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Comment by sdrothrock | Hacker News Reader

Japanese ceiling lights have standard functionalities for adjusting not only brightness, but also yellow-blue levels.

Are simpler (e.g. not full RGB) LED lights like this not as common/affordable in other places? I just realized that I really take them for granted.

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Agreed on all points, Japanese ceiling lights are wonderful. For context, the great majority of Japanese homes and apartments come with standardised, non-screw, ceiling light fixtures for which you purchase your own lights when you move in.

In fact, I had never even seen a building without these fixtures until I moved into my current apartment (built by Sekisui House in 2019) that for some reason has these horrible in-ceiling, spotlight-esque lights that are common at least in Europe. Whilet they have a somewhat yellow tint, they can not be dimmed. My solution was to grab a standard desk lamp and LED bulbs that came with a simple IR remote, so as not to torture my poor eyes at night.

I have seen downlights which have a switch to toggle between warm and cool but the switch is not accessible after installation. I imagine the hardest part is just the controls. You’d have to run some data line along with the electrical and then have a special switch which contains the controls. Unless you are willing to go with a wireless remote in which case just get the ikea bulbs for cheap.

Philips Scene Switch (formerly Choose Scene) cycle between warm and cool each power cycle.

I found the cool white too full resulting in a dull clinical grey look and ended up replacing them all with dimmable 150mm warm LED downlights.

The simpler version of this is Philips Warm Glow in the US, generically known as 'warm dim', where the lamp has two LED engines - one bright and cold, one dimmer and warm, and it crossfades between them when the lamp is dimmed. Works great. I use it for every lamp in my house.

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