
Ideal lighting for development teams? - izzyazeri
I work in an office where its mostly developers and they keep the lights off because its better on their eyes since they&#x27;re heads down staring at monitors all day.  However given we&#x27;ve passed the longest day of the year, hours of daylight are going down and given we usually have pretty dark fall and winter in Boston, I&#x27;d like to see if it makes sense to invest in some good lighting for the upcoming seasons.  Let me know if others have found good non-natural lighting for dev teams.
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twobyfour
Desk lamp on each desk that each person can turn on and off at will.

If nobody ever turns on their desk lamps, add a very low level of ambient
light with widely spaced ceiling lamps or torchieres using bulbs that mimic
40-watt incandescents in both brightness and spectrum. You want just enough
light that people aren't tripping over every backpack or dropped pen on the
floor.

Avoid fluorescents like the plague. The spectrum and frequency (fluorescents
actually flicker at a frequency high enough that our brains smooth it out
before interpreting the signal - but doing so is taxing on the brain) both
contribute to headaches and fatigue.

Anyone who wants more light than the ambient can and should use their personal
desk lamps.

Meanwhile, leave your windows unshaded so employees can take advantage of as
much natural light as the season allows - it's important for mental health and
circadian rhythms.

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davelnewton
I haven't set up an entire office.

Fluorescent are right out. LEDs are great if you like the color temps they
come in, but it's generally believed the blues can disrupt the body clock.

I personally favor area lighting that can be turned off and/or filtered along
with a fairly low-wattage incandescent at each desk (some people prefer two,
like me) and leave it at that.

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twistedpair
You can have CLF's, just don't turn them on. Natural light is quite nice this
time of year. Working with glowing rectangles has it's perks.

