Circadian vs “dim to warm”
Circadian vs “dim to warm”
I just read a great article about a company wanting to do Circadian lighting on the International Space Station! It was very inspiring, so now I want to look into automating that. Up until now, my priority has been smart switches (both Zigbee and Z-Wave) and voice control, but I also have an automation to dim when it’s bed time.
Can anyone compare Circadian vs “dim to warm”, by how happy you are with results, cost, complexity? I guess I’d have to get all new bulbs either way, but I’d have to rewire and reconfigure switches for smart bulbs to do Circadian and I’d have to actively automate, vs “dim to warm” would just do it
Personally, I have colour-capable bulbs in my bedroom (paired with a smart switch). Using Adaptive lighting (https://github.com/basnijholt/adaptive-lighting) was a breeze to setup and offers more capabilities than I even need.
I can vouch for Adaptive Lighting. I use it in every room and it was very easy to set up.
It can be a bit tricky when working with scenes though – that's maybe the only downside I've come across.
Is that on HACS?
Yep
Off topic, but I noticed that I had issues replying to your comment in my Lemmy app (Voyager). I’m trying to work out why.
Logging in via a web browser, I can see that the post and parent comments are tagged as English, but your comment language is Undetermined. If I tag my post as language Undermined, my reply doesn’t get sent, just shows a loading animation. If I change it to English, it posts, but I’m not sure if that will display for you. Please let me know if you see this message.
This could be preventing some people engaging with your posts. In Kbin settings, can you define the language of your posts?
I like the circadian lighting addon in HACS. All my bulbs are white spectrum bulbs as circadian lighting is the reason I got into home automation and smart bulbs years ago. I do think I sleep much better.
I like the idea of circadian lighting in theory, but in practice I really just want one specific warm light all day, then red a couple of hours before bedtime.
I have Hue lamps around the house that are daylight temperature in the day and turn warm and dim in the evening on a schedule. Is this what you mean by circadian, or is it something else?
Yes.
-
A smart bulb with controllable color temperature can be configured to be whiter in the day and warmer into the evening and night. The idea is to better mimic the sun to reinforce our circadian rhythm, and improve sleep. I believe Home Assistant has at least two integrations that can control lights this way.
-
vs recently there are new dimmable LEDs that automatically change to whiter when bright and warmer when dim, similar to the natural behavior of incandescent bulbs.
These are two different approaches that probably have very similar results (since I already have an automation to dim as it gets later)
there are new dimmable LEDs that automatically change to whiter when bright and warmer when dim
I love the idea of these bulbs. I'm using the adaptive lighting component so my bulbs' temperature and brightness are always correlated anyway. For light fixtures with more than one bulb, a single smart dimmer could replace a whole zigbee light group.
However, are there any bulbs on the market yet with a good temperature range? So far, the only ones I've been able to find are Philips Warm Glow lamps that only go from 2200K to 2700K, which is way too warm for daytime use.
Maybe HASS is better than this but it’s not simple to schedule Hue to have the right colours at the right time. At least, not at my latitude. I’ve got separate summer and winter schedules and that helps a lot, but especially in the summer it’s pointless using the built in sunset/sunrise events.
-
I modified an AppDaemon script found on HACS as I found that the regular warm-when-dim was not ideal. Now, it starts to dim an hour before sunset, but starts to warm only after sunset. It feels more natural this way... This is by far the feature that I enjoy the most on my installation.