LED lighting ideas for small windowless office?

[Tennentslager]

Saw this

https://www.ledpanelstore.co.uk/set-of-4-sky-cloud-scene-1-led-panels-600mm-x-600mm-203.html?gclid=Cj0KCQjws7TqBRDgARIsAAHLHP7Xc4AszR-xVIl5wQ7bdJZncf3E8EWkdzgn1exDulKYzrcVEbPOCXIaAvAYEALw_wcB#horizontalTab2

it’s small (the office room) as was a former massage room in a beauty salon, so maybe the size of a very small single room.

im thinking to put in a quality carpet and decent office furniture and one of these big led wall panels 

but!

open to ideas from the forum

[MJNewton]

That could be either bloody brilliant, or bloody awful! Would love to see an installed one in the flesh.

 

In case it is food for thought, I once visited a BT lab where, being underground with no windows, they'd installed LCD screens in window cutouts and displayed a moving street scene image on them. The video loop on each was timed such that, say, a bus would drive past one window and then moments later pass the other. Once you stopped staring at it it really did change the room dynamics and make you feel more 'connected' with the outside world. I did wonder, however, if maybe I'd start to hate it if I was there for more than a few hours!

Edited August 9, 2019 by MJNewton

[Temp]

Reminds me of this YouTube video. Skip to about half way.

 

 

Edited August 9, 2019 by Temp

[Temp]

An LCD TV might not be a bad idea. Some can play slideshows and video from a usb memory stick so you could have any image you like. If networked you might be able to display the real time view of say a beach in Hawaii or some other web can.

Edited August 9, 2019 by Temp

[ToughButterCup]

9 hours ago, Temp said:

An LCD TV might not be a bad idea. Some can play slideshows and video from a usb memory stick so you could have any image you like. [...]

 

In the 1980s, some German TV stations - when no programs were scheduled - showed a video taken from the dashboard of a car driving through (where I was ) the North German Plain.  Open countryside - say Salisbury Plain-ish or bits of Norfolk would be the UK equivalent.

 

Very restful to watch.

[Ferdinand]

This idea occurred in a novel from 1961 called A Fall of Moonduat by Clarke, on a moon base. He used the whole wall and 6 switchable pictures.

 

I think it works well, though variation needed as you way ... unless the gimmick takes over.

 

Ferdinand

Edited August 10, 2019 by Ferdinand

[Jeremy Harris]

I really like the idea of a video wall.  Mine would be a view of the garden, with a night vision capability so that we can see the nocturnal wildlife as well.  I'm sitting here with a pan tilt mount, a couple of 1080p video cameras (with an IR capability) and some IR floodlights, trying to work out how to arrange them so we can sit indoors watching the bats, hedgehogs and occasional visiting otter in the late evenings.   Ideally I'd like to add audio too, and have just ordered an ultrasonic microphone to see if I can rig up a broadband audio system, with a frequency converter so we can hear the bats (at the moment I have to go outside with a hand held bat detector to hear them).

[Gone West]

8 hours ago, AnonymousBosch said:

 

In the 1980s, some German TV stations - when no programs were scheduled - showed a video taken from the dashboard of a car driving through (where I was ) the North German Plain.  Open countryside - say Salisbury Plain-ish or bits of Norfolk would be the UK equivalent.

 

Very restful to watch.

Don't know if you are aware that BBC4 showed what was called 'Slow TV'  around three years ago. It was very easy to watch and as you say restful. On one program a camera was fitted to a traditional Sami dog sledge which travelled through the arctic countryside along an ancient postal route. It was about two hours long without talking or much sound at all.

[Temp]

Some others here..

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02q34z8

[Tennentslager]

To finish this off...

pics taken with a phone so they are not great photos but I’m pleased with the result.

no on will be fooled into thinking it’s a window but the light is softer and less harsh than a double fluorescent tube.

This last pic is with the main light on too but again the phone camera does not really capture it that well as it’s garishly bright

lights £200 frames for wall mounting£72 and £2 for a junction box to wire them together 

job done!

