Turning Smashed TVs into Realistic Artificial Daylight
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN points to it in threads on artificial sunlight, as a buildable and surprisingly convincing artificial window.
What it is
DIY Perks shows how to turn old or smashed TVs and monitors into realistic artificial window lights, using the backlight and Fresnel lens to simulate distant daylight.
Recommended by 3 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2019 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec deltasevennine · 2022-07 · on “Ask HN: Why are there so few artificial sunlight or artificial window products?”
[LINK] If you want one, you can build one following the video above. The result is quite stunning. I've never seen anything like it. [this video] The one above is an easier build that takes up less space.
Recommends jsilence · 2019-11 · on “Rooms can be as bright as the outdoors”
It is possible to recycle old LCD monitors into articficial windows that have a very real feel to them. The diffraction lenses for the backlight direct the light in a way that makes it appear sun like. Of course this is only about the direction and not about the spectrum, but it might be possible to find LED strips with a high CRI. Any feedback would be appreciated. DIY directions on YT: [this video]
Recommends reeddavid · 2020-01 · on “Ask HN: What are some interesting projects to reuse your old devices?”
Not a company, but sharing a personal project: I got a free broken 55" TV and turned it into a big daylight panel. I got a great explanation of why this works well (fresnel lens) from the DIY Perks channel on YouTube: Turning Smashed TVs into Realistic Artificial Daylight ( [this video] ). The main board had failed so the screen was black and the backlight cycled on and off. After disconnecting the main board, the backlight stayed on. I am using the existing LED lights, but may replace them with the excellent color quality LEDs recommended by DIY Perks.
Cites muti · 2019-11 · on “Rooms can be as bright as the outdoors”
I remember seeing a DIY video on how to make a light panel that simulates light coming from very far away using large Fresnel lenses from old TVs [this video]
Cites tootie · 2020-11 · on “Building an artificial sun that looks realistic [video]”
He has a video of that project as well. It's not as good as this version but can look very nice. [this video]
Cites DanBC · 2020-11 · on “Building an artificial sun that looks realistic [video]”
DIY Perks has previously shown how to do that, and it looked pretty good. Turning Smashed TVs into realistic daylight panels: [this video]
Cites rektide · 2022-11 · on “High CRI LED Lighting”
I really wish more led lighting was high CRI. We've suffered a huge degredation to our world vua this switch to efficiency & it's sad & unknown. Boo. These Yuji led folk notably appear in the DIY Perks videos on indoor sunlight! He uses a 500W watercooled setup & adapted parabolic satellite dish reflector in the second to make good parallel-rays sunlight. [this video] [LINK]
Cites yterdy · 2023-10 · on “Millions of smart meters will brick it when 2G and 3G turns off”
I disagree. The difficulty of replacing tech changes one's relationship to one's devices. Things that I see people throw away as "e-waste" are really, "Things someone couldn't be assed to repair or repurpose." For example, broken TVs could be repurposed as large light panels ( [this video] ), or their main boards could be hacked for fun and profit ( [LINK] ). When I see a broken TV, even one I don't own, that's where the pain comes from. Same with phones, laptops, etc. We throw away so mny perfectly good general-purpose computers, it's insane. When we run out of a necessary resource for their manufacture, will we just be scavenging them?