LED ‘virtual sky’ creates an office without borders
A ceiling that evokes the ‘spaciousness and freedom’ felt outdoors
For office workers longing to catch a glimpse of blue sky out the window, a “virtual sky” ceiling just might do the trick.
The LED light sky mimics passing clouds on a sunny day — for a price, according to a news release from German developer Fraunhofer IAO.
Fraunhofer hopes to sell the ceiling for use in conference rooms for about $1,316 per square metre. (A U.S. supplier sells standard ceiling tiles approximately the same size at about $100 for a box of 30.)
The company believes the price will go down as it sells more of the novel product, which evokes the “spaciousness and freedom” experienced by people outdoors.
But don’t worry about a loss of productivity, said Dr. Matthias Bues, head of department at the IAO, in the news release. Instead, the fluctuating light will “promote concentration and heighten alertness.”
While the virtual sky may sound like a magic trick from Harry Potter, it is made of multiple LED boards with 288 lights each. A diffuser film blurs out the individual lights and brightens the room consistently.
Blue, red, green and white LEDS are used to create the full light spec- trum and to simulate lighting conditions on a cloudy day. The 34square-metre prototype sky used 34,560 LED lights. The developers tested the product on 10 volunteers by having them work under the lights for three days. They varied the speed of the clouds — static, slow moving, fast paced — before letting the volunteers choose their preferred speed on the fourth day. Eight chose the rapidly changing.