Comment by function_seven | Hacker News Reader

Comment by function_seven | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> LED streetlights put out more more lumens per watt, but the quality is terrible. My brother's neighborhood has been LED-ified, and now has a terrible night experience.

They did this to my street about a year or two ago. It was (and still is) horrible.

I take my dog on a walk every night. Suddenly, on one of these trips, I walked out my front door and into a horrible blue-white neighborhood. It looked like a car dealership out there. Not only too bright, but also blinding because they didn't put any kind of shroud over the bulbs.

I'm acclimated to it now, but I really wish they had done some better design on these retrofits. I may not get the comforting sodium yellow back, but there's no reason to crank them up and spread the light into pedestrians' and drivers' eyes.

> I take my dog on a walk every night. Suddenly, on one of these trips, I walked out my front door and into a horrible blue-white neighborhood

That reminds me... Almost 2 years ago I responded to HN user jacobolus' comment on bad LED lights, which also included his strategy for dealing with LED streetlights while walking his dog:

"[...] After San Francisco installed some awful LED lamps on my street, I’ve taken to wearing orange safety glasses when I walk my dog, and if I had to drive with any regularity I would consider wearing orange glasses to drive at night. [...]" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14170344

I got some orange safety glasses, but they cut out too much light to be safe while driving (easy to miss pedestrians). I eventually found some yellow glasses that cut out enough blue to eliminate the shock of sudden exposure.

Orange safety classes (mine are called "computer glasses" but I suspect they are basically the same--they filter out blue light) can also help to prevent eye strain from extended computer screen time, and in my case at least, ocular migrations.

I use flux to do the same. I cut the color temp to 5800K during the day, which is just enough to cut out those blues that cause headaches, and I go all the way to 1850K at night.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com