Lee.org

As part of a large, funded research project, I’m looking for locations where people spend large amounts of time under flickering lights. If you know of such locations, please reach out to me! Please don’t reach out to the owners of the lighting yet, that would be the job of the lead researchers.

You can verify the lighting flickers by setting your phone to record on super-slow mode and record a short video. If the resulting video flickers like this, or this you’re on the right track!

The best locations for this research project have ballast-bypass lighting, where the old fluorescent ballast was removed and replaced with LED-based tubes. But any area where people spend lots of time under flickering lighting is worth mentioning!

Great locations would be:
– locations or organizations where tens to thousands of people use lighting that flickers
– anywhere in the US
– K-12 school classrooms
– offices
– academic testing centers
– industrial work spaces

Finding these locations could make a big difference and we need your help!

To recap: If you know of places where people spend large amounts of time under flickering lighting, please email me at Lee@Lee.org.

Please forward this to anyone you think should get it.
Best regards,
Lee Sonko
lee.org/flicker
#FlickeringLightProject

I’m thrilled about the impact I’ve had on the latest Memorandum to address the issue of lighting flicker.

I submitted several comments for BSR/IES TM-39, “Technical Memorandum: Quantification and Specification of Flicker” during the official Public Review period. The IES (Illuminating Engineering Society) Vision Science Committee reviewed my comments with care and integrated many of them into the document! I’m looking forward to the document helping to increase awareness of problems with flickering lighting and helping to push us toward solutions!

(previously)

I spent several hours pouring over a new technical memorandum (“BSR/IES TM-39”) about lighting flicker and commenting on it! I’m excited that the flicker “needle” is slowly moving toward creating a world that doesn’t surprise me at every turn with nausea-inducing strobe lights!

It’s very gratifying to see that Naomi Miller and other scientists have been using my experiences and images to move things forward!

This poster (via) created by the PNNL uses a quote from me and an image I created! That’s my phantom arrayed car in our driveway!

Summary:
– Show your friends, especially the ones that don’t totally believe in your LED flickering woes, this well produced primer to LED flicker that was on NPR’s Short Wave podcast last month!
– The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is working on a document to help lighting manufacturers make LED lighting that won’t drive us crazy… and you can help make it great!
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Hi, it’s Lee,

You’re receiving this because you and I have chatted about the increasing problem of flickering lights in the world. Most of you are directly bothered by flicker in automotive, residential, and commercial settings. Some have just told me that you’re an ally. Some of you I haven’t spoken to in years, others we’ve chatted in the past few weeks.

I think most of you will agree that with the increased adoption of LED lighting and its obvious benefits, there has also been a huge increase in the problem of flicker. For myself, I’ve noticed how just a few years ago, bothersome flickering running lights used to be only seen on a few automobile models (oh Cadillac, I’m talking about you!) now, more than a third of new cars I see on the road have crazy-disco-strobe running lights and horridly distracting daytime running lights!

That happily brings me to the reason I’m messaging you! Two weeks ago, the lighting scientist I’m allied with, Naomi Miller was a guest on NPR’s science podcast, Short Wave. Read and listen here: It’s Not Just You: Christmas Lights Look Different Now, And Can Give You Headaches. She and the hosts talk in very practical terms about flicker and some things people can do to fight back. You can feel good about forwarding this article to that friend of yours that doesn’t believe you!

Naomi talks about it briefly in the article: her group at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is working with the Illuminating Engineering Society to write a document that will hopefully become a standard to tell manufacturers what makes a good or bad lighting waveform, and how they can build those bulbs. Naomi has given me a snippet of those preliminary guidelines that, quite literally, needs some eyes on it!

(Don’t worry if you can’t decipher it completely!)

It’s possible the flicker guideline they’re creating will protect most people, but then again, maybe not! That’s why it’s a preliminary document! Will it protect YOU? Would you like to help figure it out? There’s some work to be done, and having flicker-sensitive eyes on the project will help a lot! If you want to be involved, please reply!

I’ll send another update in a month or two to keep you updated about the wonderful world of flicker.

Best regards and Happy New Year,
Lee Sonko
lee.org/flicker

Can I borrow your digital camera with manual controls?

I’m trying to capture something called the phantom array effect using a still camera. This is how some LED lights flicker, making what looks like a series of dots across your vision. I’m working with scientists and regulators to decrease this growing problem in the lighting world. I’m trying to make a compelling demonstration photo but my smartphone won’t do it! Are you bothered by flicker as well? I’d love to hear from you! More.

