Meredith Oke [5:06 - 5:14]: Willie Duggan, welcome to the QVC podcast. This is gonna be really fun. I'm excited to talk about lighting with you.

Willie Duggan [5:15 - 5:18]: Yeah, thanks, Meredith. Yeah, like, I'm really looking forward to it.

Meredith Oke [5:18 - 6:21]: Okay, so I. I want to get into your family history and how steeped you are in light, but I think what. To just kick us off, I want to pick up where we were, what we were just discussing before I started recording. And I was saying how, you know, the audience of this podcast and people who've, you know, been researching these types of topics, like, we've all very much wrapped our heads around the idea of making sure that we have certain types of light bulbs and certain types of light emitting objects in our home that are not disrupting our circadian rhythms. And we really understand the importance of that, the importance of making sure that it's not super bright inside when it's really dark outside. And you're saying yes. And there's another layer to the conversation which is to think about our. Our lit environment from a holistic perspective. So say more.

Willie Duggan [6:21 - 8:12]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's. It's not just about products, right? So products are. Are one thing, you know, and getting the right products. And I think there's a long way to go there as well, you know, but at least there's sort of products appearing, but it's how those are, you know, combined together. And that's, I suppose, in terms of lighting design, that's where I feel that there's a missing piece. As a lighting designer, we look at the whole space. We try to understand how a space works, you know, at different times of the day. So we're trying to. You're trying to design, you know, you know, let's say in typical modern spaces nowadays, like kitchen, living, dining spaces, there's numerous functions. You're trying to design for those different functions at different times of the evening. And how does the space feel at, you know, when I'm watching tv, but not using the kitchen and this type of thing. And there's lots of different light sources we can use, and we just need to. We need to build them into our spaces in a coherent way so that we can create scenes at different times of the day. And I think certainly when it comes into the quantum consideration, you know, in terms of seeing it from the health perspective, you know, I think we need to see all of that now, as I look at it as a lighting designer, we need to see all that in the health bubble, you know, in terms of understanding it from a health perspective. But it's yeah, it's products, but we're. But it's. There's lots of different products that we can. That we can integrate in our spaces in different ways, and we create different circuits that we switch on and off at different times of the day, or this can happen automatically. Like, I'm doing my own house at the moment, so I'm. I'm really. I'm in the middle of trying to create a framework on this. But, you know, there are sort of light control options as well, where we can dynamically control the lighting as the evening goes on to give us, you know, the correct biological signals at the right time. You know, so it's. It's products at a start, but I think it's how they're combined. That, that, that's. Yeah, I think that's. That's where we can really get, you know, huge value.

Meredith Oke [8:12 - 8:25]: And, you know, so when you talk about thinking not just in terms of what kind of light bulb is in this lamp, but you're talking about. Think of your home in terms of. Of the scene.

Willie Duggan [8:26 - 12:34]: Yes. Yeah. Well, it's. Think of. Yeah, it's. It's sort of like I say in. In. In. I. I do a lecture in lighting. And. And one of them is the layers of light where we build a lighting design or lighting scene in terms of layers. You know, we layer one on top of the other and we talk about different types of, you know, layers of light. Like, there's functional lighting. I think lighting started. Lighting design started very much on functional base. You know, do I have enough light to see? And I think quite often in spaces, particularly, you know, residential spaces, we're over lighting them. You know, we only need functional lighting in certain locations. So let's say, you know, when I'm cooking, do I have good quality light coming from the right direction, so I'm not shadowing myself or something like this? But then you have other lighting, like ambient lighting and accent lighting and sort of, you know, to create background, mood. And that's, I suppose, where lighting design would be. It's often. It's often described as the balance of art and science. So it's just getting that function, but also with the aesthetic and the app, you know, creating the right atmosphere and ambience. But now when we're looking at it, you know, in terms of trying to create, you know, that holistic health perspective that we. That we build those layers in, that we get the function we need and the aesthetic, but we're also getting it in the right, you know, getting the right. Right Spectrums at the right times of the day and obviously that we're lighting from the right location. So in the evening, you know, it needs to be much more lower level and it needs to be much, much, you know, warmer color temperature. I think color temperature, which is, you know, more towards the red end is more like candlelight obviously, and, and the blue end is, is more towards our, our sort of, you know, standard daylight. But we need to be really focused on spectrum. I think the lighting industry sort of missed out a bit. You know, it talks about color temperature sometimes when it should be talking about Y. So. Yeah, no, so it's trying to look at that holistic way. You know, trying to, trying to look at. Because there's so much we have in, you know, in terms of, I know like there's, there's certain products that are designed now for, you know, from that sort of circadian perspective, like the block blue light. Like I use those products. We're, we have a young baby at the moment and we use the red light clip on and it's absolutely fantastic. I get a great sleep breastfeeding, but. Because we get that red light at nighttime. But there's fixed products like, you know, that we can build into our spaces, you know, in terms of, let's say dynamic white is, is a technology where we're changing that color temperature and getting down to really low color temperatures in the evening and dimming to those levels. But. And there's integrated products like LED tape, which is sort of, I don't know if you've ever, ever seen it, Merida, but it's sort of, it comes in roles and we can integrate that by hiding it. And at low level, we, we do it a bit and I think it's a good solution, you know, at skirting level. So for the evening, evening lighting, you're getting really low level lighting. So it's, I think, the ultimate, you know, where, where do we want to get to with our lit environments? I think it's, it's ultimately approaching it, you know, with that, that perspective and, and sort of building these circuits and building these scenes into our spaces ultimately. I don't know. Where does it go? Does it. Like, I, I would think like I, I wear the blue blocking glasses. I wear them and they're brilliant. Like they make such a difference to your sleep. And when we can't control our light environment, that's just amazing. But it does take effort. You know, it does take effort to remember to put them on and to be, you know, and you're trying to, you know, you're trying to do maybe different functions with them and sometimes it's not ideal, but. So I think ultimately we need to move to, you know, a lit environment that's considered in a way that we sort of create the function we need where we need it, but minimally affect our biology or try and reinforce those natural circadian rhythms and obviously add the likes of infrared and mitigate flicker and. And layers and other things. There's just quite a few different things, but it's, it's, it's ultimately, I think that's where we need to get to, probably.

