Living in a dark location can significantly impact your health, as lack of sunlight can contribute to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). To combat this issue, there are various products designed to help with the problem. However, creating a fake window in a basement or windowless room can provide a more natural light experience. This can be achieved by using LED plant grow lights on the wall, using specialist lighting, mirrors and gloss finish, layering artificial lighting, upgrading light bulbs, and brightening the walls with white paint.
The use of natural light in interior spaces, also known as “daylighting”, has numerous benefits, including increased productivity, comfort, mental and visual stimulation, and overall well-being. IKEA offers a LED panel called FLOALT, which can be used in a fake window, costing $129. To make the room feel more homier, you can add a faux window using LED lights and window hardware.
To create a window-like effect, you can use a slim LED light panel mounted in a simple frame. You can also create the window with 8K monitors and mount a camera array outside the building. Hide a face/eye tracking camera in the fake window for added privacy.
In conclusion, creating a fake window in a windowless room can provide a more natural light experience and enhance the overall aesthetic appeal of the space.
📹 Would These Fake Windows Fool You? | I Like To Make Stuff
#diy #ILikeToMakeStuff #homerenovation About I Like To Make Stuff: We have lots of projects including woodworking, …
How do you simulate daylight in a windowless room?
Light Supplier offers six ways to mimic natural light in a windowless room. Mirrors can be used strategically to reflect light back into the room, making it feel more spacious and uplifting. Layering lighting, choosing light and reflective paint colors, adding artificial skylights and windows, using light diffusers, choosing the right bulbs, and investing in high-quality lighting are also effective ways to create a natural light effect. By incorporating these strategies, you can create a more inviting and uplifting space in your spare bedroom, home office, or basement.
How to make a room with no windows light?
Mirrors are an excellent way to maximize available light and add depth to a space without windows. They can be used to simulate the look and effect of a window, giving the room an attractive focal point. In a sitting room or dining room, placing a large mirror above the fireplace or on a feature wall can give the room an attractive look. In a bathroom, the mirror is often a focal point, and a pair of wall lights looks perfect placed either side of the bathroom mirror for a flattering, even, and glare-free light.
In the bedroom, adding a large mirror above the bed can create a stylish feature and reflect the light from the main overhead pendant or chandelier. A table lamp by the dressing table mirror will provide useful task lighting while also creating a relaxing glow. A full-length mirror combined with a stylish floor lamp can open up any darker corners.
To maximize the sense of light and space in a windowless room, use doors that maximise the light from neighboring rooms, opt for a light colour scheme, choose clean, simple lines, incorporate light-emitting decoration, and use reflective surfaces like glossy walls, mirrored cupboards, and metallic frames and home accessories. These methods help create a bright and airy atmosphere in a room without windows.
How do you fake a window in a windowless room?
To create a fake window, choose the type of LEDs you want, such as Feit Electric’s LED Plant Grow Tube Lights or a plant light panel. These lights mimic natural light and are energy-efficient, with low heat emission. Mount the lights to the desired wall size and apply a window treatment to hide their presence. You can use a curtain rod with sheer curtains or a translucent shade, or hang an acrylic frame with a cornstarch matte finish to diffuse the light behind the window treatment.
Alternatively, you can create a fake window using mirrors, which reflect existing light and make a room look bigger. Designer Camila Pavone used one above a desk in a Manhattan apartment’s windowless home office. The options for creating a fake window are endless.
What is a false window?
Fake window panels are decorative or simulated windows that are not functional, providing an illusion of natural light. They are often used for aesthetic purposes, especially in situations where a real window is not practical. Prosky fake windows use artificial lighting to mimic natural light and create a window-like effect. They also offer a dimming and remote control option, allowing users to control the power of the window, making them attractive in bedrooms.
What kind of light bulb mimics sunlight?
Daylight bulbs are ideal for outdoor lighting or areas with dim rooms. There are four main types: LED, Daylight Tubes, Incandescent, and Energy Saving Daylight Bulbs. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a common issue in the UK, especially during winter months due to limited sunlight. Full-spectrum daylight tubes can help treat SAD symptoms by mimicking the quality and spectrum of natural daylight. Check out our range of full-spectrum and daylight tube lights for more options.
How do you make a window so you can see out but not in?
