Looking for home office lighting suggestions

One thing I have realized now that I’ve got a SmartThings hub and building a smart home is that I need better lighting in my home office. I’m looking for recommendations for smart home office lighting.

The only pendant lamp is textile lamp similar to IKEA Sunneby that spreads the light evenly, but also takes some of the brightness. I also have a desk lamp and a floor lamp both pointing down at my desk and keyboard. The only window is small, as the room is a refurnished garage.

Now I’m looking for advice on the following:

  1. Monitor light bar? Is it really that much better than two desk/floor lamps on each side? What works with SmartThings?
  2. Backlights/bias lighting? Light strip or other? Would I need both light bar and backlight?
  3. Another ceiling lamp above the work station may be another way. But there are no more lamp sockets so then I would have to either connect to a normal socket or have an electrician do some wiring. Still it may be a good way to get more light above the work station.
  4. Yet another option could be an uplight next to my desk, that spreads the light upwards to give some additional ambient light.

Another thing I’m thinking about is color temperature. I bought a WiZ Tunable White 100W A67 E27 2700-6500K for the pendant light and 6000K G9 LED lamps for the desk & floor lamps. But the G9 lamps aren’t smart and 6000K in the evening isn’t a good idea. That’s again why the above lights may be a better way to go.

The room is about 4m x 3.40m.

Thanks!

I’ve built out my home (garden) office with LIFX lights because I like their colour temps and tunableness, and thus my solution is:

  1. I have no need for a monitor light bar at present.
  2. Backlight/bias light - LIFX strip mounted to rear of main monitor for bias lighting - admittedly it doesn’t get used much at the moment, but that’s primarily because it’s summer and bright enough without it. It definitely reduces my eye strain in winter. It also doubles as a notification light when the doorbell rings.
  3. Ceiling fixture above desk - LIFX A19, used to be a tunable white (Day and Dusk) but I’ve moved them round
  4. Second ceiling light positioned behind me (another LIFX A19)

LIFX integrates, I believe locally, with Smartthings, and also with Google Home (I have smart speakers around the place) - the only minor annoyance is that this means all my lights are in my Google Home app twice - once direct, once via ST.

I also put in “eyeball” light fittings which gives me a degree of control over exactly where the lights illuminate. I think the flat LIFX bulb in an eyeball fixture looks pretty good. I haven’t quite been tempted to stick pupils on them, but it’s come close a couple of times :wink:

There’s a motion sensor sitting on my monitor so when I’m at work the lights come on, and if I go out for lunch they switch off after 10 minutes. There’s also an override switch by the door which almost never gets used.

Anyhow, that’s my setup. I’m not precious about it but it’s worked well for the last few of years. I like that everything is easily removable if for some reason I need to.