Meredith Oke [12:35 - 13:25]: Yeah, I mean, that would be amazing. And it's interesting because it's, you know, we're, we're coming from a space where we're studying the research of people who combined physics and biology and circadian biology and quantum physics and all these. Brought all of these different fields together. And what, what I hear you saying is that, you know, lighting design, which would not have been considered a health, like a field that is connected to health care in any way, might need to start moving towards that and thinking about, you know, like a lighting designer might need to think about the therapeutic effects of the light, not just the utilitarian and aesthetic.

Willie Duggan [13:25 - 14:43]: Yeah, I think it's like. I think it massively needs to move towards that. I think it should be the first thing we think about, you know. Yeah, definitely. It's. It's probably like the, the awareness in the lighting industry is really poor. Really poor. And in the light design industry, like, I see both sides. We design. The consultancy is a big part of what we do, but we also supply. So I, you know, I visit manufacturers and I talk to manufacturers and I see what they do, but the awareness is really poor. And there would be an awareness. It's funny, it's sort of light in the environment and there's been a big dark sky, you know, movement, you know, towards awareness of the light pollution that we're causing, which is crazy as well. And it's affecting, you know, all kinds of wildlife and, and it's affecting ourselves in the evening, you know, when we're outdoors and our street lighting and. And there is an awareness growing on that. But it's really. Yeah, it sort of boggles my mind how the human element, we are nature. And if it's affecting nature in that way, it's affecting us in that way. And I think it. Yeah, there's a big educational piece there where I think the lighting industry needs to be educated a little bit. You know, I think it's not. It's crazy. We think we should be the people that see this first.

Meredith Oke [14:45 - 15:11]: Do you see that happening? Because I, you know, like from, from my perspective there's all of these startups, you know, like Dr. Moureed makes some light and Scott Zimmerman makes, you know, there's all of these startups but I know that on the grand scale of the industry those, they're very small but are they having any impact or when you go to these conferences, like is there any awareness? Stephen, A topic on the list.

Willie Duggan [15:12 - 18:11]: It's Mars. It's sort of my journey on this I suppose is 2009. I worked in London in a lighting consultancy there and I completed a master's over there at the time in lighting and in our consultancy at the time we, yeah, I became became aware of, you know, the circadian impact and we had to try to design an office space where we use warm and cold fluorescent tubes that we dimmed up and down at different levels to try and create that, you know, sort of change in color, temperature and spectrum. But like the technology was so in its infancy that it was probably never going to work. But at the time then I thought my God, this is going to be huge. Like LED is coming, you know, we can change color, temperature. The lightning industry is. I remember when I arrived back in our business here when I moved back from London talking to our manufacturers and we'd have like long standing relationships like 30 years with some manufacturers and it's going, you just got to get on this, it's going to be massive. And the feedback I had was well the science isn't there or we don't, you know, it's a little bit inconclusive and this type of thing and I suppose you're so, so we're all so busy in our day to day and like for, for me it was like trying to move the business forward and I said what a pity. I thought that this was going to be huge. And it's when I keyed back in with you guys actually and like said Carrie B. Welles and check to start checking on some of, some of those accounts and then actually started. Okay, well I got to look back into this a bit more again and you see how you know, you guys have compiled and Martin Mourid's Light Doctor book is just an amazing resource. It's just thousands of research papers so the science is even more solid than is so, so solid now at this stage. But it again in the lighting industry it's, it's not. It nearly feels like it was you know, 20, 15, 16, where they're going. Oh, well, no, I've. I was at the. We do. There's a. In Europe, there's a huge lighting fair in Germany and Frankfurt, every sort of March. So I was there last year and I walked from stand to stand. Now these, some of these fairs are huge. You could walk for, for days and days and not get through like a sort of small proportion of it. But I was, I was going from stand to stand to stand and there was very little, like, very little. And I met one or two. I remember going to the Ozram stand who make a lot of the chips, like they're a huge chip company. And I started talking to one of the representatives there, going, look, you know, making the case for what, like, this is absolutely crazy. I can't believe that there's no, you know, where are the, you know, you, you need to be really working on chips to get much closer to, to, you know, the spectral distribution of daylight and all of that, you know. But yeah, it's. And he agreed with me, but still.