[MJNewton]

I think it looks great! 

[jack]

Careful using that at night - lots of blue light, which research is increasingly suggesting is bad for subsequent sleep.

 

On 10/08/2019 at 10:50, Ferdinand said:

This idea occurred in a novel from 1961 called A Fall of Moonduat by Clarke, on a moon base. He used the whole wall and 6 switchable pictures.

 

Great book - still remember it vividly from over 25 years ago.

 

From memory, there's something similar in Fahrenheit 451.

[SteamyTea]

I have always thought that some webcams on coral reefs that streamed a live show would be good, especially if you could set it up so that you always had a view in daylight.

But we all know that watching too much TV makes your eyes go square.  It is what my Mother said, so must be true.

Edited August 15, 2019 by SteamyTea

[Onoff]

Not as naff as it sounds but years ago a mate did a pseudo window in a windowless room by sticking mirror tiles on the wall as the "panes". He then used self adhesive white mini trunking for the "frame". Done in a Georgian style complete with pole, curtains and sill.

[Carrerahill]

On 09/08/2019 at 21:14, Tennentslager said:

Saw this

https://www.ledpanelstore.co.uk/set-of-4-sky-cloud-scene-1-led-panels-600mm-x-600mm-203.html?gclid=Cj0KCQjws7TqBRDgARIsAAHLHP7Xc4AszR-xVIl5wQ7bdJZncf3E8EWkdzgn1exDulKYzrcVEbPOCXIaAvAYEALw_wcB#horizontalTab2

it’s small (the office room) as was a former massage room in a beauty salon, so maybe the size of a very small single room.

im thinking to put in a quality carpet and decent office furniture and one of these big led wall panels 

but!

open to ideas from the forum

We have specified these type of feature lights quite a few times as a ceiling option, cloudy sky, autumnal tree canopy, that sort of thing. The ones from reputable manufacturers look brilliant and last well.

 

https://www.whitecroftlighting.com/products/indoor/feature-and-display/life-p-led/

 

You are looking at £2K for a good 4-6 panel commercial version - can hangle 24/7 operation. Any cheap LED lighting panel or something like this will suffer early LED degradation at long run times and probably discolouration of the panel itself unfortunately. At £200 I would risk it for my loft or home office if I thought it would not be used too much. I was going to put a fake window in the loft with a blind over it and then two LED strips either side behind it washing onto a brilliant white backdrop - I just fancied just having a mess about. Maybe once the extension is done.

 

I was involved with the electrical design for the QEU Hospital in Glasgow (not the cladding, ventilation or water systems!) and they were specified for kids areas and waiting rooms in internal parts of the building with no windows and particularly where patients may need a cheer up (cancer wards etc.).  

 

@Tennentslager - are the drivers built in or remote? I would consider dimming them (if they say they cannot be dimmed they are lying). 

Edited August 15, 2019 by Carrerahill

[Carrerahill]

22 minutes ago, Onoff said:

Not as naff as it sounds but years ago a mate did a pseudo window in a windowless room by sticking mirror tiles on the wall as the "panes". He then used self adhesive white mini trunking for the "frame". Done in a Georgian style complete with pole, curtains and sill.

If executed well I think it would look good - it is done a lot in commercial properties that have little or no windows to the back or internal areas, offices in built up areas of major cities for example.

 

It is usually a big pane of toughened glass, low profile frame, made to look like it would be a window, then done with etched glass or they put blinds over it so you get a glow and often fool everyone who doesn't know. I have used a tinge of blue towards to top to create a sky effect just by colour washing the top slightly - I have also done daylight linking where the window would replicate the outside sky colour and light level. In the morning (early) it would be, on a nice day, a nice warm colour and by following the sun it would not screw up peoples circadian cycle.

