you need to blink more. Get an eye compress (heat it up in microwave, toss on eyes for 10 minutes). That can help release oils from glands onto your eyes. Artificial tears can help with comfort but wont solve the underlying problem--we don't blink (enough) when we focus on screens that are close to our face.
C-Loftus
I don't think that is the case but I could be wrong. My eyes do not feel dry at all and drops or hot washclothes haven't made much difference. Maybe that compress you speak of is better though
camhart
Hot wash clothes don't maintain the heat long enough to release the oils. Decent eye compresses are $20. Here's a decent one. Certainly others work too.
https://www.amazon.com/Bruder-Activated-Recommended-Professi...
I got a fancier one from Tear Restore that has little cut outs, so I can see while using it (instead of keeping eyes closed). It may not work quite as good as the bruder, but it lets me get things done while using it.
kanbankaren
The standard 60Hz refresh rate of monitors is unlikely to produce any eyestrain. The refresh rate of the backlight could produce eyestrain and headaches.
Unfortunately, the exact frequency of the PWM used for backlight isn't often mentioned in the specs.
In general, anything above 500 Hz is better as some people get headaches even for 250 Hz.
JoshuaEN
Rtings.com measures PWM frequency[1] as part of their reviews.
1. https://www.rtings.com/monitor/tests/motion/image-flicker
kanbankaren
P. S. The linked website is poor on details and not worth reading.
taylorbuley
Environmental modification is one of my favorite emotional coping strategies. It.. feels like you're actually doing something! Cleaning up/tidying, "sacred space creation," light and color therapy all work way more effectively than you might believe.
hammock
Talk to me about color therapy
taylorbuley
Nature bathing is great. But it turns out that people in hospital beds facing windows recover faster when they face nature. And, in fact, it's not the nature at all! It can be fake and just as effective. In the end, basically, it's the green.
Color therapy or chromotherapy is incorporating specific colors into your environment to evoke desired emotional states. It blows my mind how well this works, and that's why you see peach colored walls in offices.
Light works similarly. Warm vs. cool, etc. You can use light exposure to regulate mood, particularly for conditions like seasonal affective disorder (SAD). All of this is culturally-dependent but it works way better than you'd think.
Here are some of the common color associations:
1. Red Emotions: Energy, passion, excitement, strength, urgency, love, anger, aggression.
Therapeutic Use: Stimulates energy, increases heart rate, and can evoke strong emotions. Often used to combat fatigue or lethargy, but excessive use may lead to overstimulation or agitation.
2. Orange Emotions: Enthusiasm, creativity, warmth, optimism, sociability, joy.
Therapeutic Use: Encourages social interaction, boosts creativity, and uplifts mood. Often used to combat depression or feelings of loneliness.
3. Yellow Emotions: Happiness, clarity, intellect, optimism, caution, anxiety (in excess).
Therapeutic Use: Promotes mental clarity, stimulates the nervous system, and enhances focus. However, too much yellow can lead to feelings of anxiety or frustration.
4. Green Emotions: Balance, harmony, growth, renewal, calmness, peace, envy (in some contexts).
Therapeutic Use: Known for its calming and balancing effects, green is often used to reduce stress and promote relaxation. It is also associated with nature and healing.
5. Blue Emotions: Calmness, serenity, trust, stability, sadness, coldness.
Therapeutic Use: Reduces stress, lowers blood pressure, and promotes relaxation. Often used in spaces meant for rest or introspection. Darker shades can evoke feelings of sadness or detachment.
6. Purple Emotions: Spirituality, luxury, creativity, mystery, introspection, wisdom.
Therapeutic Use: Encourages deep thinking, meditation, and spiritual connection. Often used to inspire creativity and self-reflection.
7. Pink Emotions: Love, compassion, nurturing, calmness, playfulness.
Therapeutic Use: Promotes feelings of warmth and comfort. Often used to reduce aggression and create a soothing environment.
8. White Emotions: Purity, clarity, simplicity, peace, emptiness, sterility.
Therapeutic Use: Creates a sense of space and cleanliness. Often used to promote mental clarity and a fresh start.
9. Black Emotions: Power, sophistication, mystery, fear, sadness, protection.
Therapeutic Use: Can evoke feelings of protection and strength but may also lead to feelings of heaviness or depression if overused.