I’m continuing to make progress on my Flickering Light Project! In brief, lots of new LED lighting flickers and I’m one of the 5-10% of people that thinks they look like horrid strobe lights.

I went to Portland last week to work with a US Department of Energy researcher and her team that are developing new lighting standards designed to eliminate visible flicker in lighting. The industry wants a good standard and we aim to provide it!

Now I might start working with some academic researchers as well to investigate how some eyes see differently than others!

This is very exciting stuff!

Read more about what I’m talking about here. If you’re bothered by flickering lights, drop me a line. We can do more together than apart!

If you are bothered by flickering lights and can get to Portland, Oregon in the next month or so, please join this research experiment! If you know someone that is bothered by flickering lights, tell them about this research project!

This is important research that will help science understand more about the light flicker some people see in car tail lights, building lighting, LED string lights, and other places. The research will help characterize people’s response to it, which will ultimately solve this modern scourge!

The experiment is happening in-person, in Portland, Oregon, in mid-January to mid-February (please disregard what the flyer says for timing, email for actual dates!).

PNNL Lighting Lab Flicker Experiment Recruitment Poster

What the heck am I talking about? Look at my Flickering Light Project website.

If you’re interested but can’t attend, I’d still love to hear from you in the comments below! This coalition to improve lighting is slowly gaining momentum and every voice is important!

Just two years ago I wrote how LED light bulbs vs CFL light bulbs were exciting but still “a wash”. My how tech changes. Over the last couple months, I’ve been replacing my 23 watt CFLs with 9.5 watt LEDs and getting the same lumens! My LED bulbs look terrific, last forever, and will pay for themselves in less than two years. If they were replacing incandescent bulbs, they’d pay for themselves in twDONE!

I’m using Feit Electric Conserv-Energy 60 watt replacement dimmable bulbs. Feit item# 144799. Available at my Costco for $10.50 for 3.

They don’t flicker. I’ve put them on my new Lutron Maestro dimmers and they dim very nicely down to a very low level (but I also had to put a regular 40 watt incandescent in with them lest the dimming circuit doesn’t work correctly).

I haven’t been able to use them in a torchiere lamp with a built-in dimmer. If the light is set to dim and some appliance in the house turns on, the light turns off for a split second :-( The incandescent bulb only flutters a little and is much more tolerable.

Here’s something you won’t be able to unsee: The next time you are driving at night behind a car, flit your eyes left and right. The brake lights of the car in front of you might cast long streaks of flickering on your retinas. Many of the new LED lights are more like strobe lights, flicker in an insanely distracting way… on the highway and in people’s homes.

LED string lights are the worst. In shopping centers and restaurants and on Christmas trees. Just move your eyes around a little and ZOWIE, you’re in a disco with streaks of strobe lights all around you! I’ve heard that it actually causes epileptic seizures in a small percentage of people. For me, it just makes me hate you and your incessant strobe lights in my face. I’ll admit that the effect isn’t too bad as long as I keep my head and eyes perfectly still. :-(

Can’t tell if your light is flickering? Try this: close one eye and wiggle your finger in front of the bulb. You’ll see the strobe effect very clearly.

“Oh Lee, you’re exaggerating / crazy / over-sensitive!”

Actually, I’m not. Try googling “LED flicker“. Let me point out to some sources

Here’s an IEEE workgroup formed to work on the problem of high-brightness flickering LED bulbs and their 2010 work-in-progress document whose purpose is “…to describe health implications of flicker”

This article in LEDs Magazine promotes good techniques for manufacturers to use in making good LED lighting because “…people are beginning to pay more attention to long-term exposure under higher-frequency flicker in the 70—160-Hz range. Such flicker can cause malaise, headaches, and visual impairment.”
(LEDs Magazine April/May 2014, Proper driver design eliminates LED light strobe flicker)

Here’s a guy on Youtube that tests LED bulbs on his own time. One of his tests is to check whether bulbs flicker. Some of the big brands flicker, some of the no-name brands don’t. Ugh, there are no standards.

Here’s a snippet from a US Department of Energy publication “Low-frequency flicker can induce seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy, and the flicker in magnetically-ballasted fluorescent lamps used for office lighting has been linked to headaches, fatigue, blurred vision, eyestrain, and reduced visual task performance for certain populations. Flicker can also produce hazardous phantom array effects–which may lead to distraction when driving at night, for example–or stroboscopic effects, which may result in the apparent slowing or stopping of moving machinery in an industrial setting.”

etc etc etc…