The only clinically proven circadian lighting

We deliver lighting solutions for healthcare – improving work environment, health, economy, and quality of life.

Executive Summary

In only the past 5 years, science has converged and agreed that light has a strong influence on human mood, focus, and alertness. This finding is increasingly important, given that the average human spends more than 90% of their lives indoors. These responses from light are controlled via a dedicated sensor in our eye, responsive to blue wavelengths of light, which was only discovered in 2001. Now, we have a metric (m-EDI) for quantifying the effects and a criteria (m-EDI > 250 lux) for maximizing the benefits received by light. Unfortunately, standard classrooms, offices, and other daytime environments that were designed for only the visual aspects of light provide only about 25-50% of this criteria, compromising mood, focus, and alertness of millions of people. Simply increasing light levels will come at cost of comfort and energy expenditure, meaning it comes at the cost of deciding what’s good for the people versus what’s good for the planet.

BIOS has been at the forefront of wellness lighting for the past 15 years, since they developed the lighting for the international space station. They have focused on optimizing the wavelengths, color, intensity and distribution of light to drive the highest response to light, while maintaining optimal visual environment. This has resulted in the development of BIOS’ patented SkyView™ technology, which won a grant from the Department of Energy, to meet the wellness criteria without compromising comfort or energy.

This paper reviews 5 studies using SkyView™ technology, 3 included day-shift data and 2 included shift work data. The day-shift studies include clinical research as well as field research, while the shift-work research was conducted with the Department of Defense and an international airport. The results of these studies show the following effects of SkyView™ light on measures of mood, focus, alertness and performance:

Day Shift

Up to 44% boost in mood
85% boost in focus
56% boost in Alertness
25% boost in self-reported productivity

Day Shift

Up to 44% boost in mood
85% boost in focus
56% boost in Alertness
25% boost in self-reported productivity

Day Shift

Up to 44% boost in mood
85% boost in focus
56% boost in Alertness
25% boost in self-reported productivity

The results of these studies clearly show dramatic, reproducible improvements in key elements of office productivity and wellness, directly contributable to the boost in blue-sky spectra provided by SkyView™ lighting. These results support the incorporation of melanopic-rich SkyView™ lighting into office environments as a cost-effective, evidence-based strategy for improving employee well-being, cognitive performance, and overall productivity.

The role of lighting in promoting office productivity has evolved considerably.

Prior to 2022, lighting recommendations revolved around visual brightness and energy allowances. However, beyond its visual function, lighting modulates critical non-visual biological systems—particularly through sky-blue (melanopic) light, which targets photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs) that mediate physiological responses such as mood, focus and alertness, as well as synchronizing the body’s circadian rhythms (Vetter et al. 2022), demonstrating the importance of lighting beyond vision. In 2022, a consortium of international scientists came together to put in place a new metric for quantifying these physiological effects of light, as well as a minimum criteria for eliciting these effects of light (Brown et al. 2022). This new metric and circadian supportive criteria are now adopted by all governing authorities on light (i.e. IES, CIE, WELL, NASA, GSA).

It comes as no surprise that current design practices, which are solely based on the visual recommendations, fall way short of these new circadian supportive criteria. What is surprising, however, is how far off the criteria typical lighting applications are. Our analysis and case studies show that most typical applications in office and school settings provide less than half of this circadian supportive criteria, with some instances of as low as 25% of the criteria. However, further analysis shows that simply increasing brightness will come at the cost of increased glare and exceeding energy codes.

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Boost in productivity

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Increase in energy

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Increase in happiness

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Increase in vitality

Office productivity depends significantly on employees’ mental states.

Mood, focus, and alertness directly influence efficiency, quality of work, and decision-making capacity. The current WELL Building Standard includes circadian lighting design as part of its criteria, linking lighting quality to both wellness and performance in the modern workplace. In the 2025 IWBI Special Report summarizing the research behind the business case for healthy buildings and healthy organizations, they highlight a 12% boost in worker productivity due to implementing proper circadian focused lighting (Hartke et al. 2025). Equally important, the studies found 71% of participants reported feeling more energized, 76% felt happier and 50% felt healthier.

In this paper, we demonstrate the impact of advanced, economical commercially available high-melanopic lighting by experimentally manipulated office illumination spectra in field and clinical studies to measure the impact on mood, focus, and alertness.

Office productivity depends significantly on employees’ mental states.

Mood, focus, and alertness directly influence efficiency, quality of work, and decision-making capacity. The current WELL Building Standard includes circadian lighting design as part of its criteria, linking lighting quality to both wellness and performance in the modern workplace. In the 2025 IWBI Special Report summarizing the research behind the business case for healthy buildings and healthy organizations, they highlight a 12% boost in worker productivity due to implementing proper circadian focused lighting (Hartke et al. 2025). Equally important, the studies found 71% of participants reported feeling more energized, 76% felt happier and 50% felt healthier.

In this paper, we demonstrate the impact of advanced, economical commercially available high-melanopic lighting by experimentally manipulated office illumination spectra in field and clinical studies to measure the impact on mood, focus, and alertness.