Imagine cities where the public lighting of its streets adapts to the circadian cycle of their habitants. It already exists and it is called CIRCADIONIC, luminaires that respect the vital rhythm of the inhabitants of the city, it is a Spanish inventionmanufactured in Galicia by Setga.
The circadian system must function properly to maintain good health. Light is the main synchroniser of the circadian system and so it is important that day is day and night is night, which implies making proper use of lighting both inside and outside of buildings, and respecting a minimum number of hours of darkness.
In general terms, normal indoor lighting levels during daylight hours, whilst sufficient to ensure visual performance, are markedly lower than those found in the natural environment. On the contrary, at night, both indoors and outdoors, artificial lighting levels are significantly higher than the natural lighting levels to which we are biologically accustomed.
Healthy lighting should seek to recover the day-night contrast, increasing the former and decreasing the latter.
Light received after daylight hours in significant quantities or with inadequate spectral composition can disrupt the circadian regulation system, with potential negative effects on human health.
The effects of light on human physiology depend on a large number of factors, including intensity, such as the soft and warm tones that encourage sleep, compared to the strong, cold, lights of a kitchen that allow for clear vision and focus when cooking. Consider the difference between the intimate atmosphere of a restaurant and the white lights of a dental clinic. What if all these nuances could also occur in city street lighting without having to change the lighting of the street lamps?
The same luminaire, offering different tones depending on the biorhythms of its inhabitants throughout the different hours of the day.
\This has been achieved by Galician lighting company Setga with CIRCADIONIC, a technology where 95% of added value is in Spain, to illuminate an ingenuity that allows it to adapt to the circadian rhythm of citizens.
An example of how Circadionic works would be its behaviour during autumn or winter afternoons, when it gets dark around 17:30 or 18:00 At that time, Circadionic will set the colour temperature at a cold level above 4200 Kelvin (white light) in order to stimulate commercial activity whilst, after 20:30, when citizens return home from work and melatonin secretion begins, the colour temperature will be reduced to warmer colour temperatures between 2700-2300 Kelvin.
Setga integrates Circadionic LED technology in all its new products and the technology has already been installed in several cities in Europe and Spain. The development of this system, in collaboration with Cree, is based on the mono-optical compaction of bio-dynamic white, the purpose of which being to adapt the colour temperature of the luminaires to the circadian rhythm of citizens, maintaining a CRI>of 80 and high energy efficiency, as well as photometry adapted to every need, improving the comfort and public health rates of the entire society through their transition to nightfall. As proof of this progress are the 2017 Nobel Prizes awarded to Americans Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash y Michael W. Young for their discoveries of the molecular mechanisms that control the circadian rhythm, which demonstrate the relationship between light and the development of certain diseases such as cancer.
Published in: DISEÑO Y CIUDAD – MAY 2019
https://www.revistaluminica.es/210CAMI297INO/LUMINICA35.pdf