Lumenators for very lazy British people
My flat gets very little sunlight. In the British winter, it gets very very little sunlight.
I didn’t like this and wanted to fix it. I read Chana’s very good post, but was too lazy to do something like that, and also wanted something that took up less space and was less noticeable. In the comments, someone recommended a floodlight on eBay, but the item was no longer available.
So I did some googling, and found this: Viugreum 500W LED Floodlight, Daylight White 6000K. It’s 50,000 lumens and £97.
You’ve got to attach the plug to the power cord yourself (buy this) and the power cord is very short so you want an extension lead (buy this) but once you’ve put in ~5 mins of work to do that, you’re good to go.
Mine just arrived but my first impressions are pretty good. It’s very, very bright. There’s no flicker, and the colour rendering seems good enough. It’s a pretty cold light, but that’s not a bad thing for my main purpose (staying alert during the workday). I’ve got alternative lamps etc. I use at night.
The one big annoyance is that there’s no switch on the floodlight, so you’ve got to turn it on and off from the mains.
I’m still figuring out the best placement. It’s too bright to be in my direct line of vision. Currently it’s on the floor near my desk, which seems to work well. It seems to get pretty hot, so you probably wouldn’t want it on anything that might scorch or burn. Silver lining: you’ll save money on your heating bill. Though I’m not looking forward to seeing my electricity bill next month.
Since you’re already fitting a plug, and since that sounds like it might be closer than the mains due to the short wire, you could fit a plug with a switch on it. like these:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08F4JNG7R/
If it’s running at 500W, that’s half a kWh per hour. If electricity is a little under 40p per kWh, then the running cost should be a bit under 20p per hour. If you use it for 10 hours per day, every day, then your electricity bill might rise by about £60 per month.
I got the 100W variant of that light, along with the switched plug jimv linked to. I’ve been generally pleased with it, I have it behind me and the room is much brighter when it’s on. I think I’d prefer a yellower light (which I think would be described as “warmer” but be a lower temperature? Thanks, English) but meh, it’s fine.
One thing that isn’t great is that it flickers very visibly on some cameras. It seems like yes on my phone’s back camera and my USB webcam; no on my laptop’s built-in webcam; and mostly no on my phone’s front camera but I did get something briefly so maybe it’ll show up again.
So I probably wouldn’t recommend it for someone who e.g. wants it on for a lot of the day and also spends a lot of the day on video calls, unless they can be confident this wouldn’t happen.
(Another minor thing is that the plug is kind of awkward to wire. I don’t remember wiring one before, but I’ve looked inside them, and this one has significantly less room. Having another cm on the three individual wires, below where they’re collected into a single one, would have made it easier to arrange them. I don’t really expect this to be a dealbreaker for anyone though.)