Meredith Oke [18:11 - 18:14]: It just seems he's like, yeah, that's a great idea.

Willie Duggan [18:14 - 18:17]: Yeah, yeah, that's great. So what is that?

Meredith Oke [18:17 - 18:21]: What does the chip do? Does the chip is part of the light bulb?

Willie Duggan [18:21 - 18:22]: Yeah.

Meredith Oke [18:22 - 18:23]: I don't know anything about it.

Willie Duggan [18:23 - 19:41]: Oh, yeah. So what you have, obviously we're LED now. So the chip is like, we have an LED chip and there's numerous parts to an LED light fitting. And you have like, generally with led, like LED does give off heat. You need a heat sink which will dissipate the heat and that the chip is going to give you your spectrum of light. And depending on the type of chip you have now, I found some really good ones. There's. There are some companies that are looking at it, you know, like you said, Martin Moritz, I think he's chorus. They have a really interesting one with a purple. Where LED came from is. It's got a blue. It's basically a blue light source. So it tends to be more of the blue spectrum, which is sort of causing our issues because it's that 470 nanometer sky blue that, that really sort of gives us the signal of the, you know, daytime and it's, it tends to spike our cortisol when we don't need that to happen. So what they tend to do is cover that blue chip. They use a phosphorus coating to try and, to try and give you a more balanced spectrum, you know. But that's, I think, the key, you know, in terms of trying to get the right emission spectrums. And I think there's. I've come across a company that's now starting to put infrared into their chips, which is really, really good. Like incandescent would have had infrared in it.

Meredith Oke [19:41 - 19:41]: Yeah.

Willie Duggan [19:41 - 19:42]: When LED came in.

Meredith Oke [19:42 - 19:48]: So is that possible to, to get an infrared signal from an LED bulb? I didn't know that. Yeah.

Willie Duggan [19:48 - 20:24]: So. So Scott Zimmerman does it with, I think incandescent and LED together in the one bulb. I haven't, I haven't, I haven't tested his ball, but. But yeah, I've, I've. I've just got samples in there because I've been discouraging, you know, trying to see what I can, you know, what, what's available from the Chinese companies that's, that's given showing me emission spectrums where they've got like, you know, broad spectrum. It seems to be infrared. I need to test them yet. But that would be amazing because the one thing you can do with LED is you can play with spectrum, you know, a little bit more and tweak it and change it and stuff like that. So.

Meredith Oke [20:25 - 20:31]: So it's just a matter of programming the chip or is there more to it?

Willie Duggan [20:31 - 20:36]: I. Yeah, to get into the technicalities of how those chips are manufactured. It's.

Meredith Oke [20:36 - 20:51]: But I just mean like if, if you're a, you know, for the industry to shift, it's just a matter of them wanting to make a circadian optimized chip. It's not actually that hard. No, it's not like they can't do it, they just don't.

Willie Duggan [20:51 - 22:09]: Yeah, that's sort of what happens. It's just a focus. Part of the problem. When I think about this, and we were chatting beforehand, you know, about, you know, you were saying about the lighting industry and getting an insight into it, but I think part of the problem as well is there been such a focus on efficiency. You know, the whole thing with LED was efficient. Right. And I remember at the time going, you know, like the lumens per watt. So it's the amount of lumens you get for every watt you put in, you know, is that metric. And it's, and it's. And they're raising that metric all the time. So what it's doing, it's encouraging. Chips that are bluer because they're more efficient and it's encouraging that. So if you want to create a chip with infrared or you want to create a more accurate spectrum chip, it's not going to be quite sufficient. So there's a real, like, there's one company I'm dealing with in the uk, foss. And, and they seem to be. Yeah, you're very much on a, you know, on, on that sort of more health awareness. But. And they have a really good chip which, which has a good balanced spectrum, but it doesn't. They have a second chip that they sell which is really high efficiency because the first chip isn't meeting some of the requirements. You know, it's like for some projects you need to meet a certain efficiency before they're accepted and stuff like that.

Meredith Oke [22:09 - 22:13]: So the industry is being driven by this efficiency metric.

Willie Duggan [22:13 - 22:14]: Yeah.

Meredith Oke [22:14 - 22:17]: And the health implications are not even on the table.

Willie Duggan [22:17 - 23:36]: They're not. No. Okay. No, yeah. No, as I said, isolated companies are looking at it, you know, but not, not whole scale, like, not the big manufacturers. You know, when you go to these shows, you have to the big, big manufacturers and these huge stands and to be honest, I feel it's a little bit stagnant. A lot of them sort of repeat each other and just, you know, nothing massively, you know, innovative. I think that it could be, you know, when you see that, that there's a, there's an open goal, there's an open door here for something that could be so impactful. But yeah, no, it's, it's, it's isolated, isolated companies. And what's, what's, what's sort of crazy about it as well is because everything has got that more, much more efficient, but it's, it's, it's been cheapened as well. Like products have got cheaper, so it's sort of being commoditized. So cheaper lighting products, more of them being sold, poor education. So. But people are putting lighting up everywhere. Like, you know, and, and what we're doing is we're hugely increasing light pollution. So I just don't know. Net, you know, if you looked at the books at the end of the day and, and in net, you know, net net power consumption, are we making as. As massive a difference? Are we just selling more efficient fittings but more often?

