Can special lightbulbs end the next pandemic before it starts?

Ultraviolet light can kill almost all the viruses in a room. Why isn’t it everywhere?::Can special lightbulbs end the next pandemic before it starts?

  • Pyr_PressureEnglish
    4·
    11 months ago

    Might be a good idea though if you could pair it with timers/sensors so that it only turns on when people aren’t home or something.

    Like a 1 hour disinfection every day while people are at work/school.

    • june@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      11 months ago

      I’ve got my house kitted out with quite a bit of intelligence. I’ve spent a lot of time and money getting it working right, and it still has issues with human presence among other things.

      I would absolutely not trust any automated system with something like this. It’s like buying tools from harbor freight: anything that makes your life easier is fine but never buy something from harbor freight that you have to entrust your life to. Similarly, never trust an automation that has the potential to end your life.

    • Neil@lemmy.mlEnglish
      31·
      11 months ago

      I’m going to shill for LifX here and not get paid for it. I swear.

      They already made smart bulbs that you can set a “cleaning schedule” on that uses UV light.

      I don’t have any yet because LifX is expensive. I have 11 of their multicolor bulbs throughout the house, though. Bought those back when I had bachelor guy money.

      https://www.lifx.com/products/lifx-color-clean-edition-1pk

      • bitwaba@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        11 months ago

        I look at this the same way I look at problems I’m trying to solve at work: is this already an issue causing massive problems with how we go about our day to day operations, or is this something that might have some kind of improvement.

        It’s a resource allocation issue. Sure, I can add some bulbs that kill some bacteria and viruses. But how expensive are there bulbs, and how much are we having to deal with the fallout from when someone gets sick? In the grand scheme of things, would spending ~$1,000 on light bulbs to make sure my kid doesn’t get sick (but not when in range of the bulbs…) be more beneficial than just putting that $1000 into their college savings account and learning how to deal with missing a couple days of class when the inevitable happens (which the bulb can’t protect you from anyways - you’ll get sick from other people no matter how many lights you have at home).

      • solrize@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        11 months ago

        That thing looks terrible. t’s wifi controlled and you’re supposed to install an app to use it. And it doesn’t say anything about the UV wavelength or power (HEV=high energy visible light so I guess 9000K can be translated to wavelength). There is a pdf test report about its efficacy against a few bacteria species but nothing about aerosol viruses. I’ll pass.