Office Lighting Boost

A recently published study has showed that personalised controllable office lighting leads to workers sleeping on average of 26 minutes longer. Improved sleep was reported by office workers with cooler, brighter lighting that they can control personally.

The study at Eindhoven University in Netherlands provides for the first time a measure of the importance that personalisation control of lighting has on a users overall well-being. The study of office workers provided measurements from a selected lighting regime typical within any office for three weeks, followed by a new test for the following three weeks.

The workers in a ‘test group A’ received standard office lighting with an average illuminance of 500 lux on their desks with a neutral white light while those in the ‘test group B’ received a dynamic light with varying colour temperature and intensity.
By measuring the light closest to the eye, researchers discovered the users with personalised lighting showed a higher illuminance level in the early morning. The colour temperature level at the desk and close to the eye was also higher in the personalised lighting group.

Those office workers in the personalised lighting group had better tuned lighting exposure, in spite of the fact that they were mobile within their tasks and that daytime sunlight contributions were allowed in all conditions.

The office workers reported to have slept 26 minutes longer on average in the personalised control scenario.

Another big discovery was the diversity of opinions on light intensity and colour temperature. The most common report finding was the need for personal control.

‘We learned that even though personal control is exerted only incidentally, users emphasise how much they appreciated being able to adjust the light settings’.

The study is a part of a project called Personalised Intelligent Lighting Control Systems (PILCS) led by Professor Yvonne de Kort.

Interested in learning more..? Further reading here.