Working from home under the electric sun

The more working outside the home became a thing of the past, the more we pimped our home office with office equipment. An extra computer screen, a nice office chair and a separate desk. The Eindhoven-based company Sparckel thinks that something is still missing in this list: good lighting. Because it is a lot darker indoors than outdoors, and because of that you would have less energy and your biological clock would get out of sync. The solution according to Sparckel? Special 'biodynamic' lamps that imitate the rhythm of natural daylight.

The lamp does this by following the clock and automatically changing colour and light intensity. The day begins with bright white light. Good for rubbing out the last of the sleep from the eyes without being immediately dazzled. In the course of the working day, the light becomes cooler and brighter, which should provide more energy and concentration. Then it becomes softer and yellower, turning into a warm orange light in the evening that keeps dimming until it dies out completely. Just like the sun if you were outside all day, is the idea. If you want to dance the night away, you can also choose a setting manually.

The Jolly James, the table model of Sparckel tested by the Gadget Desk, is indeed a lot brighter than an ordinary desk lamp. The LEDs in the lamp radiate a combined power of up to 7,500 lumens, of which 4,683 come through the lampshade. As a comparison: an average LED bulb is at most 800 to 1,000 lumens bright.

This considerable amount of extra light is pleasant, even when working on a screen. The lampshade makes the light diffuse, so it is never blinding. The light radiates downwards onto your desk as well as upwards. The idea is that it bounces through the room via the walls and ceilings.

Such an artificial sun does take up a lot of space. The table lamp rises a metre above its base and is therefore quite present. The foot itself has a diameter of 30 centimetres, which is a bit of a stretch on a smaller desk. Fortunately, it is a flat shelf on which you can put things if you want.

And then there's the price: the table lamp costs 2,116 euros. That makes it a very expensive upgrade for the home office. To sweeten the deal, leasing is also an option; this can be done from 37 euros a month.