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Comment by pistachiopro | Hacker News Reader

Thanks to GP for the links, I completely missed that previous thread!

And, yeah, I tried that Soraa healthy bulb, and it was shockingly bad, given how it was advertised. Even the regular Soraa bulbs were disappointingly flickery, though less so. Also, just looking at the pattern it makes on my phone's rolling shutter, the wave is quite saw-toothed, and I wonder if that makes it worse? I have some Ikea candelabra bulbs which were always pleasant, and I was surprised to see they also left quite a visible flicker pattern on my phone, though much more sinusoidal/smoother.

It's a shame about the flicker in the Soraa bulbs, since the colors really did seem nice.

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The Soraa bulb looked pretty sinusoidal on my scope when I tested it briefly. But it's a lot of flicker regardless.

What's interesting is that the bulb seems to have a nice build quality (from the outside, I didn't open it) and is quite heavy. I suspect they are putting a BIG heatsink in there, as violet pump phosphors tend to degrade quickly.

The other thing that irks me about this product is the "zero blue" messaging. Yes, I can confirm the spectrum looks like what they are advertising, with a peak around 415nm, almost nothing between 440-490nm, and then all the rest of the colors from green to red.

But, green light is just as bad as blue for sleep! The ipRGCs are sensitive to both blue and green (up to around 600nm) This bulb has a lot of green, more than a lot of other light sources. It also has a very unpleasant greenish color (IMO) and low-ish CRI, around 78 on the bulb I tested.

Is it better than a normal 600lm bulb for sleep? Yes. Is it novel? Yes. Is it good in practice? I don't think so.

That's right, the Soraa Healthy was very green! So, even without the flicker, the fact that it makes everybody look like undead zombies would be reason enough to disqualify it as a bedroom night light.

Haha, totally agree! If you are still in the market for a low-blue, low-flicker solution, may I humbly suggest a look at my product, Bedtime Bulb [0]? I know I basically bashed the Soraa product here, but not without technical justification.

[0] https://bedtimebulb.com/

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