LED Light Spectrum Enhancement with Transparent Pigmented Glazes (2016)

Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t transparent pigments only change light color by allowing certain wavelengths of light to pass through them? That would mean the glaze in question here is only changing the color of the light by blocking out a majority of the light to make the distribution more uniform. These pigments can’t actually change the wavelength of light emitted. That would mean this is making the LED way less efficient (in terms of lumens per watt), but I do applaud the low cost thinking!

This is a nice review of one of the problems with LED lighting, and how the color output can be 'tuned' to provide a better experience.

Another problem is that too much light is commonly used, and that blue light is both overpowering and damaging to our eyes.

My local grocers have blinding spotlights in their stores. One grocer has okay lighting (aside from the spotlights). The other just replaced their fluorescent lights with LEDs that are "too bright" at night. I've taken to wearing my yellow-tinted blue light protection glasses while shopping. Just yesterday I noticed that the strips of LEDs in the one grocers' freezers are (now?) shielded, so that customers aren't blinded with strips of LEDs pointed into the aisles. The LED strips on the new refrigerator cases aren't shielded, and while they could be pointed at the merchandise, they're haphazardly directed. Many of the strips waste a lot of light by being pointed at the customers.

I was at the hardware store the other day and overheard staff asking another customer if they wanted a warm or cool bulb. The customer didn't know what that meant. I interjected: "cool is the kind that blinds you with blue light". She wanted the warmest bulbs they had.

At home I make an effort to use low-blue lighting, with a variety of amber, red, and orange LEDs, some halogen bulbs on dimmers, and a few 2700K LED/CFL bulbs. I found some 2200K amber LED bulbs for my brother's remodeled kitchen. These made his hipster hanging lamps useful, rather than blinding. The lights look nice when they're off, but they didn't realize when they were installed that light bulbs hanging at exactly eye level are terrible.

I found some Citizen CLU048-1212C4 COB LEDs on clearance at RapidLED.com a few years ago - they are "Amber" / 2200K. The spectrum is similar to that provided by a High Pressure Sodium bulb, with a little hump in the blue portion of the spectrum (HPS bulbs are almost blue-free). I put a couple of these on retired CPU heat sinks and put them on top of the cabinets with a dimmable power supply/driver. This lighting is terrible for photography, but great for getting around the kitchen in the evening before bed. All the light in the room reflects off the ceiling. Even amber light is overpowering when you're directly exposed to the light source.

My usual bedroom lighting is a collection of orange and red LED bulbs. These replaced a terrible 5000K 48" fluorescent bulb -- even though this was completely hidden on a shelf above the closet, the blue light from this bulb was overpowering. The fan has halogen bulbs on dimmers, for when I need more than red-orange light.

Over the last few years I've put dimmer switches on a lot of my lighting circuits. There's nothing worse than walking into a dark bathroom, flipping the switch & getting blinded. There are two kinds of dimmers: ones that start off and gradually ramp up the light level ("Slide-to-off Dimmer"), and ones that have an on/off switch separate from the dimming feature. At first I had the second type in the bathroom, but found that I'd frequently forget to check the brightness level before turning the switch on. The slide-to-off dimmers start at the minimum amount of light possible and gradually increase to provide the amount of light you need.