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As we saw in our recent Innovation Culture Bulletin, natural light has substantial health and productivity benefits, and many devices are helping those in urban housing recreate sunlight. Following on from a sun-mimicking window, France-based Simar Design are utilizing natural scenes to help people relax indoors.

Simar creates LED panels that produce highly realistic landscape images, and can be easily mounted on walls or ceilings without drastic reconstruction work. The panels emit light in the range of natural sunlight, activating users’ circadian clock, which they depend on to stay healthy. Users can choose from different sceneries, and switch it up if they grow bored of their current view. The panels are modular (and can fit any wall size), have dimmers, work in the 60-120W range and come with a five year guarantee. As well as providing solutions to often dark modern living spaces, the light panels can also be used to relax people in stressful places, such as hospitals and offices.

As urban dwelling poses limitations on architecture to provide people with natural light, businesses are looking to artificial alternatives as a solution. Could malls, retail spaces or beauty salons use this device to improve customer experience?