Adaptive Task Lighting for the Flexible Office

Abstract

Currently there is no market for adaptable personal luminaires in the office environment. The investments would be too high and this while there are no evident benefits. However in the future, with the rise of LEDs and increased knowledge on the effects of lighting on humans, this all may change. LEDs will become more affordable and consume less energy than the current solutions, leading to better return on investment times. In addition, Philips is expecting to prove that adaptive lighting can positively influence the productivity of office workers. If Philips is able to prove this benefit, then companies are likely to invest in adaptive lighting as this investment represents a small percentage of a company’s costs and is an investment that will benefit the company’s greatest asset: its employees. When this happens the flexible office worker should get control over a personal luminaire, since the ideal lighting conditions may vary significantly from person to person. Automating the choice or lighting is not possible as there are simply too much determinants in the choice of light, leading to a complex situation. The participants of the first study indicated that they would like to control the light intensity, colour temperature, size and location of the spotlight. Controlling the personal luminaire should be simple and fast as people want to focus on their work and not on their light, as indicated in the second user study and theory. The second study also showed that the majority of participants would like to control these lighting parameters individual from one another to create their personal preferred light setting, thus not based on pre-defined scenes. Additionally the majority of participants wanted to be able to save their setting into a personal preset, so that they can easily re-use their light preferences. This also complies with earlier research presenting that in time people home-in on the setting they like best. For the flexible office worker an important addition is that the saved personal setting can be loaded from any desk. Solely providing the office worker with control over a personal luminaire, will probably not result in increased productivity. The average office worker does not know what proper lighting is and how it affects him or her, which might result in improper choice of light settings. Therefore it is important that office workers will be educated to ensure that the most optimal settings are chosen based on their knowledge as well as their personal preference. This might sound exaggerated, but for people that work about 40 hours a week at a desk, this is not a trivial matter.