Our ability to control our environment—including the ability erase the difference between day and night—can result in serious health problems. Several companies offer light bulbs that can alter their glow to match the 24-hour cycle of natural light, so that our internal body clock can maintain a healthy sleep-wake routine. Ario aims to do those efforts one better by manufacturing not just a bulb but an entire lamp.
The Ario lamp is designed to mimic the sun by altering not just the color of light produced by its LED bulb, but also the direction of its light. You start your day with an invigorating bluish hue cast up and down, and that light gradually transforms to a relaxing, downcast amber by evening.
The lamp can be controlled via a mobile app over Wi-Fi, according to the company, but the Ario lamp is fully capable of functioning autonomously. It intelligently calculates the appropriate variations in light based on the lamp’s geographical location, the time of day, seasonal and local weather patterns, and your daily schedule. The lamp is rated to produce 2400 lumens and consume 30 watts of power at peak brightness.
Ario At night, the Ario lamp casts down a warm yellow light.
Ario is taking preorders for the Ario lamp an early-bird price of $199 as part of its Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign, and it expects to ship the lamp to backers sometime around the middle of next year.
Why this matters: The copious amounts of artificial light in which we bathe each day can wreak havoc with our circadian rhythm—our internal body clock, which has evolved to take cues from nature’s day-night light cycle. And the growing use of smartphones and tablets at night time is particularly harmful, as their screens tend to emit a blue light that tends to suppress production of the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin. While there is no real substitute to being out and about during the day and blocking blue light at night, products like the Ario lamp can definitely help.
“For thousands of years, humans have lived by the sun’s natural light-dark cycle. With the invention of artificial lights and modern electronics, our bodies no longer have proper cues of light color, intensity, and direction,” Ario co-founder and CEO Brian Hoskins said in a press release.