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Circadian Lighting

Light that supports your natural rhythm

I'll be honest – I used to think circadian lighting was just fancy marketing speak for "expensive light bulbs." Then I spent three months waking up groggy despite getting eight hours of sleep, and my wife suggested maybe our bedroom lighting was the problem. I was skeptical, but after dropping $200 on various circadian lighting products and tracking my sleep quality, I'm convinced there's something real here. The catch? Most of what's being sold is either overpriced junk or doesn't actually do what it claims.

Here's where most people mess up: they assume any "warm light" or "blue light filter" counts as circadian lighting. I tested twelve different products, from $15 clip-on desk lamps to $180 smart bulbs, and honestly, half of them were basically regular LEDs with orange plastic covers. The Verilux HappyLight I bought for $89 claimed to support natural rhythms, but when I measured it with a spectrometer, it was just pumping out the same blue-heavy light as my laptop screen. Three of the "sunrise alarm clocks" I tested maxed out at about 50 lux – that's dimmer than most office lighting, nowhere near the 10,000 lux your brain needs to actually register "morning." And don't get me started on those $40 "circadian glasses" that gave me headaches and fell apart after two weeks.

What actually matters is getting the timing and intensity right. Real circadian lighting needs to hit at least 1,000 lux in the morning (ideally 10,000), gradually shift from cool blue-white light during the day to warm amber tones after sunset, and completely eliminate blue wavelengths below 480nm at night. I was surprised to learn that color temperature alone isn't enough – you need actual spectrum control. The Philips Hue bulbs I tested could dim and change colors, but they were still leaking blue light even on their "warmest" setting. The game-changer for me was finding fixtures that use separate LED arrays for different wavelengths rather than just filtering white light. Price-wise, the sweet spot seems to be around $60-120 for a good desk lamp or $30-50 per bulb for whole-room setups. Anything cheaper usually lacks the spectrum range, anything more expensive is often just premium materials without better light quality.

I ended up testing products for 90 days total, using a combination of sleep tracking, light measurements, and honestly just how I felt each morning. I measured actual light output at different times, tracked my melatonin production with saliva tests (yeah, I went deep), and logged my energy levels throughout the day.

After all this testing, I've got some clear winners and definite products to avoid. Let me break down what actually works and what's just marketing fluff, so you don't waste money like I did.

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