> Someone should probably start a bright home lighting company
Such a thing already exists. Its called a lighting design company.
People need to admit that lighting (like cryptography) is hard, and that if you're serious about "doing it right" you need to bring in a suitably skilled professional.
Each house/apartment is different and every room within it is different, you'll never be able to magically buy good lighting out of the box to be installed on a plug and play basis.
So if you are already undergoing the expense of a full-refurb and are serious about getting the lighting right, then really you should throw a few coins in the direction of a lighting professional.
I went this route on a home renovation and it was worth every penny. I’m overly picky about lighting in general. Temperature, direction, intensity, and especially shadows. I was recently at a friends house that did a remodel and while plating my food in their kitchen my own shadow was cast on my plate and the food in front of me on their countertop. I felt so odd like a mild inconvenience I forgot existed. I told him jokingly he needs a refund from his contractor.
There are loads of products on the market that are intended to deliver short bursts of light to you. Usually they are marketed under the name "bright light" or "daylight" lamp. The point with light is that the intensity drops quadratic with distance. So, most of these solutions are intended to be used close to your face. The further away they are from you, the more energy you need. So, a wall or ceiling mounted solution is more costly.
I used to live in Finland where the winters are dark and long and lots of my colleagues had these in their offices. The first time I saw one (a Philipps bright light), I thought it was some kind of fancy new Apple device I did not know yet. Until they turned it on. Highly effective apparently in countering winter depression, which is a common thing that far North.
Basically you use them for 30 minutes or so in the morning. You actually need to be careful with this as you can damage your eyes. I checked on Amazon and you can get loads of different products in this category for under 50 euro or pay a premium for something bigger/fancier. E.g. Beurer has an ipad sized 10K lux solution: https://www.amazon.de/-/en/daylight-simulation-intensity-dis.... I can't vouch for any of these products since I don't need or use them though.
Personally, I prefer to just take a walk when my calendar permits. It's good for multiple reasons and also re-energizes me while lowering stress. Just a 45 minute stroll does wonders; I do longer walks when time permits as well. I live in Germany these days so, it's less dark in the winter here and it did not really affect me that much even when I was living in Finland. I noticed my colleagues from further south were suffering a lot more; or at least moaning more about it.
Can confirm. Have worked on so many extremely large scale construction projects, on the tech side, and I see all the lighting plans during the design process...
And I am always dumbfounded when I see the actual results. Even back when software available today, Blender, Sketchup and other design software did not exist ; lighting designers were REALLY good at coming up with nice lighting designs...
Now with the advent of these tools, lighting design today is lightyears from where it was a decade ago - but its still HARD to do well.
> For me the article is missing an explanation of why existing artificial skylights cost $30k, and how to avoid those costs.
Because people with rare diseases are willing to pay a lot of money for stuff sold by snake-oil peddlers after they have been let down by the traditional healthcare system, and other than people with SAD there's not much of a market for these things.
Having been a study of people for a long time? This impacts everyone, just some to bigger degrees. There is a reason Seattle is such a huge coffee (and antidepressant) consumer, and it isn't because these impacts are rare.
They're just ignored because no one has figured out how to solve it (or that it is a problem for them).
People already spend thousands of dollars on skylights without any professional lighting design, yet they pay a professional draughtsman to design it specially for their house, council to approve it, and licensed tradesman to build it. I don't get why they don't spend those same thousands on what you suggest or an off-the-shelf product that an electrician (or DIY) can install.
Such a thing already exists. Its called a lighting design company.
People need to admit that lighting (like cryptography) is hard, and that if you're serious about "doing it right" you need to bring in a suitably skilled professional.
Each house/apartment is different and every room within it is different, you'll never be able to magically buy good lighting out of the box to be installed on a plug and play basis.
So if you are already undergoing the expense of a full-refurb and are serious about getting the lighting right, then really you should throw a few coins in the direction of a lighting professional.