Thrift stores almost always have desk or standing lamps. Combined with cheap, warm colored low wattage LED bulbs (25w equivalent or lower), they add wonderful ambiance without breaking the bank.
this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2025
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I went this route, and I can concur it makes great lighting in my office.
These too.
Bingo! Came here to say thrift store lamps as well.
Here's one I got for $4 and restored one evening last week.
Yo OP! Took this just for you because I LOVE warm, ambient light. The Tiffany lamps are thrift stores finds, I think $10 and $15? Lamp on the left is also from a thrift. The alien egg I bought off a guy on /r/LV426. Handmade, $150 I think. It's about my only original art I didn't create myself. (Made the stand out of scraps though!)
I am a sucker for indirect, coloured washes aiming at the ceiling
You didn't specify a context, did you?
I mean, this is "ambient lighting" amrite?
Four lamps in different parts of the room, all with smart bulbs.
They're tied together into a single dimmer/color/temp selector in HomeAssistant.
For ambiance, they're usually running at like 35-40%.
Same here. I love the soft diffused shadows from multiple light sources and that they can be set low and yet the entire room is illuminated.
I got room for like one lamp on my nightstand at best. I'll look into it though, I just have to make sure that whatever I get can be controlled from one Foss interface, no proprietary garbage
Good luck. I've had issues finding non-cloud smart bulbs/plugs. These came from Ali with Tasmota pre-installed. Haven't looked for a couple of years, so hopefully the non-cloud options are easier to source these days.
I think Hue or ones that use Zigbee are viable. [email protected] may be able to offer some suggestions.
A lot of the Chinese smart bulbs can be controlled through Home Assistant. The ones that are almost universally unsupported are the Feit Electric brand.
Good to know. I just went with the Tasmota ones because I'm familiar with the firmware and can upgrade it independently from the manufacturer. Plus, it takes a month to get a shipment from Ali, so I didn't want to play any guessing games; I knew Tasmota worked.
IKEA bulbs are cheap and work nice with my HA and ZigBee USB stick. Quality of light is good though obviously Hue is better for x4 the money.
what abiut controlling them from your phone? the price of hue kinda put me off lol
Home assistant has a mobile app that integrates with the (normally) Google home quick tile and lock screen shortcut, so it's pretty much just like using Google home.
I learned about torchiere style lamps a few years ago and I really like them. You've seen them before. They're usually floor lamps and they point upwards to bounce the light off the ceiling. Unless you have a dark ceiling, they do a great job of spreading the light around the room without being too bright.
Smart bulbs are, of course, more customizable, but recently I've gone back to analog lights I can just turn on and off.
Lamps? Or am I missing something?
I mostly use custom built RGB lamps running WLED which are controlled by Home Assistant and the Adaptive Lighting integration which adjusts the brightness throughout the day based on the position of the sun. I do have a couple Govee lights that are controlled in the same manor as well.
Same here, but didn't know about that integration, have home assistant rules controlling the lights based on sun status, bedtime for the kids and presence. Also a few lamps with hue bulbs. Expensive as hell, but offer the most stable zigbee network.
I find IKEA's ZigBee bulbs to be rock solid as well and they're significantly cheaper. And another +1 for Home Assistant with Adaptive Lighting here.
The problem I have with the Trådfri from IKEA is that they can't do Cyan, it looks just white. I have 2 of them for places that I don't use cyan.
Adaptive Lighting is pretty nice. You can set it to adjust the brightness and/or light temperature throughout the day and even setup a "nightlight" setting for overnight.
We use desk and reading lamps, most being 24w LED a few 12. We don't use much ambient light... beside the sun, coming by the windows ;)
My partner uses about 10 lamps at any given time, and the room must be a black hole because I still can't see shit
Aquarium and monitors.
If you're rich, you can buy those ikea fake windows that are actually lights. They aren't made by ikea or sold by IKEA, and they're hundreds of dollars each.
lamps at the thrift store are 10 bucks max. and you can mix and match lampshades
I like my lava lamp.
