How to improve your game room with proper lighting? November 9, 2017 19:35

Having a game room means so much to the entire family because a proper game room has at least one thing for every family member. A game room like that has kid’s corner, adult’s corner, video game corner and even game table corner. Since the room is filled with different themes it is essential to properly light up the room because the light fixtures you use in the game table corner aren’t good for the video game corner. It would be a shame to see entire efforts go to waste because the lighting in the room isn’t good. So to avoid any problems with the game room lighting I am offering you few tips on what you can improve your relaxation oasis.

Lighting for the game table corner

Game table corner in your game room should be the brightest and the lights should be placed properly. If you don’t place them right you can have thousands of light bulbs and the light still won’t be good. The best way to place the light in the game table corner is above the table. No matter if you have foosball table, pool table or even air hockey table, use the brightest light in the corner above the table. That way you will have clear view on the entire surface and you can forget about the shadows on one side of the table. Another reason why it is necessary to have a good light with the game table is because the game is often very fast. If you score, no one can say that they didn’t see it.

Lighting for the video game corner

A video game corner is a completely opposite story. Most gamers love to play in the dark and the reason for that is the fact that they can focus on the screen. If you have mounted the TV on the wall you have to keep in mind that the light from the ceiling might reflect on the TV and that is not good. That is why it is a good idea to have lights below the TV and for that you can put them on the nightstand or tables you have in the room. The video game corner is great because you can turn it in your own home cinema easily which means that you will turn off the lights. Even better solution is to dim the lights down so you can see, but it is dark enough to make a cosy atmosphere.

Lighting for the kid’s corner

By kid’s corner, I am talking about playroom. The light here isn’t that important as long as it is bright. You don’t have to worry about the shadows or reflection but I would definitely recommend a wall lamp or ceiling lamp which don’t hang. Kids love to toss their toys which mean that they can easily break hanging lamps. Also, avoid glass lamps, use plastic ones and light ones after all, safety should come first.

Lighting for the adult’s corner

Adult’s corner is a place when your creativity can work wonders. By adult’s corner I mean your corner and that means you can use whatever you want. You can use table lamps, wall lamps, glass lamps and plastic lamps, whatever you want. If you have a bar in your corner I would recommend to put the light right above it because it will drive the focus on the bar and having a bar is cool. Everything else is entirely up to you and your style.

Author’s bio:

Mark is a blogger who writes on the Foosball Zone – a blog about foosball. If you want to learn more about foosball, check out his blog because it has everything one foosball player needs to know. 

Use Different Color Lighting To Bring Out Your Best Self September 23, 2016 00:00

What if you could change your mood with the tap of a button? What if energy and motivation were just the flip of a switch away?

You may be thinking this all sounds like work of science fiction, and a decade ago you’d have been right. But modern life is seeing all sorts of benefits once thought to be impossible thanks to rapidly advancing technology and innovation. And controlling your mood and motivation is now as easy as turning on the right colored light.

What’s the “Right” Lighting?

You may have noticed a surge in news related to the effects of light on our everyday health. From avoiding blue light before bed to the development of light-based therapies to treat disorders, it seems like every day we’re discovering just how intricately our bodies are tied to illumination.

One such discovery gaining foothold in the scientific community is that different colors of light will have physiological and psychological effects on the human brain, with results ranging from feeling energetic, calm, focused, to even less depressed.

And these findings couldn’t have come at a better time. Smart lighting has seen some exciting developments recently but, coupled with these health benefits, color-changing smart bulbs are more beneficial than ever. With an enormous variety of hues to choose from, and the ability to switch between thousands of different colors right from your smart device, you’ve never had this much control over how you feel.

Check out how to use smart lighting to get started on a technicolor journey to a better you!

Energizing blue

A wealth of studies have been conducted on which types of light kept test subjects focused the longest and most have come to the conclusion that the clear winner is blue light. In one study in particular, a group of hamsters living in an environment lit entirely by blue light were shown to have the most disrupted circadian rhythm (the body’s natural clock). In other words, they couldn’t sleep.

While the implications are that brain cells are more sensitive to blue light than other colors, the applications of this knowledge are quite powerful. Businesses across the world are already considering investing in blue smart lighting to help increase employee efficiency and focus. What this means for you though is the next time you need to get some work done around the house, switch your smart bulb over to blue and for a potential boost in creativity.

Relaxing...red?

