Don't Be SAD, Have Electric Windows!

Winter in the UK is dreary - it's dull, it's dark, it's depressing, and part of the problem is the complete lack of direct sunlight for days or weeks at a time. Whether you're diagnosed with Seasonal Affective Disorder/seasonal depression or not, low light = low mood for a lot of people. In the absence of real direct sunlight indoors, I wondered if it was possible to make an Electric Window: a light that would replicate the golden glow of sun streaming in through a window to at least simulate the ✨VIBES✨ of a sunny day.

Obvious disclaimer: this is not medical advice, I do not promise Electric Windows will cure your seasonal depression, your mileage may vary.

You will need:

1. A phototherapy lamp - a mains-powered bright white LED panel. Mine was less than £30 from Amazon. A bright spotlight or lightbulb won't work for this: it has to be a very bright rectangle
2. A large Fresnel "page magnifier" lens. It doesn't have to be a crystal clear projection lens, a cheap magnifier from a stationery shop will be fine.
3. A raised flat surface with room to prop the first two items up - a shelf, chest of drawers etc. I just used a desk lamp and a pile of books to prototype mine.

At its core, this Instructable amounts to "use the lens to project the light on the wall". That's it.

Switch the light on, pointing in the direction you want the light projected. Hold the lens up a little further than its focal length away from the light (probably about 60cm/two feet) and you should see a rectangle of light projected on the wall. Tweak the distance and angle of the lens until your light projection has sharp edges without too much fuzziness or orange/blue fringing - this is where you'll need to prop up the lens.

Ideally, for the simplest setup the lamp and lens would both be parallel to the wall. If this isn't practical, the light might not focus evenly across the wall and your projected light will have fuzzy fringes - in this case it seems to be best if the lens is "splitting the difference" of the angle between the light and the wall. I found it's best to have the smooth side of the lens facing the wall with the ridged side facing the lamp, if I had it the other way there was a lot more colour fringing.

I found that having the "sunlight" projected on the wall is a nice thing to have in the background, but it's also perfectly possible to sit in the sunlight; if you're reading a book it will cast realistic sunny shadows across the page. As you can see the Electric Window is noticeably brighter than an actual window on an overcast winter day (this wasn't early dawn - that photo was taken at about 10am!)

The small footprint and portability means Electric Windows can be used anywhere you can set it up. I don't have a comparison shot with real daylight because this room has north facing windows; Electric Windows are also not beholden to petty concerns like compass directions either!