sleep halo

light installation as sleep therapy… a joint sleep therapy project with Jason Li

this project started with a mutual interest in data visualization — how could we materialize the invisible, and what kind of experience could this create? How could we take this experience and design the human interaction and effect?

medium elliptical glass, by james turrell

The work of James Turrell has been a huge inspiration and precedent; the spatial depths and ambiance created by his light sculptures initially inspired the visual output of our project. How could we take a visual light form and add another dimension of interaction to create an immersive experience that could become help and evolve its user? Using this interest as a base, we came up with our research question:

How can we visualize the heart rate through color and movement to induce different sleep states?

Taking the user’s heart pulse as an input and translating this data into a visual output through LED strips would be the first step in our project. Essentially, this project would be a feedback loop where the user would be able to visualize their heart rates through an immersive and relaxing light sequence, and in turn slow and steady their heart rates progressively until they enter deeper sleep.

experimentation with the circuit playground which takes heart rate through light

Inversely, we decided that this project could also function as a natural light alarm, in which a “wake-up” light sequence would be able to naturally wake up the user as a pleasant start to the day. After research in NREM sleep stages and sleep inertia, we decided that our sleep sessions would target stages 1 + 2 of sleep and last approximately 30 minutes, while the wake up sessions would also last for 30 minutes to combat sleep inertia (grogginess in the morning).

For the visual product, we explored the psychology behind certain geometries and found the circular forms were thought as the most beautiful and comforting shapes to look at. We decided that the LED strips would be arranged as 6 oval rings that proportionally grew in size. This decision was also motivated by the goal to implement movement as a visual to engage the user; taking the user’s heart rate as the rhythm, the center ring would appear to ripple out as each consecutive ring would light up and in turn, simulate a sense of movement through space. To maximize this experience, we decided that these rings would be installed on the ceiling, directly in the line of sight for the user as they lie in bed.

prototype #1 experimented with scale + proximity of the user — from this experiment, we decided to downsize our final model to the largest ring being 3' tall and 2' wide.

prototype #2: smaller scale laser cut wood frames — this is the model we tested our initial light sequences and different diffusion materials. We found that the distance of material to the LEDs changed the ambiance of the diffusion significantly and from this experimentation, we decided to stack 4 layer of 3/16" A flute cardboard.

For our final ring set design, we altered our original color schematic from pink to orange to the final gradient of pink to purple. This was because after experimentation and testing with our final model, we found that the LEDs emit colors differently than on a monitor/screen. The light sequence that we decided on was one where the single ring rippled out from the center, but decided to go with the variation where the rings stay lit until the whole set cycles over because we thought the transitions were a lot smoother and more relaxing and engaging to look at.