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Lighting

V

Vinny

pfm Member
I look to relax at home and outside of kitchen and bathroom, that means low levels of lighting, not least when music is playing.
I have an Anglepoise on the floor next to the deck with an orange 15W pygmy filament lamp in it (I bought 10 when the writing was on the wall for filament lamps), which is somewhere around 100-150 lumen and very low CCT - very nice and all that I require to see to use the deck.
I also have a tall flexi headed standard lamp currently fitted with an 8W 2700K CCT, 370 lumens CFL, which is far too bright. I am about to try 4W, 2200K, 300 lumen and 2.2W, 2700K, 220 lumen LED lamps in it.

On occasion, either an 8W CFL (CCT unknown, but about 400 lumen), or a 4W, 470 lumen 2700K LED, both in parchment shades, are on in opposite corners of the room.

What is your preferred illumination?

(For the unaware, lower CCT (colour corrected temperature, though some say colour correlated temperature) means "warmer" light - increasingly more red-orange than blue as you go down in CCT, lumens is a measure of what the eye sees as "brightness" - the higher, the brighter.)
 
All "warm white" LED
- 5 x 6w indirect in wall fittings 3 pointing down 2 pointing up
- 1 x 13W in standard lamp
- 1 reading lamp with about 1m long strip of LED illumination which is actually quite intense.

I tend to switch on various combinations according to what I need.

Generally less light towards bedtime to let the eyes and brain prepare for sleep.
 
LLLOL - I very much like the idea of candles - VERY low CCT, but my asthma would play merry hell.
 
I use Philips Hue bulbs controlled via a Google Home. Not cheap, but it allows me to set the colour and bulb brightness. I usually have the two main ceiling bulbs set to orange or red and decrease the brightness as my eyes acclimatise. I've also got a candle bulb in a light next to me if I need it.
 
I have 6 hive lights in the sitting room where the hifi is, 2 do full colour the others warm through to cool white, all controlled by a phone or amazon dohicky.
 
We are about to look a lighting as what we currently have isn't working.
First will probably be LEDs as bright as possible to replace the low energy bulbs in our wall uplighters
 
Usually a single dim tungsten bulbed lamp to illuminate the TT / amp but ideally nothing / pitch darkness. The reason being I really like to hear the space that the music was recorded in and not have the eyes conflict with that impression of space that the ears are hearing.
 
The filament look-alike LEDs are really good, but they are very much like very old, very low efficacy lamps, not the 10lm/W GLS ones recently all but phased-out.

I used to work for GE USA and 15-20 years back they agreed as part of a publicity stunt, to make some lamps for a film, set around the time of the first Edison incandescent lamps, which used carbonised doped cotton thread as the filament, not tungsten. They made loads to cover themselves and a lot of us working in lighting got freebies. They were one loop of filament. unfortunately, in mine the filament was too close to the bulb and eventually melted a pinhole in it and immediately burnt-out.

Something very similar to this - (most of what appears as filament is/are actually reflections, and I am amazed that they are so cheap, although standard GLS are only around 50p or so I suppose) -

https://www.bulbtown.com/40A23_E26_1890_120V_40_WATT_1890_CARBON_FILAMENT_p/kg004.htm
 
Philips Hue in my home - lounge has 4 table lamps, 2 ceiling, a lava & a 3 level touch. I don't have a specific lamp for my stereo - no turntable at the moment. My Mac Mini, TV & stereo are all remote controlled. I tend to have the lighting as low as I can get away with. 3 table lamps are controlled by both a motion sensor set to 1 hr & 3 remotes. I either have the ceiling lights off or on low. I dislike ceiling lighting unless I need bright uniform lighting such a this evening when I assemble an IKEA display cabinet.

If anyone is considering remote controlled lighting, remember that Wi Fi systems don't always reliably control lights in all corners - buy ZigBee ones that are a so-called Mesh network that daisy-chain commands through nearer lights or switches to the furthest ones. If you buy the Philips system, I'd not recommend their round switches. Although they generate their power to control by pushing the switches firmly, you have to be right in front of them when pressing the damn things - go for the oblong ones that have 5yr battery life, they are a lot more user friendly. All their switches have mounting plates. I hardly ever use my phone to control them personally - just to set them up.
 
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