alt Hacker NewsI hate outdoor LED lights so much, I won't be surprised if a couple decades or centuries from now we discover that these things have been doing permanent damage to people's eyes. It's getting harder and more unpleasant to walk at night, I can't see and my eyes legitimately hurt every couple of minutes.
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I miss the night looking like night, the ultra-harsh white LEDs used in street lights are trying to mimic daylight which is the last thing you want to do at night in my opinion. The old sodium lights might have had unnatural colour rendering (or in the case of low-pressure entirely monochromatic amber) but this was a small price to pay for warm outdoor lighting. There's no reason SOX and SON bulbs can't be approximated more efficiently with LEDs, we could have the economic benefits of LEDs without the horrible side-effects of cheap and nasty ones.
I'm not sure where a previously sensible industry decided ultra-harsh daylight bulbs were warranted literally everywhere, in the past harsh white halide bulbs coexisted with sodium ones for decades and there was always guidance on when to use gentle sodium versus harsh halide lights. Apparently everything needs to be as harsh as possible these days, damn the institutional knowledge. I'm not anti-LED but I'm anti-'lots of blue spectral content at night' regardless of the source.
Does this trigger you: Modern car LED headlights
There doesn't appear to be any standard being followed (anymore?) on brightness or angle or height (or shape). A selection of them are easy to confuse with high beams. Makes driving at night in the rain some kind of epilepsy inducing overwhelm of lights and reflections and lens flare coming from everywhere, reminiscent of the cyberpunk aesthetic.