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That's a pretty good thread, and also reveals that there is an existing single-component solution for the scheduled dimmer potentiometer, from the aquarium sphere, which I hadn't thought of at all. A hundred bucks is a bit more than I was hoping to see, since you still probably need one for each room, but at the very least it simplifies things for the early adopters.
I thought the strips seemed pretty attractive for people making their own setups, since they can passively cool and are already somewhat diffuse. I do think the intensity is plenty high enough (20,000lm in a 56x26cm board), but these Bridgelux COBs the fellow mentions are 10-15% as expensive per lumen as the Optisolis strips, and outperform them too, at least according to their own measurements. As he says, it's not much more complicated electrically to set them up, but you do have to fasten them to a heatsink with thermal paste, and possibly mount a reflector, which makes things somewhat more tedious. Overall though, even with the expensive controller, a 20000lm device is probably still coming in under 200 USD for materials (not including however you mount it in the space), which is pretty similar to what you get out of the Hue bulbs.
Yes, how much difference does the 400-450nm segment make? I can see the absence of the huge blue spike potentially leading to less circadian disturbance. Maybe someone who already has one of the lower-CRI high-intensity setups could try this out, exchange which one is operating in which room, and see if they have a preference for one or the other. If the gradual color shift wasn't important, the setup would be very simple to trial.
A couple notes:
1. In regards to dimming, I have seen (fairly well-regarded) third parties saying that the CCT/tint stays pretty stable for the Optisolis under current-regulated dimming (as opposed to PWM), but I don't think Nichia themselves make any claims about it. I don't even have hearsay about the Sunlike.
2. Just as a followup to my first comment, I have noticed that Yuji has claimed 98CRI stuff also, with two CCTs on separate circuits on the same board, which is convenient. (I was just thinking of buddying the strips) But the price is not competitive, and I have a little more trust in Nichia and Seoul SC just because they are major global players in LED manufacture.
The most 'natural light' LEDs I know of seem to still be too new to be commercially available in ready-out-of-the-box modules, but with a little time to engineer the setup I think one could assemble these into a usable thing. Significantly more deep purple wavelengths and less 'cyan dip' than the alternatives. Here is a quick comparison of spectra at 5000K, vs one of the Yuji 95CRI ones: https://i.imgur.com/6TFtPbt.png
Of course, these are not smart bulbs, so there's an obstacle to automation again. I think solutions from the indoor agricultural field probably exist, but I haven't found them in a quick look. Hard for me to say if the difference here is worth the requisite fiddling, but if there's interest I will take a harder look at what it would require.
Having not used them yet, I can't personally attest to the light being higher quality, but the custom flashlight community is pretty discerning and they seem to be quite taken with them.