Check out this post on Dezeen for an interesting LED-infused eyemask design intended to help meditation. I have no idea regarding the mask’s effectiveness for its intended task in meditation, but the product photography is exceptionally beautiful – and more importantly, it indirectly helps illustrate the future of architectural lighting. Let me point out three things:

• This product is effectively the equivalent of a “low res” architectural LED installation, with the same fundamental limitations (low-res screens are best used for textures of light; they are not suitable for imaging). R&D for virtual reality headsets is focused on using microLEDs to make high-definition screens that are effectively the same direct-view LED configuration as this mask, but at 4K-8K+ full imaging resolution.
• Large format architectural signage has already adopted direct-view LED screens in mass. Such DV-LED screens are now readily available at pixel pitches well under a millimeter, resulting in a “virtual reality” experience at full architectural scale – no mask required.
• If we zoom out in conceptual perspective, most architectural environments are turning into some form of this mask. Every light source is becoming a pixel (e.g. digital controlled with various channels of light output), while every pixel is becoming a light source (e.g. what we’ve called “signage” becomes the dominate light source in many architectural spaces).

So without slapping headsets over our eyes, we are effectively going to be living in a world much like this mask. As I wrote in my “Six Disruptive Trends,” the boundaries between “real” and “virtual” will continue to blur, resulting in huge creative opportunity for impacting health & wellness and flows of data throughout architectural space – but with no need for masks!

Design studio Layer has created LightVision, a headset unveiled at Design Miami during Miami art week that uses an LED light matrix to turn nature videos into biomorphic patterns to help users meditate.

The LightVision headset aims to make meditation easier by combining traditional techniques with vibration, sound and light, which it says helps users relax and change their pattern of thoughts.

It was designed for US startup Resonate by design studio Layer, whose founder Benjamin Hubert described the headset as a way to make the meditation process more accessible.

https://www.dezeen.com/2021/12/21/layer-lightvision-headset-powerful-meditation/