That’s right, contrary to popular belief surrounding yourself in red is actually calming for the nerves. Red’s gotten a bad rap for inciting particularly impassioned emotions in individuals, and while the basis for this association (blood, lust, red in the face with anger) may have been around for years, studies have shown that spending time in a red lit room will likely relax you more than any other color.

In the same experiment mentioned above, hamsters were also subjected to red light for a prolonged period. These hamsters showed significantly reduced disruptions to sleep patterns and mood disorders compared to the other colors. The takeaway from all this? Don’t let red’s bad reputation stop you from taking advantage of its calming effects after a hard day at work.

Healing white

You might be thinking, “if I could change my lights to any color at all, why would I pick plain old white light?”. And true, with thousands of colors to choose from with your smart bulbs it’s hard to imagine you’d ever want to go back to basic white.

But, as boring as it might look at first, white light can have a pretty powerful effect on certain ailments. You may have heard of seasonal affective disorder (SAD) for instance, a condition that makes those affected  depressed during the winter months.

Did you know though that SAD affects half a million people every year? And did you know that white light therapy is the leading treatment for the disorder, proving effective in up to 85% of diagnosed cases? While the white light must be at least a certain level of brightness to be a certified treatment, it’s clear that white light isn’t as dull as you may have thought.

Pacifying pink

The quieting effects of pink on the mind might be the most documented and reported on of all the psychological characteristics of colors. From the incredibly popular Drunk Tank Pink by Adam Alter to the numerous accounts of using pink rooms to both calm tantrum-throwing juveniles in probation centers and ease opposing football teams into a relaxed stupor, the power of pink is being utilized for an enormous range of purposes.

The psychology behind this one might be a bit more complex, probably having to do with an interplay of both the physical calming effects of red as well as the innocence implicit in the color reinforced by pop culture. What really matters here is it works, so put pink to use!

Gentle green

The effects of green aren’t as well documented as the other colors but evidence showing that green is in fact the easiest color on the eyes is based more in physical science than most. The hard facts come from the physical makeup of our eyes. Inside each of our eyeballs are millions of cones and rods that help us detect color, which are broken down into three different specialized color categories: blue, green, and red.

Whereas the blue cones primarily only pick up blue light, the green and red tend to overlap a bit, picking up a large range of colors from red to green. When this overlap is taken into account, the majority of the cones that are found in the eye will detect green over red. That means that our eyes are hardwired to see green easier than any other color, making it the color that creates the least amount of eye strain.

So if you’re sitting down to a good book and want to keep your eyes as relaxed as possible, switch your smart light over to a soft,  soothing green.

Tell us what you think

Know of any other colors that can help bring out your best? Have you tried lighting your home with any of these and if so, how did it turn out? Let us know in the comments below and check out the Flux Smart Bluetooth LED and Flux Smart WiFi LED Light Bulb to add some color to your life!

Smart Lighting: A Bright Idea You Won’t Want To Miss Out On September 12, 2016 06:00

If you've ever woken to nature’s call in the middle of the night, you're probably familiar with the dread of traversing the pitch black obstacle course of unseen kid’s toys, razor-sharp furniture corners, and the occasional unlucky pet.

When faced with such a task, most people only have two options: recreate a mental picture of what you think your surroundings look like, or “mummy walk” (slow baby steps with outstretched arms waving) your way to your destination.

But those with smart lighting have it much easier. For them, simply pressing a button on their phone or speaking a voice command illuminates the path ahead, navigating them to their destination with pinky toes and shins unbruised.

If you’re tired of problems like bumps in the night and want to experience a host of other benefits like the convenience of home automation, complete color freedom, and substantial energy savings, then smart lighting is the bright idea you've been waiting for.

Smart lighting and smart light bulbs explained

Smart lighting can refer to a range of different systems and products. In its most general sense, smart lighting is the altering of what most people would consider traditional bulbs to meet a specific purpose.

Chronologically, the development of smart bulbs was focused solely on optimizing energy efficiency. Starting with grandfather incandescent (the old-fashioned filament bulbs), the timeline of the lightbulb continued into fluorescent tube technology, through fluorescent bulbs, and up to the invention and honing of LED (or Light Emitting Diode) technology. In its earliest days then, smart lighting was simply a reference to more efficient lighting.

As technology progressed, though, innovations were made with regards to lighting as well as to sensors, power usage, and connectivity. Soon we were able to pack more modernization and advances into a lightbulb than you had on your first cell phone, probably with a better signal too!

With all these additional abilities, the modern lightbulb has been transformed into something new entirely. Now, smart light bulbs and systems are capable of a synchronicity and automation that used to be seen in early science-fiction movies.

