
Ask HN: Office lighting recommendations? - percept
What's everybody using for office lighting?<p>My halogen torchiere broke off at the base this morning. It was hard to find one in 2003 and now they're gone from stores (liability).<p>I've tried traditional incandescent lighting in the office but it's too dull. The halogen has sharper and warmer light.<p>I read a bit about Full Spectrum's products but they're more expensive and proprietary.<p>Are there any other good options I've missed? Thanks.
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pasbesoin
I have an incandescent torchiere, in which I've now placed a full-spectrum
compact fluorescent bulb. Works just fine, and adjusting color is just a
matter of picking out a different bulb. My recommendation for cheap, indirect
lighting. And yes, indirect lighting is great, in my opinion.

There are (dedicated) fluorescent torchiere lamps. I have a couple from GE,
both dim-able. One has worked for many years like a champ. The newer GE one
had the balast (non-replaceable -- at least without hassle) progressively fail
over the course of a year or two -- slower and slower startup times; now
completely dead. A third such torchiere -- same bulb, also dim-able -- a floor
model I picked up more recently that is made by another manufacturer, is also
dead. So, my recommendation is to stay away from this design.

P.S. If one lamp doesn't seem to produce as much light as the halogen
torchiere, try two lamps. The incandescent type are quite cheap, and with
compact fluorescent bulbs (maybe LED bulbs, someday), your energy use should
still be pretty low.

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percept
Thanks, I think that's probably my best option. Have you compared these to
halogen torchieres?

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pasbesoin
No, I haven't. It's been some time since I've seen a halogen torchiere. I
would suspect the compact fluorescents are dimmer and, depending on the bulb,
less "pure white" in perception. The Verilux compact fluorescent bulb I am
currently using has a fairly "cold" tone, despite being advertised as "Full
Spectrum / Daylight Spectrum:. I have an OTT "Natural Light" bulb and a GE
"daylight" bulb (6500K) that I haven't tried, yet.

If nothing else works, I'd follow the recommendation of another commentor here
and try an incandescent bulb that achieves a full spectrum effect via a rare
earth element coating. Note that GE has some incandescent bulbs whose glass
has a blueish cast -- "Reveal", I believe they name them -- that are cheaper.
However, the Reveal bulbs do not achieve the same effect.

I have had such coated incandescent bulbs, of higher quality -- Chromalux is
the brand name I seem to recall -- and was quite pleased with their
appearance. I did not use them in a torchiere, but they were in a flexible
lamp twisted to shine up and provide indirect lighting off of the ceiling.

Maybe just get a candidate bulb first and see what you think. Stick in in a
desk lamp or similar and bounce the light off the ceiling. It's higher power
consumption, but you may just want to try the Chromalux first.

If this is fun, wait until we lose the incandescent bulbs... ;-) Sorry if my
follow-up sounds less definitive than my original reply.

~~~
percept
I can see this is going to be a project. ;)

The light really is more hazy and dull in the office with the (four!)
incandescents in the overhead fan.

------
brk
I gave an overhead modern chandelier-type light in my office. It uses 10 12V
Halogen bulbs and is connected to an X-10 enabled PCS dimmer switch. I can
control the lighting from the switch, my desktop, or my iPhone :)

~~~
percept
Thanks (my upvote didn't work for your comment). I didn't mention that I'm in
a rental so I'm looking for a floor lamp or similar option. Maybe an array of
desk lamps similar to your chandelier. ;)

------
weaksauce
I like the natural incandescent lights(sort of full spectrum, basically an
incandescent with a coating on the inside) not too much more per bulb but it
really makes a difference to my eyes.