Reflective window film is a reflective window covering that reflects sunlight and other outdoor light, creating a mirror effect. It works during the day when the outdoors is brighter than the interior, but not at night when lights are on. This film is ideal for those who want daytime privacy without worrying about nighttime visibility. It significantly increases privacy and prevents people from seeing into your space.
During the day, you can see out but not in, allowing you to enjoy your beautiful views without darkening your rooms. However, it is important to note that reflective window films are only effective during daylight hours, so it is essential to have your lights on at night to avoid the reflective effect.
How to diffuse sunlight in a room?
To enhance a space’s natural light, consider using glossy tiles, splashbacks, and finishes in the kitchen and bathroom to reflect light and make it appear larger. In other rooms, add reflective furniture and accessories like metallic paint, glass tables, and mirrors. Naked windows can allow more natural light to fill and brighten the room. If blinds or curtains aren’t suitable, consider light filtering window treatments to maximize natural light sources. These strategies can help create a brighter and more spacious environment.
How do fake windows work?
Virtual windows, like Prosky Panels’ fake windows, offer a realistic experience with adjustable lighting options. These windows use LED backlights to create high-resolution images, resembling natural light. The lights can be controlled remotely for on/off and dimming, enhancing the immersive quality. Users can also access an immersive library using a remote app for iPhone. Commercial displays and consumer TVs have different durability, connectivity, and cost.
Commercial displays are designed for 24/7 operation, offering advanced integration options, while consumer TVs are designed for limited daily use and are more aesthetically focused. Ventilation needs also limit the durability of these devices.
What is a lazy window?
In American vernacular architecture, a witch window, also known as a Vermont window, is a double-hung sash window placed in the gable-end wall of a house and rotated approximately 1/8 of a turn (45 degrees) from the vertical, leaving it diagonal. This technique allows a builder to fit a full-sized window into the long, narrow wall space between two adjacent roof lines. Witch windows are found almost exclusively in or near the U. S. state of Vermont, generally in the central and northern parts of the state.
They are principally installed in farmhouses from the 19th century and can be found less frequently in new construction. The name “witch window” appears to come from a folk belief that witches cannot fly their broomsticks through the tilted windows, although it seems unlikely that the tale was taken seriously. The windows are also known as “coffin windows” but it is unclear if they were used for removing a coffin from the second floor or if the odd placement on the wall resembled a coffin. The windows are also known as “Vermont windows” for their distribution and “sideways” or “lazy windows” for their orientation.
What is a ghost window?
The colloquial terms “dummy windows,” “ghost windows,” and “windowed windowless actions” refer to Update Actions, which are windowless actions associated with the main object window. Unlike the creation of new records, Update Actions are used to update existing records.
How do Amsterdam windows work?
Window prostitution is a prevalent form of prostitution in the Netherlands and surrounding countries. The prostitute rents a window and workspace from a window operator for a specific period, often for a day or part of a day. The prostitute is independent and recruits her own customers, negotiating the price and services. This form originated in Amsterdam due to the ban on soliciting on the street or in doorways in the old red-light district.
As sexual morality became less strict, the curtains were opened further, and the process continued with fewer clothing pieces worn by the prostitute. Today, the curtains are only closed when the prostitute has a customer.
There are around 1, 270 windows used for prostitution in the Netherlands, with traditional neighborhoods in Amsterdam being the red-light district, Singel, and Ruysdaelkade. In Rotterdam, window prostitution has not been tolerated since the seventies. In The Hague, it occurs in Hunsestraat, Geleenstraat, and Doubletstraat. Alkmaar has a tolerance area for windows on Achterdam. In Arnhem, the Spijkerkwartier was the red-light district, but it was closed in 2006. In Utrecht, a special form of window prostitution from the 1960s involved women sitting behind the windows of houseboats moored along the Zandpad.
📹 How to make a fake window!
How to make a fake window that gives out a feeling of natural light from LEDs. Using a large picture frame, strip LEDs, some glue, …
This room isn’t officially listed as bedroom because it doesn’t have secondary egress. But, right outside that door, there are two egress windows where Josh and his son practice fire escape. Thank you for your concern, they’ve addressed this issue when they bought the house. We hope you enjoy the intent of the article, making the space better for his family.
