No Stupid Questions

I have a suspicion there's an element of marketing over time involved. Companies in the olden days would advertise brighter, harsher light as 'really seeing.' It sucks because this idea has made vehicle headlights into glare producing crap.

It's not terrible lighting. It's lighting that suits us instead of you.

Older people or just people? What is older to you, 35, 40?

Im 54 and dont have any shitty lighting like you show in your picture. Maybe go touch grass before exclaiming things about "old" people.

Almost like as you get older, your low light vision worsens dramatically.

all of these answers are fine. but they are all wrong.

older people have been buying lightbulbs for many years and all they had to know was the brightness that they wanted. now that led has fully arrived, there are color temp questions to be answered that were not asked before. older people do not know the answer to this question and just buy for brightness.

also, my mom swears that she likes and can see better with ugly ass 6000k lights everywhere and i feel like im at the grocery store when i go to my parents’ house.

possibly night vision capability. my wife like warm light except if she is doing something very detailed (like what you would use in a studio). I prefer brighter light. I have horrible night vision and hers is fine. I dunno but just a theory based on my very particular experience.

As one ages, their eyesight gets worse. Lots of light helps. In the warm light I wouldn't be able to read anything, knit, do crosswords or a whole number of activities. I'd still need to sit on the end of the sofa with the lamp in the cool light one to do much. The real annoyance? I still have 20/20 vision but I feel that I can't see half of what I could when I was younger.

I see younger people doing the same.

It's not an age thing necessarily.

I'd also argue someone older is more likely to have better lighting due to:

Experience

Time to learn

Exposure

Available time

Money

Well, you've got some iffy assumptions in place, but that's whatever.

When it comes to lighting, in home, you're limited by the home itself unless you have the ability/finances to change things at a useful scale.

So, older homes tend to have older lighting installations. Back in the day, the big thing was fluorescent lighting. Some compact, some the full on tubes and rings. A lot of old folks now are just sticking with what was the dominant technology at the time they had the ability to pick how they lit their homes, or bought them.

Since vision does weaken over a lifetime, more intense lighting is helpful.

Here's the thing though. Back in the day, I always wondered why so many old folks had such dim and poorly spread lighting. It was the same reason. Their homes were structured around incandescent bulbs and lamps. So there was little choice in spectrum, and your light sources weren't going to fill the space well.

Right now, LED lighting and better spreads are the norm for new installs and remodeling. And folks are more willing to shell out for expensive bulbs that allow for changing the spectrum, so you'll run into that as the default for old folks here in maybe twenty years.

My house is old as fuck. Built back before anyone currently alive had been born yet. Then partially rebuilt in the seventies, with a partial remodel in the late nineties.

You can tell by walking through the house what lighting was popular at the times involved because the oldest parts have a single fixture in the center of the ceiling, and fuck you if you want a better layout lol. The seventies era bits have some retrofit fluorescent fixtures that are essentially just a different spectrum with similar placements.

But the nineties era parts are better lit, with fixtures placed to give an even light with less/no harsh spots.

Now, I've replaced the incandescent bulbs with LEDs, and they had been compact fluorescent bulbs before that. But there's no way in hell I would spend the amount of money it would take to light the house better on lighting. There's other shit way higher in priority when I can just screw in a higher power bulb and see okay. And, once "old" turns into old, as in stuck on social security/pension fixed income old, remodels tend not to be a useful outlay for lighting. You'd be going after bathroom and kitchen accessibility fixes instead.

I had to replace the fixture in the kitchen maybe two years ago, the old one having aged into decrepitude beyond the ability to cut on. I barely got the job done. So, fixed income and unable to do the work one's self means shit just stays as it is. I would have loved to put in better fixtures, better quality lighting, but all I could manage was a new thing to screw a bulb into. And I'm only "old", not old. Middle aged still, but with limitations akin to that of proper senior citizens.

For real, if this house had been updated twenty years ago, we'd have likely been plopping in big fluorescents overhead too, like was the default at that time.

Kitchen/utility/work spaces -> bright cool light

Living room/relaxation spaces -> warm light

Mixed use -> bright cool ceiling light with standing warm light lamps.

Generally speaking...

I've noticed as I age that I can't read things in low light anymore. For reading small print or seeing small details I need rhe equivalent of indoor daylight. At night, in a room lit with a single light fixture, that means more light.

But warm light, that harsh blue shit can fuck right off.

Left is better for night time, right is better for daytime. Aggressive overhead lighting is the devil though, you're right there.

For your consideration: Warm orange

Because it lets us see better.

Warm white is always better in a home situation.

It's easier to read and eat in a bright room and LEDs make it cheap and easy. Older homes were designed for incandescent so the way 7W LED bulbs light up a room compared to a 40~100 W incandescent is way different, though the color temperature is pretty good now, if you select well.

THANK YOU. Always think this! Shadows are not a bad thing, it's okay to have darker corners! It's not only the brightness either. For everyone saying "we need it brighter", I have both neighbors and elderly family who use single fluorescent lights to putter around their homes. They have VERY dark homes, just one giant harsh spotlight that shows their one area and then surrounded by dark all around their house.

We have several lamps and warm lights scattered through the house, it's very bright but also never feels like you're in an office or a garage. A simple warm light in the corner can make it feel brighter without needing hundreds of lumens from directly above.

You think you want daylight. You don't. You want warm more natural lighting.

I like bright, cool white for the kitchen, bathrooms, closets, and garage. I like warm lights everywhere else.

Since I was a kid, I don't like sitting in the dark, I've always watched TV with the lights on, for instance.

You do you, I won't judge.

I have smart lights so I can adjust them to my mood.

They’re usually green and purple even though there’s no such thing as purple light.

I only want that cool day light for putting on makeup purposes. Otherwise it can fuck right off🤣