Meredith Oke [23:36 - 23:42]: Right. We're focused on efficiency, but at the same time we're lighting the bejesus out of everything.

Willie Duggan [23:43 - 23:44]: Yeah, we're just going crazy.

Meredith Oke [23:44 - 23:50]: You can have warmer, less efficient lights, but fewer of them lighting fewer spaces only as needed.

Willie Duggan [23:51 - 23:52]: Yeah, that's what we should be.

Meredith Oke [23:52 - 23:54]: Have the same output or the efficiency.

Willie Duggan [23:54 - 24:54]: Yeah. And like, let's say our nighttime environments should look like they look when we look to our orange, blue blocking glasses. I don't know if you've done it watching your town in the orange, blue blocking glasses. And if you take them off, you go, oh, my God, it's so bright. But that's the way our environments need to look. And we, we need to be using much less light. We need to be controlling it and using it just when it's needed and in a really considered way. But there's just really poor education, that really poor awareness out there. And it's been such a drive for, oh, green, green, green, lots of led. And that's going to solve the problem. But are we using it in a smart way? And I don't, I don't think we are, you know, not for the environment and not for ourselves, you know, so. But it's just been very. And look, maybe it comes from a good place, but it's just, it's misdirected, you know, it's sort of. We need to see the big picture here. And I think human health should sort of be. Be the number one thing we should be focusing on.

Meredith Oke [24:54 - 24:55]: It should be.

Willie Duggan [24:55 - 25:27]: Yeah. And even I was at the like. So that. That was the manufacturers and which will be in Frankfurt each year. There's an enlightened Europe, which is the iald, which is the International association of Light Designers. And that was in London last year. And again at the talks of that, like those, there was some people touching on it, you know, but it wasn't, it was a side topic, you know, and even in some of the workshops around table discussions, I start bringing up, you know, we need to use infrared in our interior spaces. And nobody at the table really had that on the radar, you know.

Meredith Oke [25:28 - 25:38]: What are you talking about? Why. Why would we do that? Right. Meanwhile, you're like, well, we're all infrared deficient and we could be using our.

Willie Duggan [25:38 - 25:49]: Homes as a way to lecture on mitochondria. But I don't know. You've brought back the incandescent bulb, I think, in, in the States.

Meredith Oke [25:50 - 25:59]: I think so. I mean, I know there's a lot of controversies going on in America, as usual, but I'm like, we have our light bulbs back. That's great.

Willie Duggan [25:59 - 27:51]: It's. It's crazy when, when I was. So as I said, like, I grew up in, in the business here and fluorescence came out, we had compact fluorescents, and these were the green, the energy save. And my dad would, would have ran the company and we, we would have been pulled in, you know, to help out and stuff. But I remember him talking about. Yeah. How he hated the fluorescent. And when you look at the spectrum of fluorescent, it's awful. Like, it's really awful. Whereas the incandescent is such a natural spectrum and there's. There's the infrared and. Which is so healthy for us, which we didn't know when we were assessing it, but it just felt nicer and it felt crisper and it was a much nicer light. And then if you look at when LED came out, it was very similar. And. And I was similar as well because something doesn't feel good about this, you know, and like, because we would have had incandescent and then we had tungsten halogen, which is a type of incandes, which is basically incandescent, and tungsten halogen, it's a, it's an. A sort of heated filament. So it has a. It has a spectrum that's not far. Like the sun is. Is. Is. Is. Is a sort of ignited gas, you know, so it's a similar. The spectrums are not like a million miles. Like, you know, there's a similar broad spectrum to them. But, yeah, they're definitely. Sometimes I think it's, you know, your intuition or what you feel is right, you know, and it's something I've become more aware of now with, With. With the real quantum understanding. I go out in the morning at sunrise, and if you, if you get. Go outside and you don't, you don't. You're very present, you can feel the difference. Whereas if you, if you're quite present and you look at your phone, first thing you can. I think, I think your body sort of tells you, but you just need to be in a clear mind to, to understand it. You know, something the metrics don't tell us.

Meredith Oke [27:51 - 28:17]: Yeah, Yes, I totally agree. It's just like that there's almost like an inner. This isn't like technically what's happening, but it's almost like my cells seize up, like when you. Or you walk into like a big box store or something with really harsh lighting. It's like there's. I just feel this little like a recoil versus walking outside and I feel my body. Yeah, you can feel your body, like it relaxes.

Willie Duggan [28:18 - 28:44]: And I think it's probably. We're so busy and like, and we're just not aware, you know, and even me working in the industry, I was aware, but the more. I'm much more aware now, you know, because I'm. I've obviously followed this conversation and, and researched a lot on the health elements, you know, but, yeah, there's a lot of, you know, noise illuminated, you know, out there. Yeah, yeah.