I had some LED lights that I built for a project, and I had some left over. I wired them directly to a solar panel in dark area like the room your project is in. They would light up proportionate to how bright it was outside, similar to a window. Interestingly, in a thunderstorm they would even flash dimly from lightning strikes at night. They have been there for 15 plus years now.
DIY Perks did a similar project using backlight panels from broken LCD televisions. The advantage of that is the TV backlighting has a Fresnel lens that essentially aligns/focuses the light to shine straight out, resulting in shadows that don’t change with distance. This mimics the effect of a light source at an infinite distance – more like the sun.
I saw where a neighbor did the same thing but he used big flat screen televisions mounted in the wall and then hooked each window to a separate wide view camera mounted outside the same distance apart as the televisions. He set the television’s setting to as close to outside light as possible and then left them on all of the time. That way anybody inside the room could see what was going on outside all day and all night and as long as you did not get too close, like look down the side of the building close, it really gave the feeling of being a widow to the outside.
This is absolutely stunning! For years now I’ve been researching how to do a window like this. I saw it at IKEA, and I’ve been making calls and asking questions for several years now about how this was done. I thought about putting different types of lighting’s behind tempered glass, but the lights wasn’t evenly distributed. I don’t know how, after all these years of me searching, this popped up. I literally have tears in my eyes right now. Words can not express how I feel right now. All I can say is, “THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!”💝 NS
What a great idea! If you used sunlight-spectrum lights in them, you could put windows like these in an inside wall in a kitchen or family room as a way for people who have Seasonal Affective Disorder (they get really depressed in the wintertime because of the short winter days and not getting enough natural sunlight) could have a way to get enough sunlight in the wintertime that subtle and just looks like room decor. Could be a life saver for people who suffer from SAD.
A few years back, I was obsessed with renovation shows, and there was a British one I particularly liked. They almost always would end up extending the house down. They would end up putting the kitchen and living room on the basement, and part of the “convincing” the family was by showing the different ways they could bring natural light down. (I thought this was going to be something like that). And one of the things that blew my mind, was a “skylight” the you’ll install on the roof (or the backyard on that show), and it could brought natural light several floors down. (It was basically a very reflective tube). So the idea of putting lcd lights mimicking a window basically blew my mind.
I really love this idea. I’ll have to remember it when i’m in the situation again. I recommend taking a look at the esp8266/esp32 line, you can get some with relays so you could wire up all the swiches and main lines and have full wifi enabled control. With esphome its super easy to program one, and you could have timers, sunrise/sunset based things, etc.
You don’t technically need a Switch that does Both 110V Switching and 10V Dimming. You can separate the two. Use a Relay to controller the 110V Switching (On/Off), use a PWM, probably with a transistor to provide 0-10V Dimming. All controlled from an ESP, have it connected to your router/internet to get Sun Up/Down times and provide an automatic dimming window.
i did something very similar on a job, they had small windows in the basement they wanted to look like floor to ceiling windows so what they had me do was run a tape light around the sides and had like a silk curtain go down to the floor so when the shade was up the whole floor to ceiling glowed with light. its basically the same concept considering those whiteboard 2x4s are usually edge lit i believe
Thanks for sharing this very cool project. You mentioned that the light “temperature” setting is on the back of the light fixture and so I guess you need to set that before you install. So, what temperature did you use? Pretty important decision based on the natural light objective. The camera probably skewed the actual appearance, but they light in your install looked pretty blue on my screen.
This project turned out awesome. Electrician here. We’ve been installing that style dimmer in a ton of commercial application lately and they are a pain but also kinda handy. Traditional dimmers would displace a ton of heat and had a max of 600w load unless you got a special type. I don’t know if there is a limit to the number of fixtures you could dim using only one switch.
I have a friend that has a room with those old ugly fluorescent light panels on the ceiling like its a shop in a basement. This article gave me the idea to replace them with these so they don’t have the old ugly lights and it’ll look like a skylight and light up the area when the sun is on the other side of the house.
All of the negative comments on this article are cracking me up. He isn’t being forced to live down there, that’s his room and this is a vast improvement. I highly doubt there is just a spare bedroom lying around that he could be in instead, if he hated this room they wouldn’t have made this article. There’s absolutely nothing creepy about fake windows like this, daylight-colored lightbulbs are just fake sunlight – adding a window shape just makes it feel more natural.
