HEALTH TECH
Sunrise and sunset light naturally stimulates activity and rest “states,” with color and light intensity being the driving forces.
July/August 2019 | Residential Tech Today 45
also let integrators incorporate all light sources
into a scene, regardless of their technology.
This is an important capability in personalizing
a lit environment in a home – one that best
matches the patterns and activities of the people
who live there.
For increased productivity and visual acuity, it
pays to take the HCL approach in places outside
the home as well. For example, just as a home
office could be lit to mimic midday sun levels to
stimulate productivity, a conference room could
be lit the same way. And just as you would dim
the lights in a home theater to a warmer, lower
intensity while watching a movie, you could do
the same in a conference room to make videos
or presentations easier to see.
Personalize Lighting to
the Body Clock
Being able to dim and color-tune LED lighting
also means we can render natural light indoors
to better match the natural path of sunlight.
That capability yields numerous advantages
when it comes to making sure lighting coincides
with a homeowner’s individual habits. It also
improves sleep and perhaps overall well-being.
Let’s take a look at the science. The cycle of
sleep and wakefulness is a key part of human
behavior. When asleep – which is how we spend
about a third of our lives – our brains memorize
and process information, while our bodies clear
toxins and repair themselves for proper
functioning when awake. For these reasons,
even short-term sleep deprivation significantly
affects our well-being. But while scientists have
long understood the importance of sleep, the
role played by light exposure is sometimes
overlooked.
Light is so important to the human sleep cycle
because it sets our circadian rhythms via
specialized light sensors within the eye. Our
eyes detect the light and dark cycles within our
environment and adjust the body’s circadian
rhythm so that the internal and external day
coincide. That’s why people with severe eye
damage can find their body clocks are thrown
off, leading to sleep problems. But that’s an
extreme example; there is a much more
common cause: artificial lighting.
For many of us, lighting in the home and
workplace entails a multitude of artificial light