Fiber Optics Bring the Sun Indoors

The HSL 3000, a hybrid lighting system developed by Sunlight Direct, carries the actual light of the sun indoors. The system’s 48-inch primary mirror concentrates light into a secondary mirror, which strips away the infrared and ultraviolet components, and directs the visible light into the receiver

“When you come in, in the morning and you’re tired, and you’ve got your coffee in your hand and you’re not quite awake, you like seeing the reddish glow… the same type of light as outside.” Dr. Duncan Earl, CEO of Sunlight Direct, explained the psychological appeal of his company’s hybrid lighting system to the Canadian Discovery-Channel’s host Jay Ingram. People are more comfortable “waking up with the sun” and as the light becomes white they work through the day. “And at the end of the day when there’s a reddish glow, you know it’s time to go home.”