Meredith Oke [28:44 - 29:15]: And I Wanted to ask you because you're in like, you know, a very unique situation that, that I don't, you know, know very many people who are third generation experts in their field and like, grew up in a certain, you know, in a certain profession. And their father did it and your grandfather did it. So you're a third generation lighting designer. The Willie, the Willie Duggan Lighting design has been in. Is it Kilkenny?

Willie Duggan [29:15 - 29:18]: Kilkenny, yeah. So we're. Yes.

Meredith Oke [29:18 - 29:46]: Okay. And so it's so interesting to me because you, so you, your father did this job when you were young and you were mentioning how like these different lights came on and I would. Yeah, like how, how did your father and your grandfather respond when they, for most of their lives were working with incandescents or the halogen? And then all of a sudden it's like, here you go with these completely.

Willie Duggan [29:47 - 29:48]: Yeah.

Meredith Oke [29:48 - 29:51]: New, harsh, efficient bulbs.

Willie Duggan [29:52 - 31:28]: Yeah, it's sort of, I think my father, we would have done a lot of hospitality, residential hospitality, sort of restaurants, bars, hotels. And fluorescent was out at the time, the compact fluorescent and the fluorescent, but my father kept away from it and he stuck with the incandescent and he stuck with the tungsten halogen, particularly because a lot of the time for hospitality, it's all about ambience. You know, it's all about how you feel. Like fluorescent would have been used a lot in offices and that and, but, but you would never. And, and he just, I suppose he, I think he was intuitive with that as well. Like he was very much into. He's a very good design head and he'd sort of see what that doesn't. We would use xenon, actually. There was a xenon light source, which is a beautiful light source. It's a really warm, really warm light source. And he would have worked with those light sources. He would have kept away from the fluorescent purely because it just didn't give the right feel. And it's sort of funny because we would always assign our hospitality space as, you know, if you're going to design a hospitality space from a lighting perspective, well, you need to. Lighting needs to get warmer as the evening goes on and it needs to get lower and dimmer. So in any really lovely restaurants that you go to that feel great, they have a very warm color temperature that gets warmer as the evening goes on, which is exactly what our biology needs, you know, and it's, it's exactly how our interior spaces should be. So again, it's sort of that intuition, you know, it was designed that way for ambience. Not for health, but it is what our, it is, you know, along the lines of the way we should be designing for.

Meredith Oke [31:28 - 31:39]: But then what is ambiance? It's like it's what makes us feel good. What makes us feel good is, is the light that are, that is most appropriate for our biology.

Willie Duggan [31:39 - 31:39]: Yeah.

Meredith Oke [31:40 - 31:57]: So these are, these are secrets to, to a. Okay. These are secrets to making your space feel extra warm and cozy and hospitable. So to have the, the temperature, the frequency, the brightness dim over the course of the evening.

Willie Duggan [31:57 - 32:13]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I said, I'm doing my own house at the moment. So it's, it's sort of like, it's just such. So timely actually, to be honest, that I'm doing my house at this time because I have the opportunity. Like it's quite often with our clients you don't get a blank canvas. You know, I, I'm the client.

Meredith Oke [32:13 - 32:13]: Yeah.

Willie Duggan [32:13 - 33:49]: So I, I can do what I want and I'm really trying to look at it and it's, it is that I'm trying to use it as an opportunity to say, okay, a frame. Because I think residential homes are, are probably the most important because we spend our times there at crucial times of the day. You know, it's the morning, it's the evening, it's when we're getting those important cues, sunrise and sunset, it's the evening, obviously we're preparing for bed. And I think, you know, I think, I think being outside and daylight has to always be the gold standard like that. Like I, and I think the message and the education message has to be people have to get outside as, as much as possible. And I think with our artificial light, you know, we're trying to reinforce our biology but mitigate any harm that we do. So, so like there are, you know, pushing towards, you know, you know, lighting for offices and we can certainly improve all of that. But I think the big message, the, the light levels outside during the day are so much more substantially higher than we are inside that I don't think we'll ever get the stimulus that we need. You know, but I think in our homes, I think focusing there is probably the low hanging fruit, you know, the biggest bang for our bulk. So that's for me, if I can, you know, help to try and create or at least get the conversation started on creating a framework for how to do that. I think that's, that's a good place to start and that's, that's, that's what I'm trying to do with my home. And it's, it's, it's interesting because when it's your own home, you're going to live in it. So it's actually you're trying to think down the line. So. Yeah, it's.

Meredith Oke [33:50 - 34:00]: So what are some things that you, that you're doing in your house that you think might be sort of innovations and how to, how to think about lighting? Like you mentioned the strips. Are you putting those like.

Willie Duggan [34:00 - 34:00]: Yeah.

Meredith Oke [34:00 - 34:03]: At the bottom of the wall or.

Willie Duggan [34:03 - 34:17]: Yeah, so what I'm doing in there's a number of different things. Like again, I try to even put it into. I lecture a bit. So I'm trying to create a lecture in parallel to do my house, but based on some of the stuff that I'm looking to do in my home.