10. Brown Emotions: Stability, reliability, warmth, comfort, dullness.
Therapeutic Use: Grounding and stabilizing, often used to create a sense of security and connection to the earth.
11. Turquoise Emotions: Calmness, clarity, communication, emotional balance.
Therapeutic Use: Combines the calming effects of blue with the rejuvenating qualities of green. Often used to promote emotional balance and clear communication.
12. Gold Emotions: Success, wealth, luxury, wisdom, optimism.
Therapeutic Use: Inspires confidence, abundance, and positivity. Often used to elevate mood and encourage a sense of achievement.
13. Silver Emotions: Modernity, sophistication, intuition, reflection, coldness.
Therapeutic Use: Encourages introspection and clarity of thought. Often used to promote a futuristic or innovative mindset.
14. Gray Emotions: Neutrality, balance, sophistication, boredom, sadness.
Therapeutic Use: Creates a sense of calm and balance but can also evoke feelings of dullness or detachment if overused.
DonHopkins
How do you accomplish silver colored lighting?
kali_00
I would guess by reflecting light off something silvery, eg, a wall painted in metallic silver paint.
divan
Having worked from home for many years, I was surprised that I had never come across the acronym “WFH” before. It took me a moment to decipher its meaning, especially since the article introduced another acronym, “PWM” (pulse-width modulation), right at the start.
hammock
Have you heard of COVID? Is your home the ISS or something?
khnov
Now you need to tell him also what ISS is
bongodongobob
What planet do you live on? Most of us here are from Earth.
adhoc_slime
I recently picked up a monitor light and the change is huge, I wish I did it sooner. My rule of thumb is that I obviously don't point lights in my eyes, only on camera. no overhead light, but lamps are great because they direct light away from you and bounce it around the surfaces of the room.
wvenable
I also found a monitor light to be a great addition.
Carrok
> When it comes to light brightness, too much is just as problematic as too little
Recently moved into a house with on/off light switches. Having the ceiling lights on full brightness was downright oppressive. I installed dimmer switches, and it's so much nicer it's hard to really convey.
joelfried
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" . . .
boomskats
Lutron test a lot of LED lights for compatibility with their dimmers - you can find the index here[0]. I can't imagine the performance of the LEDs listed is specific to Lutron dimmers.
[0]: https://www.lutron.com/europe/Service-Support/Pages/Technica...
GuB-42
I actually "solved" the problem by using remote controlled light bulbs.
I can still use the switch to turn them on and off, but I have to use the remote for dimming. Not the most elegant solution, but the dimming works flawlessly, and on my model I can also change the color temperature, which is nice, and it was actually cheaper than most "dimmable" light bulbs.
jerlam
I did this too with IKEA bulbs and their remote control that you can directly pair to multiple bulbs. It works out great, and I don't have to deal with another phone app or buy a hub in my house to manage.
rusty-ux
Philips Ultra-Definition 60w equivalent bulbs are amazing and really reasonably priced. They also work really well with standard dimmers with extremely low flicker.
adhoc_slime
that's probably a problem with your dimmer switch, not the bulbs.
gruez
Explain. Isn't a dimmer switch just a variable resistor? Do you need fancy dimmer switches if you want them to work with LED bulbs?
myself248
Old-school dimmer switches were rheostats, and they got hot.
Pretty much all dimmers now are TRIAC-based, which is a semiconductor that turns on partway through the AC wave, then turns off at the next zero-crossing, repeat. It chops the waveform so the light only gets power for a fraction of the time.
An incandescent bulb works largely the same with either type. (You may hear the filament "sing" on a TRIAC dimmer since the fast-rising waveform edge has a lot of harmonic content, but this is usually very faint.)
LED bulbs are non-dimmable by default. The typical job of a power supply is to ignore variations in the source and deliver uniform power to the load, and that's just what they do, driving the emitters at a constant brightness regardless of what the dimmer does, until it's letting through so little power that the poor thing just shuts off. Or flickers madly.
Dimmable LED bulbs are actually super tricky, because the power supply has to measure the distortions in the incoming waveform, interpret that as a dimming command, and use that to control the output to the emitters. Any jitter in the measurement sampling means the resulting brightness will bounce around. Any jitter in the waveform, which an incandescent might've ignored as long as the area-under-the-curve was equal, might be picked up by the LED power supply and misinterpreted as a changing dimming level.
