Another green initiative backfires?

[mmj_uk]

LED light can damage eyes, health authority warns

The French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES) have warned in a 400 page report that high intensity LED light bulbs can cause retinal cell damage, it mainly affects street/vehicle lights and bulbs of high intensity rather than household bulbs/devices but apparently the latter can affect sleep.

There is a recommendation for household bulbs though:

For domestic lighting, ANSES recommended buying "warm white" LED lighting, limiting exposure to LED sources with a high concentration of blue light, and avoiding LED screens before bedtime.

So thanks to the green movement and government do-gooders we now have more pollution on our roads from diesel cars and people walking around half blind. Talk about creating a better future.

 

[The_Abyss]

It is hardly breaking news, is it? Iphones, and I’m sure others, have had auto settings for ages to warm the colours in the evenings.

 

[Thecaferacer]

Anyone who has 4000k LEDs in their house other than a bathroom was mad anyway. It's like living in a laboratory.

LEDs in lighting is the least of our problems with so many people addicted to multiple screens. LEDs rock compared to filaments.

 

[Mason-]

To be fair I think something needs to be done about modern car led headlights they are ridiculous. Doesn’t help that there’s so many people with badly adjusted ones too.

 

[azazl187]

I don't think the idea is to look directly at them... Its like saying that looking at the sun hurts your eyes.

Are people really that stupid these days!?

 

[Yaayuh!]

Anyone who has 4000k LEDs in their house other than a bathroom was mad anyway. It's like living in a laboratory.

Literally have 4000K everywhere except bedroom lamps

4000K is a nice white-white, not a blue-white. Can't stand any cooler than about 4200K.

 

[Jumper118]

Breathing can damage health too. If you breathe for a really long time you die. They should put a health warning on air.

 

[chroniclard]

Sub par raging thread 3/10, would not read again.

 

[Puzzled]

Literally have 4000K everywhere except bedroom lamps

4000K is a nice white-white, not a blue-white. Can't stand any cooler than about 4200K.

Pfft still too white, nice soft 2700k bulbs is where it's at. Although they are quite hard to find cheap so 3000k is acceptable


Don't all really bright lights cause eye damage? Car LED headlights are ridiculous though so yeah happily ban them, get rid of the stupidly bright brake lights as well.

 

[adolf hamster]

Isnt this just confirmation that modern led headlights are too damn bright?

 

[Dis86]

Isnt this just confirmation that modern led headlights are too damn bright?

Pretty much!

 

[FortuitousFluke]

So you're saying I shouldn't have replaced all of my light fittings with ultra high brightness car headlights?

 

[Werewolf]

It's a shock, that looking into really bright lights may be bad.

I wish I'd known that before I bought that 5,000,000 candle power spot light to read with, and maybe the ww2 surplus searchlight was a bit OTT to light up the garden when the PIR went off but I was fed up of my 500 watt halogen not doing the job.

Having said that, I do understand what they're saying about some of the car lights, as they can be stupidly bright and if they hit you in the face due to bad alignment at night they can mess your sight up for a while, and that's having passed through (in my case) two sets of glass, so I can imagine that at closer range/prolonged exposure would be bad.

 

[Stretch]

Well that's conclusive. We should start building coal fired power plants, embrace a flat earth, stop getting our children vaccinated, erect several walls and make others pay for them and leave the European Union without any deals except those than involve Mr Putin riding a horse.

 

[Thecaferacer]

Literally have 4000K everywhere except bedroom lamps

4000K is a nice white-white, not a blue-white. Can't stand any cooler than about 4200K.

I had 8w 4000k in my old bathroom. It was like looking at the atomic tests everytime I switched the light on when I needed a slash at night.

 

[robfosters]

LED lamps set off my ocular migraines if I look directly at them too closely.

 

[neil_g]

more pollution on our roads from diesel cars

Funny, my euro6 diesel puts out less pollution than most of my old cars.

 

[Yaayuh!]

I had 8w 4000k in my old bathroom. It was like looking at the atomic tests everytime I switched the light on when I needed a slash at night.

8W is quite blinding. Mine are 3W 230~lm

 

[Orionaut]

It's a shock, that looking into really bright lights may be bad.

I dont think that is actually the problem.

Reading the various articles. I think The problem is a bit more subtle than that.

It is more like staring at an eclipse.

Normally our eyes are only exposed to high levels of blue light during daytime.

Daytime light is bright, so our pupils are small and the retina is protected from the damage cause by the blue end of the spectrum. even glancing at the Sun during daylight hurts because the amount of light in total overloads the eyes and causes pain.

At night however, and even under artificial light, the total amount of light is far less. so the pupils open wide. We have evolved on the "Assumption" that under low light levels, there is little blue spectrum present, so we do not need to protect from it.

Unfortunately LED's seem to be both nowhere near as bright as full daylight (So wide pupils) but nevertheless have a large quantity of blue spectrum energy which the wide pupils now admit to the retina to cause damage that would not occur when exposed to far brighter daylight.

Much like since the way that sice to total amount of light during an eclipse is low, so the pupils are wide and no pain reflex forces us to look away, the sliver of sunlight that you can see around the edge of the moon is still as intense as full sunlight and will burn a hole in your retina without causing any immediate discomfort.

 

[200sols]

Are people really that stupid these days!?

Generally, yes they are.