The content of the light therapy lamp which gathers high ratings of nearly 90% at Amazon is proved to be a mere bulb type fluorescent lamp

It has gained a high reputation such as collecting five stars of 73% at Amazon.com, and 89% of four or more starsLight Therapy Energy Lamp"The product is sold in a propaganda claim that it has a light therapy effect that will restore the physical condition that tends to collapse in a life without sunlight. The light surveyed on the light contained in this Light Therapy Energy Lamp reports the results. The surprising fact that "only a light bulb type fluorescent light is used" has been found out.

Measuring the Spectral Characteristics of a Light Therapy Lamp
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Canadian Justin Lam spent Christmas in Singapore. However, when I returned from Singapore, I felt sick since I lived in Vancouver because the temperature was 25 degrees lower than Singapore and the sunshine hours in winter were extremely short. Mr. Lam who thought that his physical condition had changed due to "climate shock" is a light Therapy Energy Lamp called "HappyLight Liberty" by Verilux, which gains popularity at Amazon, in order to spend comfortably the winter with little sunshine time. It is said that he bought a lamp).

Lam purchased a compact type light therapy lamp.


Lam who disassembled the lamp and removed the ultraviolet cut filter saw a strange feeling when he saw the inside bulb.


The reason is that Verilux 's full spectrum bulb (left) used in light therapy lamps was a general bulb - type fluorescent lamp (CFL bulb) and two. In addition, the replacement full spectrum valve of Verilux is $ 14.99 (about 1700 yen), and the standard CFL bulb is ten times the price difference of 1.5 dollars (about 170 yen).


The graph below shows the relationship between "Daylight", "Incandescent", "Fluorescent", "Halogen", "Cool Whilte LED (White LED)," "Warm White LED The spectra of the six light sources are shown. There are characteristics of peak wavelength and shape depending on the type of light source.


Fluorescent lamps emit light by discharging mercury vapor and hitting the phosphor.


So, Mr. Lam who was interested in the mechanism of light therapy lamps suddenly,Ocean Optics spectrometerI measured the spectrum of the light therapy lamp. What he wants to know is that "the light bulb of the light therapy lamp is a CFL light bulb?" And "the filter of the light therapy lamp has the optical characteristic of cutting light of UV wavelength?" about.

Measurement results are as follows. Orange is in the state where the bulb is exposed and blue is through the ultraviolet cut filter.


On the other hand, the graph of a light bulb type fluorescent lamp looks like this. At first glance, you can see that the spectra of light therapy lamp and CFL bulb are consistent.


More precisely, since the peak appears from 450 nm to 500 nm, it can be inferred that a neutral white CFL ball with a color temperature of 6500 K is used.


For question 1,A mere 6500K CFL bulb is used, and the price is priced ten times due to hype costsLam, who got the conclusion that he was convinced that the spectra were examined in detail with and without a filter for wavelengths around 400 nm, the boundary between ultraviolet and visible light.

The results are as follows. The mountains of orange 'filtered' and green 'no filter' are almost the same. Simply by placing a plastic filter, it looks just like the light is decaying.


To support the hypothesis, we calculated the irradiance by numerically converting the energy density of each wavelength of the spectrum, and found that the filter reduces the total luminance by 48% over the entire wavelength.


Looking at the UV region from 350 nm to 400 nm, we can see that ultraviolet rays have passed through the filter even with filters. Nonetheless, it is said that the UV cut effect of the light therapy lamp can be evaluated as "suppressing UV radiation" when comparing the television and computer screens.


So about the effect of the filter, "Although there is no special optical characteristic of cutting ultraviolet rays, it has been successful to reduce the amount of ultraviolet rays to a level that does not matter by reducing the light itself"Lam concludes.

Although Verilux's light therapy lamp which obtained a lot of evaluation "very effective and wonderful!" At Amazon, it turned out that it is a substitute "just passing the CFL bulb through a plastic filter". Mr. Lam says, "How to use this information is free, (light therapy owner) please light your way to relieve sadness."

Furthermore, similar products of light therapy lamp used by Mr. Lam are sold to Amazon.com. Below are items sold at Amazon.com at the time of writing at $ 79.95 (about 8900 yen).

Amazon.com: Verilux HappyLight Liberty 10,000 LUX Light Therapy Energy Lamp: Health & Personal Care


On Amazon.co.jp, the same item is surprisingly valued at 20,592 yen at the time of article creation.

Amazon | Verilux HappyLight Liberty 10, 000 LUX Light Therapy Energy Lamp by Verilux, Inc | Verilux | Drug Store Mail Order