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Could you please tell us more about your bulbs? Like you, I found a huge improvement in mood if I use light cues to help convince my body that I live in an ete

Could you please tell us more about your bulbs? Like you, I found a huge improvement in mood if I use light cues to help convince my body that I live in an eternal late spring. So far I've used Hue bulbs, as I love their color temperature range and the ease of programming. (For me it helps that a plausible day-night cycle just happens in my house.) But I've wondered if daylight-like lumens would be even better. And Hue is cost-prohibitive for that level of light.

wincy 4y ago
I use Hue Bulbs in the rest of my house and they slowly dim in the evening, although you’re absolutely right that it’d cost thousands to buy enough hue bulbs. You’re better off buying dumb bulbs for daytime then equipping the rest of the house with Hue for a few hundred. I just went to Home Depot and bought the 8-packs of 100W (13W) equivalent, 5000K, 1600 lumen non dimmable LED bulbs from Feit Electric. Screwed those into a 4-Way light ceiling fan using 4 7-way splitters. I bought a big 10,000 lumen, 100W corn bulb (with no fan) at a Menards, and screwed that into an old floor lamp I had sitting around. This was actually my first try before I did the wider array of lights, but it wasn’t bright enough by itself. The light from this is also “dirtier” and depending on your webcam it might show lines as it’ll refresh at 60hz or 120hz or something like that, and make your Zoom calls look like you live in a CRT. I know a lot of people talk about high CRI bulbs when you get into the weeds in this sort of stuff, but I didn’t want to make perfect the enemy of good here. If you spent a little more you could buy dimmable bulbs instead, although it’d probably be easier depending on your hookup to just selectively shut off some of the bulbs to accomplish the same goal. More holistically, for day night cycling, I’ve also started taking 0.3mg of melatonin (don’t take more than this, your body doesn’t need it, google it if you’re interested). I’ve found it helps me get to bed earlier and stay asleep until morning, where I’d wake up sometimes.
- tommica 4y ago
  Isn't the electricity cost of those insane?
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    That's some 3 KW of lightbulbs in total, based on original comment, and I'm not sure if the OP is running them all at the same time. Even if, that's in ballpark of household appliances, and I imagine it isn't running 24/7 (and most of those lights are likely active only during 1/4 - 1/5 of the year). Sure, it probably triples their power bill. But electricity is dirt cheap anyway - and if it mitigates their SAD, then it pays for itself. I'm also guessing OP doesn't have any problem with heating in winter. EDIT: I misread, OP isn't using 100/500W bulbs, but 100/500W equivalent - so the actual power use is not ~3KW, but probably under 1KW. It's very much in ballpark of combined use of household appliances, so I doubt it even doubles their power bill.
- wpietri 4y ago
  Oh wow, I had no idea light socket splitters existed. That solves a big problem for me! Thanks for all the detail here! As for day-night cycling, I basically achieve the same thing through lighting, and I'm very happy with that. As my lights get warmer and dimmer in the evening, I very naturally start winding down. To get that with Hue's own automations requires me putting in something like 8 steps, though, so I'll soon be going back to my own software. Especially because I use my lights to change my time zone before trips to the east coast, so I'm not jet lagged when I arrive. For video calls in particular I have an Elgato Key Light clamped to my desk at maximum extension and facing almost straight down. It gets me good brightness and controllable color temperature as well as pretty even lighting, which makes my calls look pretty good.
aaronbrethorst 4y ago
My whole house is full of warm Hue bulbs. The handful of Hue lights that are color temperature-adjustable are all set to warm because blue-tinted lights drive me nuts. That said, I use Wirecutter's budget SAD lamp pick set to the bluest setting and maximum brightness for about 20 minutes per day to help me cope with this particularly gloomy Seattle season, and it definitely seems to help. So you may not need to rewire your entire house. https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-light-therapy-lamp/ https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-light-therap...
- wpietri 4y ago
  Oh, interesting! Thanks for sharing your experience. YMMV, but something I discovered is that light colors bother me when they're out of sync with my day-night rhythms. So mine start very warm in color, very gradually shift to pretty cool color temperatures as we approach noon, and then get warmer again into the evening. My theory is that this gets me what the SAD lights are simulating without any manual effort, and it seems to be working. It also helps me with maintaining a regular sleep schedule in that it turns out I'm not a responsible light-switch user; it's easy for me to leave lights on and be active so late that I then have trouble getting up on time.
  - aaronbrethorst 4y ago
    Yeah, I've thought about trying the Adaptive Lighting feature, as Apple calls it in the Home app with my compatible Hue lights, but only a small fraction of my Hue lights support changing color temperature, and having a mish-mash of blue and yellow lights scattered around my house just makes me angry :) If/when I ever have reason to redo all of the lights in my house, I'll definitely go with all bulbs that support at least different color temperatures if not a full range of colors and give this a whirl. My theory is that this gets me what the SAD lights are simulating without any manual effort, and it seems to be working Very interesting...

