When I apartment search, I spend a lot of effort trying to understand how light will hit the windows at night, in the morning, what sort of sound will be around, etc.
In the perfect setting, there is darkness outside at night and lots of natural light in the morning. I had that experience at summer camp, where there were no street lights and everyone had to be quiet by a certain time. The mountain air was refreshing and I would be up with the sunrise naturally.
Living in San Francisco, I now know that this utopia is reserved for vacations. In the city, the biggest problem with opening up the blinds is the street light at night. Or the fog gets in the way or I have to get up before the sun rises or the sun doesn't hit my window perfectly during winter months, etc. I set up all these gadgets for all the times I can't get light in the morning naturally, which seems to be 90+% of my life.
I would be much happier to live like I did as an 18 year old at summer camp. I would also be happier if I did yoga everyday, ate organically, exercised everyday, read more than I watched TV, etc. In the meantime...
I keep imagining a nighttime bedroom temperature control based on a PID and a servo attached to my window-- would probably be too loud (esp with the required torque) to work while I'm sleeping, but a guy can dream, right? Maybe with some louvers...
it turns out there is a whole market segment for motorized blinds-- but all quite pricey and mostly focused on industrial applications.
How much would people pay for a low-cost kit to work with existing blinds? Will add these to my consumer products idea list the next time I meet with my product-development/manufacturing friends...
The apartment that I mentioned is in Berkeley. In San Francisco I slept with open blinds, but with earplugs and an eyecover. Something interesting about eyecovers - they are very good to help you to go to sleep, but they usually move off your face at night, so in the morning they don't prevent the sunlight from you waking you up.
In the perfect setting, there is darkness outside at night and lots of natural light in the morning. I had that experience at summer camp, where there were no street lights and everyone had to be quiet by a certain time. The mountain air was refreshing and I would be up with the sunrise naturally.
Living in San Francisco, I now know that this utopia is reserved for vacations. In the city, the biggest problem with opening up the blinds is the street light at night. Or the fog gets in the way or I have to get up before the sun rises or the sun doesn't hit my window perfectly during winter months, etc. I set up all these gadgets for all the times I can't get light in the morning naturally, which seems to be 90+% of my life.
I would be much happier to live like I did as an 18 year old at summer camp. I would also be happier if I did yoga everyday, ate organically, exercised everyday, read more than I watched TV, etc. In the meantime...