I like floor lamps. They can be pointed at the floor/ceiling for ambient light, or pointed at what you're working on/reading. They don't take up desk space, or fall over as easily.
Flashlight pointed at the ceiling, mostly. Which one varies, but lately it's often ~2600K and very high CRI.
I bought two sets of Govee Glide wall lights for my Office and I can't imagine how I would improve on them beyond just doing more to make them look 'built in'. It's a bit of a step up from an LED light strip.
On the off chance that you have a drop ceiling or some other means of doing some light wiring, I recently installed these and the feature makes for a lovely ambience. https://a.co/d/cBrNSwU
If linky no worky, search Amico 6 Pack Black 4 Inch 5CCT LED Recessed Ceiling Light with Night Light
Bonus feature: it comes with The Big Light^tm^ too. Install is 3/10 for simplicity.
Red LED tape on the underside of my desk, dresser, and shelves. Keeps a nice dull red glow in my room, just enough to see around, but low enough that I can sleep through it. Smart plug for scheduling.
There's a lava lamp on a smart plug that turns itself on ~1hr before I go to bed (so it's movin and groovin by the time I'm in there). It'll also turn off after 8hrs regardless of whether it was turned on manually/automatically. Saftey/longevity of the lamp.
Finally a regular bedside lamp, with a dimmable smart bulb.
The smart controls let me set schedules so the desired lights come on as I'm going to bed or with my morning alarm, and making sure that they're off when I leave for work. Plus I can turn them on/off or set brightness from my phone without getting up from bed.
oh god red would make me feel like I was in a horror movie
lava lamp might be a decent idea tho
Red is seriously relaxing once you get used to it. Look at a dark room for photo development, relaxing and soothing as fuck, the lighting is
Dark paradise
Also helps for night sight, doesn't wake you up if you need to get up at night (bathroom, kids rooms, even kitchen).
I wouldn't keep it on tho, its still light and less is more at night
Oh, definitely not, it's motion activated (in a way that movement in the bed doesn't do it).
A vampire's bedroom.
They know where its at. I would say yes to getting to sleep in a well-upholstered coffin every time
Can always go with RGB and pick colours on demand. I just like the color red. Blue light wakes/keeps me up.
I have RGBW tape on the underside of my kitchen cabinets, inside some nice tracks to keep them out of direct line of sight. White during the day for counter top lighting; red at night for nightlighting that doesn't wake you up when you go for a late night snack. And random disco colours for parties, just because...
My lights have a dimmer, I just turn that shit down when it gets dark out.
I have Wiz bulbs. More expensive than just regular bulbs, but like half the price of Hues (at least, they were when I got them a few years ago).
Open curtains to let in as much natural sunlight as possible. If that's not enough, main overhead light with a super-bright 14W 2700K bulb. I want it bright, and I want it bright everywhere.
Hisses The light! It burns!!!
Listen to my flesh sizzle while my retinas recoil in agony
Did the led strip die, or did the power supply just crap out? It's a pretty simple fix if it's just the power supply that failed.
I have several lights I use in my room. I have a led strip behind my tv, one led bulb that stays on pretty much 24/7 in the corner, and two overhead "main" lights for when I need to really light things up.
the strip has been on its way out for a while, parts of it are the wrong color and I broke the remote so I'd like to replace it anyways
A single light in the ceiling, controlled by a wired switch next to the door.
When I want light, I want a lot of it; when I want dark, I want complete darkness.
see I like haveing just a little light like 90% of the time. I can read and write I'm it, just not well, but its dim enough that Iit doesn't interfer with my monitor
I get eye aches pretty quickly without enough light. I find I need light behind and around my monitor otherwise I get soreness.
Ya, dont do big overhead lights, get
a lamp or three color smart Hue bulbs + hub
start playing around with colors and get an app that lets you take a photo and change the lights to the palette from the images, this is a good way to learn how to manipulate color and ligting
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