Maybe there was a simpler way, separating the 110V line and the 0-11V line, rather than expensive part that does both, but it’s the final result that counts. I don’t like the way the color temperature is selected using mechanical switches. A remote control would have allowed great special effects, like an orange glow at dawn or a magenta glow at sunset, and party times! Well, these fake windows would sure not fool anyone here in France with French windows! 😄 I don’t have a cave, I evolved too quickly, but I have to build a bathroom with no access to natural light, so I was planning to install such a panel either as a fake window like you did, or preferably as an artificial skylight. I even saw people using, instead of a glass pane, a rigid sheet of plastic printed with a light blue sky, some clouds and tree branches on the perimeter. Must be a pain to replace it with a starry night sky painted sheet every night and back every morning… 😄 The only major concern for a bathroom would be absolute waterproofing of the window pane.
Yes there is more light in a once dark room and that’s certainly good. But how does this differ from just adding (perhaps big) lamps? It just seems like a lot of work to create windows that still aren’t really windows (can’t look out and see a view, or check the weather, or open it to get some air, or in a worst case scenario, exit if there’s a fire).
these pseudo windows really made a huge difference will you at some point let him out of the cave? build a staircase leading up to the ground level? the staircase would make a cool article too. and you could actually film him seeing the outside world for the first time. that would be a cool story. (I hope everyone can share my “dark” humor)
Those are great. For the “smart” implementation, I suggest some kind of Arduino-based trickery with a light sensor outside the house so you can “sync” the fake light with the real outside light. No need to program sunrise and sunset timings and the light would be much more realistic on a rainy day (for example). Post some updates! 🙂
It is against the law and a major fire safety hazard to have anyone, especially a minor, using a room without a point of egress as a bedroom. This is a fine project for a below grade office or den, but you can’t escape smoke or fire through an LED panel. A sleeping child is trapped in that room with no way for emergency personnel to reach them. Your article needs a disclaimer and your friend’s son should move into a safer room upstairs.
I hope you stripped the jacket from the wire you ran through the conduit, or replaced it with THHN. Jacketed wire is not allowed in conduit. The better option would have been to reroute the NMC. You’re also not allowed to have line voltage and low voltage wire in the same wiring space. You need a divided box or a line/low voltage box for that. The “latticy” part is called divided lights.
Just wanted to let you know that calcium sand (since that looks like that’s what you’re using) is a bad substrate for bearded dragons. Because of the calcium they are more likely to ingest it and get impacted. Also since your beardie looks like he’s getting too big for the tank, it would be cool to see you build an enclosure for him.
I feel like there is a way to control this via Arduino that monitors weather, like a smart mirror. So if the weather is cloudy, the light temp could change and sun up and sun down could change daily. I know you’re always looking for projects Bob. There you go. 🙂 seriously, nice job. The windows are excellent just how they are if you never get around to doing the Arduino part.
There is a business in town that has “fake windows”.. the business is a storage company. So there is no need for window. I watched them install some of the windows.. they are simply boxes that have glass and shaped like windows. After they were installed it made the building look as if they had windows. I think these “fake” windows could be made better with computer technology and programmed to display themes. Like Christmas, Halloween, Easter, ordinary days like summer…
I had these in a new york city apartment in the middle apartment with no windows It fools you and you forget. It really feels pike it is open because your brain is tuned to not be depressed and as long as you keep them on they fool you andnit is great. I had no windows and just four of these and it was amazing how it made you feel open and alive but you were in a freaking cell. Hahahhah
Why not just make something that is thinner and like a kind of framed picture (though it would be lit up by the use of a switch that is remote controlled and look like a window) that doesn’t have to be cut into the wall, just hammered or screwed into the wall over the finished wall? It would still look exactly like a lit up window but without all the muss and fuss. There have to be these things out there. I can’t be the only one who has ever thought of it. If so, get onto making it, people.
Nice, what a superb result. I wish you good luck to implement your dimming solution. Whatever it would be, I’m curious how you would make it follow the natural outside lighting. If I were to implement such thing, this would probably end up way too convoluted and with too much technology backing it. So I’m pretty much defaulting to think something controller (ESPHome) + automation layer (Home Assistant) + daylight sensor (ESPHome/Outdoor Hue motion sensor?), with the automation being to match inside brightness to something resemble the outside brightness triggered on a timed interval (fading between each step). Anyway, kudos for the nice article.