Meredith Oke [34:17 - 34:24]: Oh, that would be amazing. Sorry to interrupt. That would be amazing. You could come and you could give a talk on how to light your home.

Willie Duggan [34:24 - 34:25]: Like that's what I'm going to do.

Meredith Oke [34:25 - 34:29]: Beautifully, aesthetically and biologically aligned.

Willie Duggan [34:29 - 34:32]: I'm doing a video series actually, if anybody wants to follow it.

Meredith Oke [34:32 - 34:33]: Great. Oh, I'm sure they would.

Willie Duggan [34:33 - 35:02]: Yeah. Yeah. So okay, so your house. Yeah, yeah. So basically, yeah, like in terms of what I'm trying to do, I'm building in a control system into it purely because I think that if I can control it automatically to a certain degree, obviously you're going to need local control and sometimes you need to override that. But if, to a, if to a certain degree that my lighting can change depending on the time of the day and the time of the year, I think that that's a positive. So building.

Meredith Oke [35:03 - 35:13]: So you mean you have a way to program it so it naturally. It's like as you get towards sunset, the light in your home just naturally starts to change.

Willie Duggan [35:13 - 36:30]: Yeah. So that's, that's what, that's what I'm looking to do. It's sort of, I'm looking to build in. It's called a dynamic white where it changes color temperature as a day. You know, I can change the color temperature in the, in the fitting. So I'm playing with, with color temperature and, and in the evening looking to dim it down. Yeah. Using low level lighting like I said in, in the likes of the kitchen. So I've got a kitchen, living dining. So in the kitchen I'll build lighting and at skirting level in, in LED tape which will be dynamic white, which will, which will, as the evening goes on, once we program this correctly and figure, figure it all out, that it will, it will dim down to to lower levels, but go much warmer color temperatures down to 1800 kelvin, which again will have like very, very low or no levels of blue in it. You know, so that my lighting will, will automatically sort of go to that very warm color temperature in the evening also. Then like that low level lighting will be built in. So for the evening it's, the lighting is all coming from lower level and not coming from above. I'll use my down lights. And quite often we see it in our residential designs. Like I see down lights everywhere. You know, the people put like recess spots everywhere. Okay.

Meredith Oke [36:30 - 36:31]: I was gonna say.

Willie Duggan [36:31 - 36:33]: Sorry, it's the terminology. Yeah.

Meredith Oke [36:34 - 36:47]: Like the lights. Yeah. Recessed in the ceiling. Yeah. In the US and Canada where. Yeah. Actually even in Europe, everywhere I've lived. That's just what you do. You put all these holes in the ceiling and you put LEDs in them.

Willie Duggan [36:48 - 40:28]: It's crazy. It's just like, it's, it's because what, all you get from that is functional light. And, and to be honest, in most of your, your home you want ambient relaxing light. You know, you need functional light in your kitchen, you need functional light at the mirror in your bathroom, you need functional light when you're reading. But other than that you're looking to create atmosphere. And now, you know, in the quantum lens we're looking to, to reinforce our, you know, getting the light from the right location. Like I think during the day I'm going to use those overhead lights in the kitchen. In the evening it's going to be low level lighting in the kitchen and dining area and table and floor lamps are good for that too because you know, they're at a lower level and so it's more indirect light. Glare is a big thing in, in with led and glare is like, you know, where it's LED as a light source can be very intense, you know, and which can, which again is, is not comfortable. So I, I tend to use, try to use light. Light fittings where the LED sits back and you don't see the light source or with the lights of LED tape if you integrate it and hide it, you know, so if you have it at skirting level and you don't see it, but it just creates it low on the floor, then that's much more comfortable to the eye. It's, it's not a bright glaring light source. It's. It's an indirect reflected light. So in, in general lighting that would be my approach is just more reflected light that you don't, you're not looking directly at the light Source. So yeah, flicker is a big thing that I'm looking to, to create zero flicker. I'm looking to bring in infrared if I can. I'm testing out some products that just came in. You can buy infrared LED tape as well. I'm looking to. It's tricky as well because what, what I'm nervous of and this is an evolving sort of and I think it will have keep evolving. What I'm nervous of is, is creating unintended consequences if that makes sense. I think we overestimate our. Understand like it's. And also trying to build in an ability to upgrade because I think our technology is going to keep changing and we're going to learn more and when we do we need to be able to follow that a little bit. You know. So those are, those are probably, yeah, the main principles. Trying to, you know, create those circuits in the right locations for the right time of the day, have the lighting spectrum change as the evening goes on. If I can do that automatically, that's all the better. You know, manage Flickr, go for, you know, flicker free and try to maybe introduce infrared back into this, into the space. So yeah, I'm testing this. This Chinese company's bulbs have come in that have infrared supposedly. So I'm going to see how those work. And so that's, that's the principles. But then each space is a little bit different, you know, so. But it's. You're trying to move from again, you're trying to. What are we doing? We're trying to, we're trying to replicate to a little degree what's happening outside. Lots of windows is the other thing. Yes, lots. And I've, I've orientated the. My desk that I'm working at is going to be at an openable window that faces to, you know, faces the data open. So I get full data because I actually think that's the most important thing that lots of glazing, we're south facing openable windows that are facing the right direction that I can. Because that like during the daytime I'm thinking if I can as long as the weather is suitable, if I can have my windows open and then in the evening just sort of use my artificial light in a very mindful way. I think is, I think that's the best sort of, you know, solution.