 

It is not good for a human to enter a building at say 07:00 in a summers morning bright and then enter into a building that is too warm or cool a colour temp. Sadly manufacturers use colour temp as a selling point to boost employee output, but the end result is actually fatigue, eye strain and mental disturbance. 

 

Ideally your office lighting should mimic exactly what the outside is doing. 

 

A lot will be coming out about this in the near future because playing with light inappropriately is like turning the temperature too low or too high. 

[Dreadnaught]

I am very interested in circadian lighting. I haven't yet seen an easy solution to achieve it.

 

With lamps that can change colour temperature I thought it would be easy. And I would have thought Philips Hue would do it but, as far as I have seen, their solutions are limited.

 

I have a few of the Philips Hue bulbs.

[Carrerahill]

8 minutes ago, Dreadnaught said:

I am very interested in circadian lighting. I haven't yet seen an easy solution to achieve it.

 

With lamps that can change colour temperature I thought it would be easy. And I would have thought Philips Hue would do it but, as far as I have seen, their solutions are limited.

 

I have a few of the Philips Hue bulbs.

The only way for it to truly work is with an external daylight sensor and LED's capable of full colour mixing to replicate these colour temps - the best I have seen commercially is done with a LED board that can create 2300-2500K to 5500-6000K (depends on who makes them but I have seen as low as 2000K) - it works well with the correct controls - the LED's boards have double the number of LED's - half of them are straight 2300-2500K LEDs and half are 5500-6000K they can then create anything in-between by mixing - can be quite costly as you need dual channel drivers with colour temp control but it can be done. 

 

Anything that is not the same as what is happening outside is a bio dynamic nightmare. It's like when you go to the cinema and come out into broad daylight, how do you feel at first? 

 

Philips Hue are pretty good fun, but a gimmick.

 

The issue with a lot of LED lighting is that it is all actually blue or UV, the blue light photons hit a phosphor coating - some photons will travel clean through the coating and remain blue and some will strike the phosphor coating and release a yellow light photon - the mix of which creates the "white" light we have come to expect - what people don't realise is that all this blue LED light is detrimental to our health and circadian cycle will be impacted. Solution - incandescent sources!

 

There is a lighting report due out this year with input from medical researchers and lighting researchers into just what we should be using - there is a lot of misinformation being banded about and it will get worse as manufacturers jump on it as a USP. 

 

 

 

 

 

[lizzie]

Why not just link your cctv to a big screen maybe set in a frame to look like a window then you can have ‘live’ outside views.

[Onoff]

2 hours ago, Carrerahill said:

If executed well I think it would look good

 

He had "forest" wallpaper on the wall opposite so that reflected in the mirrors. Was really effective.

[Tennentslager]

2 hours ago, Carrerahill said:

We have specified these type of feature lights quite a few times as a ceiling option, cloudy sky, autumnal tree canopy, that sort of thing. The ones from reputable manufacturers look brilliant and last well.

 

https://www.whitecroftlighting.com/products/indoor/feature-and-display/life-p-led/

 

You are looking at £2K for a good 4-6 panel commercial version - can hangle 24/7 operation. Any cheap LED lighting panel or something like this will suffer early LED degradation at long run times and probably discolouration of the panel itself unfortunately. At £200 I would risk it for my loft or home office if I thought it would not be used too much. I was going to put a fake window in the loft with a blind over it and then two LED strips either side behind it washing onto a brilliant white backdrop - I just fancied just having a mess about. Maybe once the extension is done.

 

I was involved with the electrical design for the QEU Hospital in Glasgow (not the cladding, ventilation or water systems!) and they were specified for kids areas and waiting rooms in internal parts of the building with no windows and particularly where patients may need a cheer up (cancer wards etc.).  

 

@Tennentslager - are the drivers built in or remote? I would consider dimming them (if they say they cannot be dimmed they are lying). 

Drivers came as a wee box, one for each panel 

the website sold two types of dimmer for these panels but didn’t buy them

As I said the pics distort real life as they are more muted than they look, the blue is more sky than dark blue