With an expertly crafted smart lighting system, your home’s lighting can react to your movements, lighting up a room as you enter and dimming as you leave. You can be gently awoken from a night’s sleep as your room slowly fills with ambient light to mimic a sunrise. You can change the entire aesthetic of any room by cycling through a dizzying array of colors emitted from each light source, changeable on a whim. The possibilities really are endless.

The biggest benefits to using smart lighting

Smart lighting technology has nearly reached the point where its only usage limitation is the creativity and skill of the person operating it. Here are five great reasons you’ll want to think about investing in smart lighting technology:

1. Save energy – one of smart lighting’s main draws is the energy savings it can provide, which can be broken down into two different sources: the bulb efficiency and its ancillary capabilities. The most obvious energy savings come in the efficiency of the LED bulb itself, which boasts a usage life of 50,000 hours, 25 times that of an incandescent.

The lesser known efficiency, and more interesting ones, are made possible by what makes the smart light bulbs “smart”. With their ability to connect to different devices as well as house multiple sensors, certain smart bulbs can automatically turn off when you’ve left a room. Additionally, some have daylight sensors which can dim and brighten with the light of the day, saving you from paying for unnecessary light. Tack on the ability to integrate your lighting usage into scheduling and power management apps to meet your savings goals and your smart lighting system could save you a lot more than you expected.

2. Connect everything – As we just mentioned, one benefit of smart light bulbs is that they are capable of connecting directly to a system, typically a tablet or phone or even a central control hub. This allows you to control not just one bulb at a time, but entire sets all at once. You can set up timing schedules for certain lighting patterns, establish criteria for responses you determine (i.e. walking into a room during one time frame could result in a different kind of light than if you’d entered at a different time), etc. Another possibility is linking patterns with activities occurring on the control device itself. If you’d like your desk lamp to flash blue when you receive a Facebook message, it can be done! The only limit is your creativity.

Digital Lumens, an intelligent LED lighting company, even went so far as to use the motion tracking sensors of their lights to help determine employee movement, contributing to a better understanding of space utilization as well as providing insight into manufacturing issues like inventory management and staff efficiency. They even synced it up with the facility’s climate control system!

3. Control from anywhere – One of the most appealing benefits of a smart lighting system is your ability to control your home’s lights from anywhere in the world. Consider, for instance, how many times you’ve left home only to realize you left all the lights on. Instead of heading all the way back, smart lighting lets you switch off any light in the house right from your phone.

Don’t forget about the security benefits of such a feature by the way. Say you’ve just arrived at your vacation destination only to realize you didn’t leave any lights on while you’re away, leaving a prime target for any intruders. All you have to do is flip on a few lights from your phone or, better yet, quickly create a timing schedule so your home’s lights will pop on in the evening to scare off any would-be burglars, thanks to smart lighting.

4. Wake up naturally – Several smart bulb manufacturers have taken advantage of new findings that suggest our bodies are wired to be most effective when we are slowly awoken by gradually increasing light, such as that of the rising sun. Unfortunately, some of us either don’t have a window directly facing east or end up getting up when it’s still dark out so waking via sunrise isn’t a luxury we can afford. Smart bulbs like the FluxSmart Bluetooth LED Lightbulb are solutions to this problem as their “sunrise mode” will slowly bring you into the day by gradually increasing the light according to your desired wakeup time.

5. Add some color to your life – For many, the biggest draw of smart lighting is its ability to change to any hue to suit your mood. The Fluxsmart WiFi LED Light Bulb, for instance, boasts an astounding array of color capabilities, with over 16 million different color varieties at your fingertips, including different tones of white light. The color capabilities of smart bulbs can be set to different schedules and timers as well. If you are looking to mellow out your evenings before bed, tone it down to a calming blue. Not a morning person? Energize the start of your day with a radiant yellow. You can even sync up colors with your music, making your next house party a breeze.

Ready to step into the future with smart lighting?

While technology like the smart bulb was at one point only available to the public in the form of science fiction flicks, smart lighting products have now reached a reasonable and accessible price range. Additionally, whereas the bulbs were once an eyesore due to lack of technological sophistication, now their rising popularity has given way to exciting and stylish designs that can either accentuate the style of your interior or not draw attention to itself at all like a normal bulb.

Now that you know just a few of the benefits to outfitting your home with smart lighting, are you ready to start saving on your energy costs, add a whole new level of customization ability to your environment, and experience the convenience (and awesomeness!) of home automation?

Check out all the fun products Flux Smart has to offer.