Meredith Oke [40:29 - 40:44]: So yeah, there's so much there and it's, it's interesting too because I hadn't thought about it quite that way. But, but you, what was the light that you, that you were calling LEDs or light. Productive light or what was the term.

Willie Duggan [40:44 - 40:47]: You were using for, for LED or.

Meredith Oke [40:47 - 40:52]: For just the difference between ambient light and light when you need to do stuff. What was, what were you calling.

Willie Duggan [40:52 - 41:08]: Yeah, so there's functional light, right? Functional lighting, which is like just task lighting, which is giving you the light you need to read or to cook your, to cook or, you know, any of those functions, you know, and then there's sort of ambient, which is more relaxing background lighting.

Meredith Oke [41:10 - 41:36]: So yeah, it's interesting that we have created environments that have almost exclusively task lighting. It's like, I think it says something about our culture as well though, that we have a expectation that we're going to be productive all the time and we don't even, you know, create homes and living spaces that take into account times where we're not task focused.

Willie Duggan [41:36 - 44:10]: Yeah. And the lighting started for the task. The lighting, lighting industry and let's say lighting design was obsessed with past lighting. As part of my masters in, in London, I had to. One of the, One of the assignments we were given was to, to do a report on lighting research from 1970 to 2009, which, when I was doing it and I worked through all the research with two things. A couple of, number of things struck me. There was, so, there was a small group of researchers that were commenting on each other's papers and so it was quite a small sort of community. And they kept, they kept focusing on how much light you needed for this task, how much light you needed for that task. And I was like, you know, by the time I got to, you know, the 90s, I was here. Did I not realize? But they kept going down this task route and really they came to conclusion that the eye is incredibly adaptable. Like there's general sort of guidelines, they don't need to be that, that, that stringent, but the eye is just incredibly adaptable. And it just. The one thing that struck me with it and, and it does, I think light has, has been in, in the public consciousness and most people's consciousness. Like it's purely a functional thing. You know, how much light do I need to see? And that is it rather than. No, there's, there's an emotional aspect, there's a huge health aspect. So yeah, and the lighting researchers were like that. But it's, it's just, it struck me how, how caught in their, in their lane they were, you know, how the industry just went off one direction and everybody was doing it, so everyone just kept doing it. And it's something that really I think is great with the, with the, with the Quantum Biology Collective and things like that. I think we need, we need professions, you know, parallel or diverse professions talking to each other. Like if, if the lighting industry and the lighting research field, which is a small field in itself, again it's similar, I came back in and research paper, similar names coming up. But they need to be checking the, you know, the papers from the health side, you know, and they need to be seeing that. And I think we need proper sort of collaboration between design professionals from, you know, parallel or we're approaching the same problem from different directions, you know, with different perspectives and that's where we get proper solutions. Because I think otherwise, where a lot of industries are just repeating the same thing because that's what they've done and they just take a long time to change, you know.

Meredith Oke [44:11 - 44:28]: Yeah, I love that. Yes. This idea of collaborations with lighting designers and researchers and health professionals and just regular people who don't want their homes to be quietly causing chronic illness.

Willie Duggan [44:28 - 44:30]: Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Meredith Oke [44:33 - 45:02]: That sort of brings up, you know, I was like delighted that to have you join the cohort, the most recent cohort for the applied Quantum Biology certification and we, you're definitely our first lighting designer to come through and as you were saying, to have that like cross disciplinary community, I think is one of our main goals. So thank you for bringing the lighting design industry into the fold. But how'd you get here?

Willie Duggan [45:04 - 46:02]: How did I get here? Yeah, I suppose obviously I grew up in lighting and. Well, yeah, so it's been part of my, my life. I, I, I became an engineer and, and I, I worked for a number of years in engineering and then, and then became a light designer. Moved back to the family business here. So lighting has been a huge, huge part of my life. But I also had sort of health journey, I suppose like a lot of people in this, in this world. I had a stroke in 2013 from a, from a rugby injury just tackling a guy and I just ended up with, with a pretty bad sort of caught on my face and 30, 30 stitches. But then, and then 10 days later I had a stroke. So it wasn't sort of, it was, it was a crazy, it's a crazy set of circumstances actually. It was a clotting from the cut that caused the stroke.

Meredith Oke [46:02 - 46:05]: I was gonna say that's awfully young to have a stroke. I see.