It all sucks and we should abandon it immediately. LEDs should be driven with DC. But there's an awful lot of installed fixtures to keep us from that utopia.
quickthrowman
> LEDs should be driven with DC. But there's an awful lot of installed fixtures to keep us from that utopia.
Every LED luminaire or lamp already has a DC inverter inside of it.
Also, you can get (158) 28w 2x4 LED fixtures on a single 277V 20A circuit with #12 wire, DC lighting branch is never going to happen. For reference, that will light about 12,000 square feet of space assuming 9’ AFF for ceiling height.
aidos
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.
rb2k_
There's differences. e.g. MOSFET vs TRIAC
Zooz (popular zwave manufacturer) has some interesting tidbits on their homepage.
https://www.support.getzooz.com/kb/article/1103-zen72-vs-zen...
"The ZEN77 Dimmer is recommended for 3-way and 4-way installations since you won't need to rewire your other switches in the set-up, you can simply replace the main switch with direct connection to power with the ZEN77 dimmer.
This model can control up to 100 Watts of LED bulbs but we don't recommend using it in installations with chandeliers or large groups of lights over 6 bulbs. Version 1.0 and 2.0 of the ZEN77 (700 series Z-Wave chip) were MOSFET dimmers so if your bulbs work better with trailing-edge (or reverse-phase) drivers, those versions of the model worked best. Version 3.0 of the ZEN77 (700 series Z-Wave chip) is now a TRIAC dimmer so if your bulbs work better with leading-edge drivers, this model will work better. The 800 series version of the ZEN77 is also a TRIAC dimmer. Why We Changed to all TRIAC: We found that newer LED bulbs dimmed better with TRIAC dimmers, and considering limited availability for MOSFETS, we decided to transfer the ZEN77 model to TRIAC as well."
InitialLastName
If a dimmer switch were a resistor, it wouldn't work at all with LED lights (the AC->DC converters in them don't just lower the current they provide when the AC input gets lower).
In incandescent lights, a variable resistor would burn a lot of power unnecessarily, so instead they use phase cut dimming (with a triac switch) where the dimmer cuts out a variable portion of the AC cycle. That way you reduce the effective duty cycle of the power without burning the energy. This works well for incandescents because the filament glow scales nicely with the with the power being delivered to the bulb. It works poorly with (some) LED bulbs because the turn on/off time is slow relative to the power cycle, and the LED brightness itself doesn't just scale nicely with the current from the rectifier.
amluto
A dimmer is either a "phase-cut" device, either (commonly) forward-phase/leading-edge or (less commonly) reverse-phase/trailing-edge. At all times, it's either on or off, and it cycles between on and off once per half wave, so it produces 120 pulses per second. A good-quality light fixture will smooth out that waveform and produce approximately constant output.
The worst choice is a no-neutral-required forward-phase dimmer. Neutral-required forward-phase dimmers are usually better. Reverse-phase dimmers can be excellent for LEDs (but disastrous for magnetic transformers) and always require neutrals. Some dimmers can operate in both modes.
airblade
A dimmer switch for an LED light is different from a dimmer switch for a non-LED light. If you try to use an LED light with a “normal” dimmer, it won’t work well.
amluto
You buy a bunch and try them. Philips is generally reliable, but their online catalog is often out of date or incomplete, and they change their SKUs all the time.
quickthrowman
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 sinks and are generally rated for 50,000 hours. Commercial dimming typically uses separate dimming conductors that carry a 0-10VDC signal.
jen729w
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).
iforgot22
My Crown Vic can be pretty dark on the inside. The problem with this is the outside light sources like other headlights, especially with certain cars like Teslas that are super bright and aim high. If anything, I feel less eye strain with more lights inside. But either way, I get a headache any time I drive for >2hr at night, haven't found any solution.
Sohcahtoa82
Are there any cars that DON'T have a way to adjust the brightness of the dash lighting?
Every car I've ever owned (86 Chrysler, 2000 Suzuki, 2016 Subaru, 2019 Tesla) had a dial to adjust the brightness of the dashboard lighting, or in the case of the Tesla, adjust the brightness of the screen.