Back when I was a teenager in the 70’s, just for fun I designed an underground house and for the windows I drew in flat tv monitors to place behind widow openings to simulate a window view with cameras above ground facing in four directions for a live view of what that window would see if it was above ground. Also had a fan built into the frames to simulate an open window, sort of like the dyson fan’s with no visible moving parts. Keep in mind that this was in my head back in the mid 70’s. The technology for 90% of what I wanted to put in my home did not exist yet, I am still not quite there yet as the solutions to my early build come into existence I keep redesigning the house with even better technology yet to be created.
Had an idea for a while now to make a sky light window from a 1200×600 panel…. But then the idea got overhauled by thinking a flat TV mounted on the ceiling could then act as a sky light with clouds… But then…. The idea progressed to having an actual camera pointing straight up at the sky from your roof feeding to the TV so it’s actually real time weather and brightness etc. Never had time to start it yet but I definitely want to give it a go some point
Very similar to how I light my 1:12 scale room boxes, I build a little shadow box an inch or so behind the windows and put a color photo scene and LED strip inside, and what yu can see thru the window looks like a forest outside or something else, and daylight. That concept could be done with these windows using clear glass and a shadow box behind it with a color poster
This is so cool! I am in an apartment I love except for the living room has little sunlight. So, I have never worked with electrical components, the part I couldn’t grasp well is the connections to electricity. Could this be powered by a rechargeable battery? Grace please for my ignorance. Thank you!
So the conduit not having a bushing at ends is a Code violation 300.4(F), 358.30, along with 300.18 the coax : There must be a 11⁄4-in. clearance from the edge of a wood-framing member to any wire to keep drywall screws and long trim nails from puncturing the insulation and causing a short. Also 110.12(D) Unused Wiring. Unused electrical equipment abandoned in place, shall be tagged and identified at terminations and junction points as being a potential hazard. If required by the Authority Having Jurisdiction unused electrical equipment shall be removed from all accessible areas.
A very intriguing article! One of the things I noticed quickly, however, is that your son’s bearded dragon appears to be in an unsuitable habitat (much too small). For a future project, you should build the dragon an excellent, large (absolutely no less than 4’×2’×2′, larger if you can swing it) vivarium! For craftsmen such as yourselves, it should be a simple project that will greatly improve the animal’s quality of life!
It always amazes me that this passes for a wall in American houses. I’ve never lived in a wooded house, so the walls I know are load bearing concrete walls or concrete blocks with plaster. I now have this style of wall in the attic of the new house that I’ve bought and I look forward to finishing it up and replacing the (admittedly old and amateurishly built) wood/drywall with blocks. Then again my house is only 1300 ft so you can’t win everything. Cool window idea btw.
0-10v controls are dead simple. Very common in building automation. Don’t bother looking for DIY/home solution since all of those guys just try to sell you a service and proprietary equipment. In industrial or commercial controls your most common signals are 0-5v, 0-10v, 2-10vDC and 24vAC. There is just about every type of sensor or switch you could ever want. You could pick up a photo sensor that outputs a 0-10v signal and have the dimmer match the outside brightness with no programming. You could also set up an arduino to do the same if you want something fancier. Easy peasy.
I was looking for some way too put in skylight, considering I live on the ground floor of a building….this is my only option lol… And to match the style of the home…maybe add a leaded and or stained glass look? And also a gothic cathedral window in a windowless dark breakfast nook I’m putting in. I think I could build the shape of the window into the window framing and maybe try out some peel and stick leaded decals…which might look horrible or find a partial stained glass insert and put up a nice rod with drapes on either side with a sheer to give a bit more authenticity. Or maybe try my luck at an antique store or salvage place to find a really cool frame and work around the light box. I basically live in the dungeon of an old creepy castle and have next to no daylight…great for vampires, not so much for humans, pets and plants!! lol Ps I did find a product called ‘Lightbox’ that does this idea and you can choose from some rather cheesy commercial posters or upload your own but they are really expensive. I was thinking of taking some high quality pictures of the exterior of my building that would be my view…if I had a window! lol I think it might look pretty cool along with the plaster and faux fini stone block wall I’m doing around it. That may sound like a horrible Halloween decoration but trust me…. it will fit right in, in this creepy subterranean lair!! Thanks for the great ideas! I can’t wait to get going on this!!
