Could someone please start a bright home lighting company?

I'm one of the friends mentioned. Here's some more anecdata, most importantly including what I think is the current easiest way to try a lumenator (requiring only one fixture instead of huge numbers of bulbs):

I don't have seasonal depression, but after spending a winter in a tropical country, it was extremely noticeable that it's harder for me to focus and I have less willpower when it's dark out (which now starts at 4:15). I bought an extremely bright light and put it right next to my desk, in my peripheral vision while I work. It was an immediate and very noticeable improvement; I estimate it buys me 30-120 minutes of focus per day, depending on how overcast it is.

You can see a before-and-after here, although my phone camera's dynamic range is not good enough to really capture the difference.

Everyone who has visited my house since I got the lightbulb has remarked on how nice it feels, which I was initially surprised by since the bulb is 5600k and not particularly high-CRI.

My current setup is honestly kinda crappy (but still amazing). I'm working on a much nicer DIY version, but in the mean time, here's the stuff I bought:

• 250-watt corn bulb (~= 40 60w-equivalent bulbs; $100)
• This bulb has a pretty loud fan (~50db at close range); if you don't like noise, you can buy two of the 120-watt version.
• this E39 fixture ($15)
• the clamp is too weak to hold the bulb, but you can jerry-rig a support by embedding the socket into the styrofoam packaging that the light comes in :P
• Also if you use this you'll need to turn it off and on by unplugging as there is no switch on the fixture.
• these E39 to E26 adapters ($10 for 4)
• buy if you want to put in an overhead light or traditional lamp
• note that the bulb does not fit well in many fixtures because it is very large and heavy

(Amazon links are affiliate so I can see whether they are useful to people)

I used to work in the lighting industry, so here are some comments from an industry perspective.

There are several high-quality studies about how more light, and being able to control dimming and color temperature, can improve subjective well-being, alertness, and sleep patterns. It is generally accepted that you do not need to go to direct sunlight type lux levels indoors to get most of the benefits. Also, you do no need to have the brightest dim level on all the time. For some people, the thing that will really help is a regular schedule that dims down below typical indoor light levels at selected times, without ever dimming above typical levels. I am not an expert on the latest studies, but if you want to build an indoor experimental setup to get to the bottom of what you really like, my feeling is that installing more than 4000 lux, as a peak capacity in selected areas, would definitely be a waste of money and resources.

If I would want to install a hassle-free bright light setup in my home cheaply, I would buy lots of high-end wireless dimmable and color temperature adjustable LED light bulbs, and some low-cost spot lights to put them in, e.g. spot lights that can be attached to a ceiling mounted power rail. If you make sure the bulbs support the ZigBee standard, you will have plenty of options for control software.

If power rails with lots of ~60W equivalent bulbs lacks aesthetic appeal for you, then you could go for a high-end special form factor product like that from Coelux mentioned above. The best way to think about the Coelux product, in business model development terms, is that it is not really a lighting product: it is a specialised piece of high-end furniture. So if you want to develop a business model for a bright home lighting company, the first question you have to ask yourself is whether or not you want to be in the high-end furniture business.

By the way, the main reason why the lighting industry is not making any 200W or 500W equivalent LED bulbs that you could put in your existing spot lights is because of cooling issues. LEDs are pretty energy efficient, but LED bulbs still produce some internal heat that has to be cooled away. For 60W equivalent this can happen by natural air flow around the bulb, but a 200W equivalent bulb would need something like a built-in fan.

Check out our product, it's a far-cry from the $400 you mentioned but many times less expensive and thinner than coelux.

Check out a video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVV_-aB1jpg&t=57s

Some comparisons with Coelux: https://bit.ly/2YszzsO

We have done 7 years of research on this and just recently brought "Virtual Sun" to the market.

If you want to replicate a window, there is more than just lumens, CCT, and CRI. In order for your brain to really believe something is a window or a skylight, you also need:

1. Separate sun and sky light components. The real sun is very directional, by the time it reaches the earth the rays of sunlight diverge by only 0.5 degrees, have a much lower CCT than the sky, and a much brighter lux profile than the rays of light from the sky. Innerscene Model A7 outputs a rectangular sunbeam the diverges at less than 2 degrees and has a CCT of 4500K and is over 2500 lux at head level when sitting under it. Compared that with Coelux which has a 10 degree divergence angle. A7's sky changes from 3000K up to well over 10000K.

2. The illusion of infinite space behind the fixture. The LEAD building standard requires all rooms to have eye level sight lines to the outdoors. Psychologically a room with windows is much more comfortable to work in than those lit only by artificial light, part of this is that most people have some level of claustrophobia - ranging from very mild (but noticeable) to panic attack inducing. Being able to see outside elevates a lot of that. We invented a new 3d display technology that allows users to see a sun at infinity, rather than something painting on the surface so it looks like a portal, not a TV or flat surface. This turns out to be an extremely hard problem, and I haven't seen anyone else do it - even coelux's sun only appears to be about 20 feet away from you.

