Comment by emsign | Hacker News Reader

Comment by emsign | Hacker News Reader

I strongly advise against buying and using lanterns, they release a lot of toxic soot. Probably negating any health benefits you get from normalizing your melatonin levels by a large amount. Technology Connnections of YouTube made a series of in depth videos about lanterns, how they work, how they can spill and set you and your home ablaze and just how much soot they produce. Don't use them, unless you're outside camping. It's an inconspicuously dangerous technology that has more risks and downsides which will surprise you in very unhappy ways when it's used in inproper ways. Like using it for reading inside your home so you get tired more easily thus more careless in handling them. The use case for these is VERY narrow and you need to know what you are doing.

As much as I enjoyed the blog post, the tiny bit with the lanterns was stupid. I wish they had dug into the downsides of those with the same interest and rigor as they demystified white LEDs. That was such an oversight. Lanterns are more risky than white LEDs that leak blue light.

Yes, there are "clean burning" lanterns, but the innocent casual reader might just not buy the best type but some cheapo fuming, leaking one from Amazon. I think mentioning them is irresponsible especially after they've established themselves as someone who's an expert in blue light emitting LEDs (argument from false authority). But even with those clean burning lanterns I don't buy into how clean they are. There is no sootless lantern.

Agreed, there's a difference between looking skeptically at tech LEDs and recommending people go full Chuck McGill, and the author rides that line well until that point in the article.

I think what we need is to understand exactly how the spectra is different and use optical filters to get an exact match, assuming current high CRI and warm white lamps aren't enough.

We could even use a dichroic filter to send part of the blue peak back for another trip through the phosphor. We should probably be doing that already for a little more efficiency if that's a real idea and not nonsense I just made up.

I think there are multiple practical ways to mitigate this issue. Blue light filtering adhesive tape could be a viable solution in some cases. You can buy those UV filtering adhesive sheets for your window for protecting your precious light sensitive knick-knacks, but I don't know if they filter the spectrum between 450 and 480 nm though.

In other cases another helpful tool would be a portable light sprectrum analyser, with which you can simply weed out the bad lights before you buy them, or return them immediately after buying in case you can't test them before hand.

Then the blue light filtering function in devices is probably the most accessible self-defense mechanism for the average consumer in most cases.

Or just go to bed when the sun goes down or change your job/shift. Behavioral adjustments, they cost nothing except some brain energy.

As a last resort melatonin supplements come to mind. In combination with Vitamin D supplements for the winter time, they don't seem that bad. Even though I've heard that you will have trouble falling asleep if you stop taking melatonin.

Or perhaps... use incandescent lights! They still produce less CO2 than lanterns and they don't stink. Also they are almost as convenient as LEDs. And you can still get them from some sources.

The solution I would prefer is for manufacturers to just build safer products and speaking from experience government regulation is the only sure way to get the manufacturers to actually commit to it. Marketing wank doesn't work because people can't test it and there's too many factors that play into sleep quality and (decades later) cancer, so the manufacturers cannot be held responsible for the effect. They can only be held responsible if their products fail measurable tests, like how much blue light they actually emit.

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