Sure, I couldn't completely shut anything off like your Saab, but I could easily turn the brightness down pretty dim.
smileysteve
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.
layer8
The environment and the screen should have similar brightness. In the pictures in the article, the screen seems much too bright in comparison.
rusty-ux
You are spot on! - was a limitation of my 3d rendering abilities but great point.
dinkblam
> An even, diffused lighting environment is best for the eyes
indeed. i am unsure where the love for those "spotlights" embedded into the ceiling comes from. every time i enter a room that has them i want to crouch like gollum. the only thing they seem to do is blind you.
indirect lights can be expensive and hard to find though. i built 12 hanging lamps that illuminate the ceiling instead of the floor myself, which saves a few thousand bucks but was unfortunately more work than expected.
amluto
Ceiling downlights can me (for most people and most purposes) quite nice, but they need to actually be spotlights. If you have a light that is close to being a point source (very bright per unit solid angle), which includes most lights aimed at people, you want that light to avoid emitting light at an angle that you're likely to be able to see. So a downlight on a ceiling should emit very little light past an angle of, say, 45 degrees or even less from vertical. After all, for most purposes (but not bedrooms when in bed!), you are not looking straight up, and a light that's shining on the top of your head or even on the tops of your eyebrows is not irritating your eyes. But a bright light, shining at you, that's in your field of view when looking horizontally, can be extremely annoying.
The office-style solution is big diffuse ceiling lights. The easy but rather inefficient solution is indirect lighting. The expensive solution is to use high-end architectural lights that have a trim or lens design that makes the light source almost invisible from shallow angles. An excellent and cheap solution is to use highly recessed lights with standard, inexpensive designs. A PAR30S lamp in an ordinary (not "shallow") 5" or 6" ceiling can, with a trim that allows it to be installed at a respectable recess, can work very nicely. (That "S" is important. The whole point is that it's a "short neck" light, so the bottom surface is farther above the ceiling. And the PAR part is important, too -- PARs are reflectors, not floods, and they emit over a narrower angle.)
Here's a decent article about it:
https://www.agcled.com/blog/glare-and-ugr.html
As far as I can tell, this is almost completely ignored for residential and small business lighting, especially with LED lights from places like Costco and Home Depot. You do not want a bright light that emits over 180 degrees installed in plane with your ceiling.
rusty-ux
Doing it with hanging lamps is a clever solution. Doing it indirectly is the goal. There's one company out of the UK making super high end LED diffusers that can be precisely controlled - both the amount of light and the direction. Can't remember the company but it was similar to this: https://www.acalbfi.com/technologies/photonics/optical-compo...
__mharrison__
Great article.
Personally, I would prefer real images than the renders.
vault
@jahfer what about dark mode/night mode? are you using it?
aunagar
Would love to know how did you generate those renderings? Is it blender or something else?
rusty-ux
It’s adobe substance stager 3d
DonHopkins
Oh, it's CGI? I wanted to know who your housecleaner was and if I could borrow them. ;) So much cat hair...
bongodongobob
I think something that gets kind of buried in these discussions is that the majority of this lighting stuff is psychological. 60hz lighting doesn't strain anything. Sharp shadows don't strain anything. Colors don't strain anything.
Too bright is bad. Too close is bad. Beyond that, it's preference.
marcodena
what suggestions do you have for the led strips behind the monitor? What if I wanna do the same for the back of my TV?
rusty-ux
Best thing you can do for LED strips is to connect it to a flicker free dimmer control, such as this one made by waveform lighting. Requires a little DIY but it will mean 0 flicker.
https://store.waveformlighting.com/products/filmgrade-flicke...
empressplay
I get these LED shop light tubes off of Amazon and put them _everywhere_. It's brighter inside than outside most days! It doesn't just help with eye strain but also mood and productivity
https://www.amazon.com/Barrina-Integrated-Fixture-Utility-El...
tonymet
does anyone know if there is a phase-shifter for led lights? a way to shift each led 60hz cycle to create more-uniform light?
Havoc
You’re probably better off using a high quality converter to DC and DC lights
binary_slinger
Another tool, although I have only anecdotal evidence, is f.lux and similar software.
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.