Hey guys, really cool article and a good inspiration for my 3D printer room that can’t have any natural light, but you should check “Turning Smashed TVs into Realistic Artificial Daylight” article from DIY Perks. Using old monitors (only the LED and lenses) makes it look literally like natural light, and even behave like natural light. I will combine what I found in your article and the one in the DIY Perks article to make the ultimate “fake natural light window”.
OMG!!!!! Thank you and thank the weird and wacky algorithm that brought this to my attention. I have 2 slag glass ( kind of like stain glass) windows blocking the view out a window with a terrible view. I have for a long time thought being able to light them up from behind would be GREAT. A great ambient light. I have tried xmas lights… florescent and small LED spot lights. Nothing really works THESE look perfect
This is probably the most labor intensive and complicated way of doing this next to just installing flat screen TVs into the wall, which might actually make more sense depending what kind you get and where you get them from. Once they DRESS the windows (sheers, drapes, and valance) no one is going to see all of this. They could have just used LED tape and some glue.
I’m curious. Are the LED panels “full spectrum” not that it would be a huge problem in a bedroom, that you don’t spend the majority of your time in. But I have seen a bunch of studies on S.A.D.S. that link light frequencies to changes in mood. Knowing that most Lights are not full spectrum, and therefore miss out colour bands. I was just curious if you found LED panels that were?
I lived in a remodeled basement “bedroom” for a year at my parents house. It had very small windows that I could never fit through, and I’m petite. One day my doorknob fell apart and part of it actually fell inside the door (not sure how it happened- a complete freak accident). I was locked inside my bedroom and no one else was home. It was then that I realized remodeling a basement bedroom and not adding egress windows was absolutely stupid. You never know what can happen and if you care about your family you spend extra money or don’t use that space. I also had a small fire that I quickly put out when living there but luckily it didn’t happen on the same day. It really isn’t something to mess with.
I applaud you for doing this. As a teenager I had to live in the basement. My window was large but it faced north. This caused me endless depression, never a glimpse of sunlight in the room. But what I hated more than that was the fact that my dad had this house built, and he planned for a whole room for his toy train hobby, another room for a bar, but only three rooms for his four children. My oldest brother had the best room, upstairs, window facing the garden, but he left shortly after the house was built to study elsewhere, so his room was only used when he came to visit, meanwhile my sister and I had to share the basement room which wasn’t even declared a bedroom, and we fought tooth and nail to at least get a drywall divider so we could have a room each. I am surprised you even bought this house with no bedroom for your son. He might suffer similar depression from this. But at least you made the windows.
It’s so crazy to watch Americans do their DIY house projects all those walls just drywall and a few 2×2 or 2×4 haha no wonder on films they always go through the wall in such an easy manner. Come to Europe and try to do the same and you will be left with broken bones. Hehe, yeah but perusal those DIY is soo cool.
Jesus Christ is God incarnate who came to earth to be born and live a perfect life, a sinless life. (He is one person of the Trinity, consisting of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; one God in three persons not three Gods.) Jesus then gave Himself up to be crucified and died to pay for the sins of the whole world. My sin, your sin, the sins of everybody. 3 days later He was resurrected. He now offers salvation to all who will turn from their sin and trust Him to save them from eternity in hell. He paid our debts because we couldn’t, but we have to trust Him to do it. I cannot add anything to what He has done (not even baptism). I cannot do enough good to take even a year off of my death sentence in hell. The sentence is a never ending one, because I have sinned against an eternal God. But Jesus took my punishment, He saved me, and offers that same salvation to you. I am praying for you.
A great idea possible by the large LED panels. Typically all homes in Canada have basements and the lack of natural light, or light from only small windows constructed thigh through on the wall are the biggest distraction from enjoying the basements. Basements are often used as apartment rental spaces and the lack of windows is the biggest complaint by those live in them. There are negative psychological affects created by that cave feeling.