3. Variability in CCT and intensity. Artificial light is too static which creates monotony, we are used to a variety of light profiles from natural light because of the earths rotation and atmospheric effects. When the sun is obscured by clouds temporarily, the light in the room changes slowly but very significantly - there is more diffuse light and less directional light, the CCT gets warmer, and brightness in the room may go up or down depending on the cloud thickness. Similar the CCT of light the sky changes throughout the day because of the earths orbit and how much light goes through the atmosphere at different angles. Innerscene is able to replicate this and it makes a room feel "alive" and connected to the outdoors, combined with the 3D effect it is comfortable to work/live in a space with no real windows for long periods of time.

You can't comfortably work in a room where there is strong glare shinning in your eyes, which you would get if you buy random high powered LEDs and stuck them on your ceiling. From a perfectly diffusive light object like the sky there is no glare, but you will have glare from an unshielded light fixture unless it is well diffused or you have baffles that block the light which isn't going down. Getting the directional profile of light is very important in this respect. Because our sun is always at a high angle (30 degrees) it doesn't shine into your eyes directly and the sky portion of the fixture is perfectly diffused like the real sky.

How would very bright indoor lights handle the $\frac{1}{r^2}$ problem?

With the sun, it's already very far away (relative to the size of a room, or even the size of the whole earth), so light intensity doesn't vary much as we move around - $\frac{1}{r^2}$ stays basically constant. But in a house, you'll sometimes be 10X further from the light source than other times - so the light will sometimes be 100X brighter than other times. (I don't know if other people have this problem, but those kinds of sharp light gradients tend to give me headaches - so mostly I either use dim lighting inside or go outside.)

I wonder if the claim of extreme bright light alleviating the symptoms of SAD has been tested by more than one person. While efficacy is not correlated with popularity, given that this is a rational-thinking based forum, it would be at least nice to know if the device works.

What do you want?

Do you want to buy something for yourself, or do you want a company to change the world?

Yes, there is room for a better product, but I think that off-the-shelf products are pretty good and you should just get them. If you want to change the world, maybe you should just promote these existing products. In particular, for your short term needs, just do it.

I think that the right answer for most people and most purposes is Raemon's instructions, $300 for 300 watts, same total wattage as coelux. Why did you write this post already knowing about Raemon's instructions? What are they lacking? That they require installation? If you have 24 separate bulbs spread around the room, installation is unavoidable. Light strips may be a better solution, but they require even more installation.

Some people want different things. David Chapman seems to want to illuminate his desk, not his room, so he might not like Raemon's setup. If you want to minimize installation, you might want a single light. This leads to Ben and Ashen's suggestions. They probably aren't as nice as coelux, so, yes, it would be nice if someone made nicer versions (which should be possible). Ashen's outdoor floodlights probably have lousy CRI. Ben's corncob isn't the standard residential fixture, and thus required some assembly. Both products probably shine outwards to illuminate an area, rather than the coelux which is intended to mimic the sun through a window pushing light in a sharp line. This illusion is probably luxurious, but I'm skeptical that it is actually good for the goal.

I was going to follow up by saying that if you like the form factor of coelux, there are similar products on the market for maybe $2/watt, only twice as expensive as Raemon's setup. They aren't as bright as coelux, but you could get 5 or 10. There is the second product Ashen linked or light therapy boxes (apparently 72W) are probably a good option with full spectrum and good lenses. But then I read more I heard a lot of accusations of poor quality and fraud around light boxes, so I dunno.

The best solution I could find was LED security flood lights, e.g.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/CampHiking®-FloodLight-Landscape-Spotlight-Waterproof/dp/B07JMQXXMW/ref=sr_1_9?keywords=500w+led+flood+lights+security&qid=1574927272&s=lighting&sr=1-9

So this would be less than 100 dollars for approx 40000 lumen, with all in one enclosure including head sink, can be wired to mains or wall socket. Also with this design they can be angled.

Not adjustable in brightness or colour temperature, but my preference would be overhead lighting for day, and then incandescent side lamps after dark (a sun above vs. fire).

Note for people building a nuanced model of the moderation policy: 

I've frontpaged this. This was a bit of an edge case for the frontpage guidelines since it's a call to action, and we don't normally frontpage "startup announcements," which is a similar genre to this, at least superficially. But, the difference seemed important: this post's primary goal seems more like aggregating information rather than directly bidding for attention.

Detoolbox has a bunch of market validation checklists.

I have been looking into doing this. Pm me if you want to do it together. I'm from Toronto but am willing to work with people from elsewhere.

(Especially if you have any product design experience, or think you can figure it out)

I don’t have a robust way of estimating ambient light

Did you consider buying a lux meter?

I've ordered one of these, so I hope I'm not missing something.

If someone does this - I think for this particular product, the obvious way to get validation is kickstarter or Indiegogo. It's what could be a good looking tech product, with a group of people with very high demand, and a great story, but also high fixed costs.

Pretty perfect for the Kickstarter model.

I'm curious to what extents the benefits of this depend on race. I would expect the optimal lighting for an African who's ancestors were exposed to far more solar radiation to be higher than for a European who's ancestors were exposed to far less.

Huh that company you link to at the end also has this section: https://store.yujiintl.com/collections/high-cri-led-emitters

Maybe this is just a matter of buying this emitter https://store.yujiintl.com/collections/high-cri-led-emitters/products/bc-series-high-cri-high-power-cob-led-5600k-bc270h-unit-1pcs?variant=25100635143 and hooking up to a sufficiently quiet highsink + packaging it in a more usable form factor.

I wonder if there would be issues about heat dissipation / potential fires though?