One example is my living room. Sometimes I'm hosting people over, and I just want the whole room to be really bright as we're all gathering around, talking, maybe playing games, etc. I want that room practically as bright as I can get it during those times.

But other times I'm just wanting to cozy up to the fireplace with a book and some light music and a dram of whiskey late in the evening. I don't need the room to be super bright, so I might just have the lights over the fireplace on set very dimly.

Same goes with the kitchen. When I'm actively cooking a meal, I want it very bright. But I don't always need it that bright, sometimes I just want it a bit more ambient in its lighting.

Or the dining room. Sometimes I use that space for projects as it has the large table, and I'll want it as bright as possible. But other times, I could probably stand to have it at about 75% of its brightness as we're just sitting around together having a meal, and with my home layout its a bit of a central space so its nice having it at like 20% brightness to act as a bit of a night light as people go through the house.

I have a lot of dimmers in my house because they were there. It's nice to turn the hall lights down at night when I'm the last one awake (but not if they get too flickery; older dimmers built for incandescent don't always work with dimmable leds), and very nice when watching or starting a movie, etc.

But, dimmable bulbs are also an indicator of quality. Someone cared enough to make sure it worked in that situation, so there's evidence that someone was caring during the design.

> But, dimmable bulbs are also an indicator of quality. Someone cared enough to make sure it worked in that situation, so there's evidence that someone was caring during the design.

Maybe. It could also be to avoid the situation in which the average consumer just picks up the cheapest bulb and, when he gets it home and it is flaky when used with the dimmer, returns it to the store.

Or maybe it's a low quality way of ticking a feature that a customer has been told to look for regardless of whether it is relevant to his situation.

Many people complain about sleep problems. Light exposure is essential to regulating sleep cycles, and going from full brightness to full darkness at night can easily contribute to those problems. Dimmers allow finer control of exposure.

I am skeptical that any significant portion of the population outside HN is tailoring their room lighting, via dimming, to their activity schedule.

It also is a tad hyperbolic to include non-dimmable bulbs in the pantheon of things to make homeowners lose their minds.

A very large portion of lamps purchased at home goods stores have dimmer switches (a knob that you turn instead of flipping a switch), and dimmers have been widely available at home improvement stores for decades. This idea is not some niche thing limited only to smart home tech people. It doesn’t have to be automated—one can just get up and set the brightness to their liking.

I think the big surprise for most people would be that many LED bulbs are not dimmable, as that hasn’t been something they had to worry about with older bulbs (it was also an issue with CFLs, but people avoided them because of the harsh color)

I agree that it's probably still niche, but judging by the expanding section of smart lighting at my local Home Depot, my guess is it has gone beyond techies at this point. Home Depot definitely doesn't cater to tech folks.

For me it's like if the sound on your computer was either on or off. I adjust the light to the specific task, time of day, my mood & energy level, and what the natural light is doing to the room which also varies by season, time and weather.

I'm really miserable in a too-bright room. I have some sensory processing issues which contributes a lot to this admittedly, but when I talk about it with people who don't they often understand it immediately or admit to experiencing the same thing, though to a smaller extent.

And you never want even more lighting than you currently have? Not even so much as a lamp to adjust lighting in a room?

Occasionally. And I would use a non-dimmable lamp for that.

Sorry, I wasn't clear at all. The non-dimmable ones seem prone to flickering with changing voltage, and all grids have varying voltage. And then, at least if you're like me, you start thinking of all the broken things that might manifest in flickering lights.

> I've never understood the affection for dimming lights. Essentially always I want lights on or off.

It's about choice. I have several dozen LED can lights in my house producing 1600 lumens each. Sometimes I want every bit of that power, but I also like being able to turn them down a bit in the evening when I don't need it.

Since the electricity they use is basically free, and there is (almost) no practical constraint on heat emissions, LEDs are generally too bright.

You could hire a lighting consultant, then buy expensive bespoke bulbs so that having them at 100% is the right choice, or you could spend an extra ~ $50 per room for a dimmer.