Project: SunPucks

The reading lights above our bed burned out long ago, but since they were hardwired into the cabinetry, replacing them was a complicated chore that I put off for years. So when I finally decided to tackle it as a Christmas present for my wife, I wanted to do more than just restore the lights - I wanted to turn them into an experience to remember.

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What I came up with was a fleet of individual lights that can each act as a nightlight or a reading light - both modes behave differently - but that can also act together as a “sunrise choir,” coordinating to bathe the entire room in a colorful sunrise simulation - a gentle counter to the bleakness of waking up in the still total darkness of a northern winter work day.

I finished the implementation and installed them a year and a half ago, just in time for Christmas. They worked brilliantly and we’ve been using them ever since. The project now is to organize my files and share them somewhere so others can use them too.