Essential Install | CEDIA
Catering for circadian
rhythms promotes
well-being
Time To Adapt?
Peter Aylett, technical director of CEDIA member, Archimedia,
takes a look at the illuminating world of ‘bio-adaptive lighting’.
Humans have evolved for tens of thousands of years with
the daily cycle of a rising and setting sun mostly responsible
for setting their internal circadian rhythm. But now, we
spend most of our time indoors, where light is unnatural and
doesn’t represent the lighting that our bodies need.
So, what can technology do to replicate outdoor colour
temperature in a way that makes people more energised
when they need to be, but also sleepy when it’s time for
bed? The answer – bio-adaptive lighting.
How Do We Implement
Bio-adaptive Lighting Into
Our Projects?
The Background
The nature of bio-adaptive lighting is that the colour
temperature of artificial light sources is being constantly
managed and potentially changed by a software-driven
system. These can operate either by fixed programming
or via daylight tracking.
Decades of research into lighting has revealed a great
deal about how light affects humans. From sleep
habits to productivity, from mental functions to general
wellbeing, a lack of correctly timed, type and strength of
light can be detrimental.
It is proven that late evening light exposure delays the
circadian rhythm, resulting in later sleep and wake times,
while early morning light exposure advances the circadian
rhythm, resulting in earlier sleep and wake times.
Why Is This Important To Us?
Peter says installers
should open their
eyes to bioadaptive lighting
Lighting is an important part to our jobs, as residential
projects – whether a whole home installation, or single room
setting – requires a certain level of lighting. However, unlike
the quality process that we go through when considering
audio and video equipment and programming, the same
doesn’t seem to transition into lighting design. We look at
which lamps we are going to use and consider creating
different lighting scenes, but we don’t think about providing
a quality system that is beneficial to the homeowner.
For example, did you know that blue light is beneficial
for dealing with emotional challenges and moods and while
most people receive enough blue light in the summer due
to sunlight, they receive much less in the winter? Therefore,
to combat the lack of blue light in the winter, researchers
suggest adding blue light to indoor environments.
Similarly, did you know that the elderlys’ sleep and
wake cycles are hard to maintain if they are not exposed to
daylight early in the day and sleep in a dark room at night?
The principle of bio-adaptive lighting is to provide
artificial light that is controlled to match the needs of human
circadian rhythms in the most effective and appropriate way
for a building and its users. This means that before you begin
working on the lighting design, you need to fully understand
who your client is and what their requirements are.
There are three parts to implementing a bio-adaptive
lighting system – software, hardware control and luminaire.
Software
Hardware Control
Bio-adaptive lighting is being made possible by an
abundance of sophisticated LEDs. To change colour
temperature, multiple light sources need to be mixed
within a single fitting.
The Luminaire
Apart from connected luminaires, most light fittings
have no active electronics built into them. An LED (or
a set, or array of red, green, and blue LEDs) needs a
driver which will then be controlled with one of the
above protocols.
Though outwardly simple, the world of light, light
quality and how it affects humans is incredibly complex.
Though in its infancy, systems are now available that can
deliver bio-adaptive lighting into almost any space. Over
the next few years, these systems will mature and become
largely standard. For the moment, however, we are early
on in the growth of these technologies coming together,
which means that they need expert design, installation
and configuration to become a reality.
CEDIA has recently released a white paper on BioAdaptive Lighting which is available on the CEDIA website
white paper section.
For more information on joining CEDIA, visit the
association’s website at www.cedia.co.uk. Follow @
CEDIA_EMEA on Twitter, find CEDIA on Facebook at
www.facebook.com/CEDIA.EMEA or join the CEDIA
group on LinkedIn.
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