wincy 4y ago

I use Hue Bulbs in the rest of my house and they slowly dim in the evening, although you’re absolutely right that it’d cost thousands to buy enough hue bulbs. You’re better off buying dumb bulbs for daytime then equipping the rest of the house with Hue for a few hundred. I just went to Home Depot and bought the 8-packs of 100W (13W) equivalent, 5000K, 1600 lumen non dimmable LED bulbs from Feit Electric. Screwed those into a 4-Way light ceiling fan using 4 7-way splitters. I bought a big 10,000 lumen, 100W corn bulb (with no fan) at a Menards, and screwed that into an old floor lamp I had sitting around. This was actually my first try before I did the wider array of lights, but it wasn’t bright enough by itself. The light from this is also “dirtier” and depending on your webcam it might show lines as it’ll refresh at 60hz or 120hz or something like that, and make your Zoom calls look like you live in a CRT. I know a lot of people talk about high CRI bulbs when you get into the weeds in this sort of stuff, but I didn’t want to make perfect the enemy of good here. If you spent a little more you could buy dimmable bulbs instead, although it’d probably be easier depending on your hookup to just selectively shut off some of the bulbs to accomplish the same goal. More holistically, for day night cycling, I’ve also started taking 0.3mg of melatonin (don’t take more than this, your body doesn’t need it, google it if you’re interested). I’ve found it helps me get to bed earlier and stay asleep until morning, where I’d wake up sometimes.

tommica 4y ago
Isn't the electricity cost of those insane?
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  That's some 3 KW of lightbulbs in total, based on original comment, and I'm not sure if the OP is running them all at the same time. Even if, that's in ballpark of household appliances, and I imagine it isn't running 24/7 (and most of those lights are likely active only during 1/4 - 1/5 of the year). Sure, it probably triples their power bill. But electricity is dirt cheap anyway - and if it mitigates their SAD, then it pays for itself. I'm also guessing OP doesn't have any problem with heating in winter. EDIT: I misread, OP isn't using 100/500W bulbs, but 100/500W equivalent - so the actual power use is not ~3KW, but probably under 1KW. It's very much in ballpark of combined use of household appliances, so I doubt it even doubles their power bill.
wpietri 4y ago
Oh wow, I had no idea light socket splitters existed. That solves a big problem for me! Thanks for all the detail here! As for day-night cycling, I basically achieve the same thing through lighting, and I'm very happy with that. As my lights get warmer and dimmer in the evening, I very naturally start winding down. To get that with Hue's own automations requires me putting in something like 8 steps, though, so I'll soon be going back to my own software. Especially because I use my lights to change my time zone before trips to the east coast, so I'm not jet lagged when I arrive. For video calls in particular I have an Elgato Key Light clamped to my desk at maximum extension and facing almost straight down. It gets me good brightness and controllable color temperature as well as pretty even lighting, which makes my calls look pretty good.

aaronbrethorst 4y ago

My whole house is full of warm Hue bulbs. The handful of Hue lights that are color temperature-adjustable are all set to warm because blue-tinted lights drive me nuts. That said, I use Wirecutter's budget SAD lamp pick set to the bluest setting and maximum brightness for about 20 minutes per day to help me cope with this particularly gloomy Seattle season, and it definitely seems to help. So you may not need to rewire your entire house. https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-light-therapy-lamp/ https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-light-therap...

wpietri 4y ago
Oh, interesting! Thanks for sharing your experience. YMMV, but something I discovered is that light colors bother me when they're out of sync with my day-night rhythms. So mine start very warm in color, very gradually shift to pretty cool color temperatures as we approach noon, and then get warmer again into the evening. My theory is that this gets me what the SAD lights are simulating without any manual effort, and it seems to be working. It also helps me with maintaining a regular sleep schedule in that it turns out I'm not a responsible light-switch user; it's easy for me to leave lights on and be active so late that I then have trouble getting up on time.
- aaronbrethorst 4y ago
  Yeah, I've thought about trying the Adaptive Lighting feature, as Apple calls it in the Home app with my compatible Hue lights, but only a small fraction of my Hue lights support changing color temperature, and having a mish-mash of blue and yellow lights scattered around my house just makes me angry :) If/when I ever have reason to redo all of the lights in my house, I'll definitely go with all bulbs that support at least different color temperatures if not a full range of colors and give this a whirl. My theory is that this gets me what the SAD lights are simulating without any manual effort, and it seems to be working Very interesting...