BIOS Lighting
BIOS Lighting
Healthier living and better sleep through the use of biodynamic lighting.
December is the darkest and most depressing month of the year and that’s why we at proptechaweek decided to dedicate this month to an exploration of how proptech can make your (or any really) life better. Working title: Better Living Through Proptech. The first chapter:
LED there be light - Genesis 1:3
What?
BIOS, an acronym for Biological Innovation and Optimization Systems, builds lighting solutions that mimic the behavior of the sun, bringing natural light indoors. The average time a contemporary person spends outdoor is shockingly low. Classic led light sources emit a static light spectrum throughout the day messing up your night/day balance and biological clock. This circadian rhythm is what BIOS tries to restore in an indoor setting. Apart from mimicking the flow of the sun, BIOS also tuned the emitted wavelengths for maximum impact on circadian biology. This way artificial lights can evoke health benefits like healthier sleep patterns and improved sleep quality.
graphic impression of lighting cycle imagery by Jack Hands
Why
The effect of light on the human metabolism is thoroughly researched and used as a tool to battle ao. seasonal mood variations. Even artificial light is widely understood as being a potential positive influence in the brain optimization and neuro-tech space against depression, sleep deprivation, concentration loss, and vitamin D deficit.
As a lighting producer, stuck in a market where your product’s average lifespan is 10 years, the health and wellbeing market seems to be a pretty interesting niche to move to.
As a building owner, incorporating this kind of technology in buildings could passively impact the lives of the people occupying it.
In the workplace BIOS could coast on the growing importance of employee wellbeing, natural light is one of the top office perks people request, and with this technology, it’s no longer only achievable for the corner offices ;-).
Why not?
At the moment there is no health authority that verifies the health claims the lighting industry makes, nor is there any specific regulation a producer should abide by. As the Peter Parker principle says: With great power comes great responsibility. What if there turns out to be long-term adverse health effects too?
Who?
The company was founded in 2014 by a team of former NASA scientists that were tasked to provide astronauts with natural light during space exploration. Key personalities: Co-founder and VP of Biological Research and Technology Robert Soler and president and CEO Sean Tegart.
Apart from offering their own products BIOS also licenses its technology to other lighting manufacturers through the BIOS Illuminated Partners program.
Who else?
Circadian Rhythms are very hot right now in the lighting industry and most of the bigger smart lighting companies, Wiz, lifx, Signify, Cree, Waldmann, Litpa … provide some sort of product line that supports dynamic lighting throughout the day. There are also mobile applications, eg sunn that add this functionality to smart lights that don’t support this technology natively.
Another competitor aimed directly at the same problem space is Circadian ZircLight. They provide a lighting wellness product that is aimed specifically at the workplace boasting to support an environment with improved productivity and alertness.
Soraa is a competitor founded by Dr. Shuji Nakamura, who won a Nobel Prize for his work on LED technology, its healthy bulb offers lighting that doesn’t emit blue content in the visible spectrum (the one that inhibits melatonin production and keeps you up at night). This lighting source is static, so it doesn’t try to mimic the natural lighting cycle, but they mainly try to solve the same problem.
And lastly, we have Ketra, a Lutron subsidiary. Ketra has built a LED light that can self-analyze the light it produces based on temperature-optical feedback and adjusts itself based on this information providing a reliable and consistent light source during its lifetime.
Further reading?
DIY guide on how to create natural lightning
Benefits of biodynamic lighting
Possible applications of Human Centric lighting
Leds Magazine Lighting and health section
Things happening
The cognitive dissonance is strong with this one: If Miami Will Be Underwater, Why Is Construction Booming?… Security researcher Troy Hunt has written a great blog series on how complex integrating different IoT home automation silos can be… You can still register for ULI Belgium Annual Conference 2020: What's Next for Real Estate and Cities?