Appearance
The appearance of light can be thought of as two things: what the light itself appears to look like and how other objects appear in that light. The Light Cognitive installations might appear blue to the eye, but like the natural blue sky it doesn’t only produce blue light. Like the sky, our light produces all colours at the same time, which means the light feels natural and everything under it also appears natural.
Measuring Light Cognitive installations with traditional metrics is a limited approach. Traditional light measurements focus on singular, static light sources. We have a light field with spatial and temporal variation. Every colour. Every shade. So, trying to explain LC installations in terms of traditional light dimensions, like Kelvin or Lux, is like trying to explain a movie in terms of photography.
Everything changes dynamically according to the programming of the installation – the light of ‘sunset’ looks, feels, and performs differently than the light of ‘midday.’
COLOUR TEMPERATURE
A typical light can have a colour temperature of eg. 3000 Kelvin. Our products range from 1700 to 30,000 Kelvin, smoothly varying over the surface either individually or at the same time. The relative magnitude of the various colour temperature gradients produced also changes dynamically over time depending on the programming.
BRIGHTNESS
The installations are as bright as diffuse light outside on a clear day at midday but are fully dimmable. In traditional metrics: 24,000 lux close to the light surface. For reference, a strong 60W bulb is 800 lux.
SPECTRUM
As close to natural light as any light source produced across the daylight spectral family. We left out only harmful UV light and infrared.
RESOLUTION
Infinite resolution with continuous colour and intensity shifts.
COLOUR RENDERING
Like natural light the colour rendering values change depending on the time of day. Light Cognitive installations CRI reach up to 99 in a wide range of Kelvins, R9 > 90+.
DEPTH
The human eye sees different wavelengths of light (or colours) differently. The colour blue appears to be further away, an effect known as chromostereopsis. When LC installations produce a smooth gradual color and brightness gradient, our eyes cannot observe the distance of the surface of the light making it look limitless and creating a true depth effect.
ENERGY USAGE
All this requires minimal electricity use due to efficient LED lights.
Biological Benefits
Light is one of the main drivers of the circadian system, which starts in the brain and regulates physiological rhythms throughout the body’s tissues and organs, affecting hormone levels and the sleep-wake cycle. Circadian rhythms are kept in sync by various cues, including light. The body’s response to light is facilitated by intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs): the eyes’ non-image forming photoreceptors. Through ipRGCs, lights of high frequency and intensity promote alertness, while the lack of this stimulus signals the body to reduce energy expenditure and prepare for rest. This feature promotes lighting environments for circadian health. The biological effects of light on humans can be measured in Equivalent Melanopic Lux (EML), a proposed alternate metric that is weighted to the ipRGCs instead of to the cones, as with traditional lux.
EFFECTIVE RANGE
+5 meters, Light Cognitive produces over 250 Melanopic Lux (EML), DLE 02.-1.5. DER range 0.25-1.25.
Correctly managing exposure to this type of light can result in sleep improvement and SAD mitigation.
Control
BRIGHTNESS
Two thousand levels of brightness per spectral component, from low-intensity dawn/dusk to three times as bright as diffuse daylight on a clear sky (not direct sun).
AUTOMATED AND DYNAMIC
The time of sunrise and sunset can be adjusted for the daylight cycle. Depending on the use case, a custom night-time light can also be configured.
BESPOKE PROGRAMS
It is possible to program any cut of the sky dome under any athmospheric conditions in any season, for the full day cycle.