Random thought: Fake windows 2.1. i) Make it able to slide up (mimic a real window movement) ii) Install a led/lcd tv monitor behind that is connected to a camera on the first floor iii) The camera captures the view of the outside house and display it to the monitor iv) When the fake windows slide up, you have a view of the outside. Feels as if you are really on the first floor with a real window view to the outside. (ok i know not feasible. just a sudden random thought) 🙂
This is grand!!! You said it doesn’t work to go cheap, but why not use old TVs with the special textured plastic screen behind for distribution/deflection and led strip lights around the inner perimiter behind said plastic sheet? Surely then it’s only a matter of which led strip to get :s 😮 DIY perks seems to have done a great job with that 🙂 incidentally I’m planning on getting these sort of lights for the kitchen so I’ll think about doing this too, like a skylight
It’s cool, but would be more believable as real windows if they had those vinyl wall decals, like a wooded scene or something. I’d advise applying such a decal to a separate sheet of plastic so that it can be removed/swapped…. Maybe seasonal scenery or something. Plain white isn’t believable. But they do get the job done, no question about that.
Those would likely fool the eyes, but the mind would be quite disturbed by it. day or night, there`s always shadows and whatnot that play off of a window, they aren`t ever pure light or pure dark like these windows. People also naturally expect to see something outside when they glance at a window. But even the ones that are televisions and show you nature scenes, are disturbibg because image perspective and view shifts when you walk past a real window, but not a fake window. It might take a person some time, but eventually they`d figure out the windows are fake, even if they had curtains mostly covering them to make it look authentic. If it were me, I`d use the tv screen method, but with 3 tvs set back into the wall (samsung wall tv might work best for seamless tv to tv transition with no lines) and put some real plants and stuff in the foreground so no matter what is displayed, the image shifts when people walk by and it appears there is also stuff in the foreground making it look more real. I`d also have to have all of my tv windows set up to display parts of the same scenery so it looks like you`ve completely transported to somewhere else when you change the image. And even have a water feature so you could make it rain in the foreground (water the plants). Photospheres would probably work great for the 360 view. A setup like what I think would actually work, would probably cost tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars, but if someone could afford it and installed it in an underground area, it could be well worth it.
You totally gave me an idea for my garage which is where I have my model shop and will be working for the foreseeable future. It has no windows and something similar to this will brighten things up in there. Question: It gets hot in the summer and cold in the winter in there; do you know of anyway to insulate the car garage doors that won’t kill the motors because of weight?
There is a bedside lighted “alarm clock” on the market that wakes you up gradually by increasing the light in increments from simulated sunrise to full daylight. I wonder if some of the reverse engineers perusal this article could have a look at something like that to incorporate whatever electronics it has into a build like this.
My question is why not use an LCD to show an image of the outside and have some heavy duty lights to the side to make it bright? If you want parallaxing just get a curved screen. This will make it look more authentic and has the advantage of keeping your mind calm instead of the clearly fake windows you have now. The hole idea of fake windows is to give you piece of mind, and this type of window really only works if you are using it for a fake sky light window. Also, an advantage of using flashlights to light up the room is that you can always change their direction through the day to give the appearance of the sun moving and really sells it home if you line that up with the sun’s actual movements. The window already has the bars in it so it would block the flashlight and look like a real shadow from the sun. Combine this with multiple windows and a dark mode for night time and friends will be asking where those windows are on the outside of the house. You could program multiple environments to make you feel cool or like you’re in space on the enterprise, and you could use blue light blocking films to make it better for your eyes and warm like the sun. If you could actually do that then I would be really impressed and totally want to hang out in your man cave whenever you let me (because who doesn’t want to be on Star Trek in their own house or a friends house).
Flip back and forth between 9:18 and 9:20 ad you’ll see the reason why these don’t seem to feel like natural light at all. The color is white compared to the previous frame. Seriously. Flip back and forth and you’ll see a drastic different between when they are upstairs an din natural yellow light compared to the basement with white light. I recently took all my white led’s and replaced them with yellow light led’s. Make the switch. Join me with yellow light. Warm warm glow. I think it will do wonders to the trim, which is bright white and bleeds into the led panels… but with a yellow light, the trim will be visible and more clear where it’s edges are.
Since you embedded all the electronics behind the wall then installed trim so the window can’t be removed, how do you plan on replacing the components when they burn out — and they will. I’ve had at least 6 dimmer components burn out in installed lights like this. Why didn’t you put it behind an access panel near the floor or somewhere so you have access?