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Comment by hnlmorg | Hacker News Reader

I owned one of these lights before it went viral and it was a nightmare to install. The thing doesn’t screw into the ceiling like every other light figure does. Instead you install a hook and dangle the damn thing off the hook. Which means the plastic surround never goes flush with the ceiling.

Even when you do finally get it flush after several painful iterations of hanging it, gravity stretches the cord causing the base to come slightly away from the ceiling again.

If you’re OCD like me, it made the light a horrible reminder of that OCD. So in the end I gave up on the light.

Pity because it’s a really cool looking light.

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I wonder if this is a Swedish thing. I recently moved to a newly built apartment in Stockholm (as a non-Swede). All spots to put a ceiling light come with a hook and DCL socket, so it makes it super easy to swap lamps.

Never seen a light fixture that screws into the ceiling.

Some fixtures screw into an electrical box attached to the studs in the ceiling. The IKEA SIMRISHAMN pendant does that, for example.

Looking at the Ikea US website, the Simrishamn and PS 2014 seem to have similar solutions: a plate that screws into an electrical box and provides a hook (the lowest common international denominator).

What do you do if you want to move a ceiling light a bit to the side? Do you install an entire new electrical box?

If those electrical boxes are anything like the ones in the video I shared, then they’re trivial to move.

You don’t actually need the box though. In fact they weren’t even available in my previous two homes. It’s really more a convenience thing than anything.

But again, this is assuming we are talking about the same thing (region differences and all).

In the US, NEC and most local codes (which are often based on some version of the NEC) require that connections be made inside a box. This is largely because connections are the most likely place for an electrical fire to start and the box helps contain it.

I can’t speak for where you are, but it’s the norm in the uk. Eg around 4:25 in this video https://youtu.be/WZizlnLfLks?si=LjRI1EWIHhn6Ktgx

When I bought the Ikea light, it was just hook and no way to fix the plastic surround to the ceiling.

Ikea might have updated the light since then though. As I said before, I got the light when it was new, long before it went viral, and ikea might have tweaked the design since.

You haven’t been to Germany, I guess. Or the Netherlands.

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