Willie Duggan [46:05 - 47:17]: Yeah, 33 was crazy, crazy time to age to have it as. But it's sort of, and I had it, I had a cerebral stroke. So it sort of healed like initially I Had issues with sort of, you know, coordination and movement, my voice and eyesight and stuff like that. But that sort of, over the space of a number of weeks started to heal. And I suppose if you had met me two or three weeks afterwards, you might, seen, you might have said, God, he looks, he looks pretty good, you know, and I thought maybe I'm, I'm pretty good. But I tried to get back to work and managing a business and it was absolutely crazy that the guidance was pretty poor. I think they, they don't deal with 33 year old stroke patients that often and I think the guidance might have been, if I was maybe in my 70s and doing less, it might have been different. So I sort of crashed, I crashed over a number of months and sort of, I had lots of issues new with terms of headaches and noises and I couldn't do tasks together and stuff like that. And, and then after, after about two months, yeah, went into the doctor and he offered of course antidepressants and it really didn't feel like the, the route. So I ended up sort of going.

Meredith Oke [47:17 - 47:28]: Sorry, I, I, I just want to go back to that for a second. So you were having trouble recovering from a stroke and the physician was like, oh, try these antidepressants.

Willie Duggan [47:29 - 47:33]: Yeah, it just, for me just felt like, hold on a second.

Meredith Oke [47:33 - 47:37]: Well, yeah, because you're not depressed, you're injured.

Willie Duggan [47:38 - 48:17]: That's, I had a lot of anxiety and that comes with, with brain injury, but it was, to me it was like, God, I think I need to rest. You know, I think I need something else. And I got into meditation and sort of went down that route. Not the course of press, but it just seemed like that was the first option and I was here. My God, is this, this the only op. Is this the only way that they deal with these things? You know. So it was to me, I suppose, yeah. And maybe for lots of people on these journeys it was a real insight because before that my doctor had told me to, I don't know, stand in my head in the corner of the room, I would have to get better. I probably would have done it, you know.

Meredith Oke [48:17 - 48:27]: But you had an intuition, even though you weren't particularly into health, you just had an intuition that the option of that prescription was the wrong thing to do for you.

Willie Duggan [48:27 - 49:19]: Yeah, it just felt wrong. It just felt like, no, I'm, I'm, I'm, yeah, I'm sort of two months post stroke and I'm, I think I need to rest. You know, I think there needs to be another. It Wasn't, you know, the context probably wasn't, didn't seem to be considered. And it was more, you know, this is a solution and maybe this is sort you, you know, but it wasn't, it didn't seem very considered. So yeah, I did take my own journey then. You know, I researched antidepressants, which was eye opening and researched the brain health. It was, I had a crazy occurrence about three months after that. I went to Portugal with my parents on a. Just for a break and we end up in a retreat outside of Lisbon and there was a bunch of brain scientists having a sort of a retreat brainstorming session or something.

Meredith Oke [49:20 - 49:24]: You ended up at the same hotel as a brain science retreat.

Willie Duggan [49:25 - 49:26]: You couldn't make it up.

Meredith Oke [49:26 - 49:28]: Entanglement.

Willie Duggan [49:29 - 52:02]: Well, you talk about, you talk about energy or not synergy, we talk about coincidences or whatever. But I ended up chatting to an American brain scientist and I told him my story, which had only happened recently. And he was, he's fascinated. He's dealing with rats most of the time, he said, and just to talk to a patient was great. And he, he was working on the, on the European brain project. And he said that at the time, he said that the aim of the project was to create an artificial brain. And he said this is crazy because he said our understanding of the brain is so minuscule. He said we really don't understand it. At the time he was saying, look, I'm really worried about like he could see in the States how they were, you know, giving kids Ritalin and different types of sort of drugs. And he said we don't really understand how these drugs work because we don't understand how the brain works and we don't understand how, you know, the long term consequences. Will that kid be the same kid in 10 or 15 years time? And it was just such an insight because. And it was crazy the coincidence that they happened to be there. But he invited me into his laboratories the next day and I went in and took a tour with him. But it really sort of gave me an insight on my doctor. Then I was like, if the brain scientist doesn't know, how can he know? You know, how? Like I said, how much do does conventional medicine know? And I'm not saying that it's, you know, there's not, you know, like I did get an umbrella in my heart for the whole of my heart and fix it and it was pretty amazing. And that's conventional medicine, but there's an awful lot. It really sort of drove home to me that there's there's an awful lot that it doesn't know, you know. And so, yeah, it was an eye opening journey for me and it sort of, it set me on health sort of journey and it, and what's been crazy with the quantum, you know, getting in touch with you guys and seeing, you know, the, the whole sort of research on, on mitochondria and, and sort of the bigger picture, you know, in terms of, you know, how our environment's affecting us, it sort of brought two worlds together for me. You know, like I, I work in, in light and I have worked with light all my life and grew up in it. And now it, it overlaps with that, that health journey I've been on, which is, yeah, really energizing for me. I just, yeah, it's, it's. And I'm just so happy I'm doing what I'm doing because it's sort of, it feels like, you know, that there's a place I can maybe make a difference in. In that conversation, you know.

Meredith Oke [52:03 - 52:21]: Wow, what an incredible story. And I love that you applied all your, your research skills, you know, from studying your area of expertise and you just. I'm like, I'm gonna research antidepressants, I'm gonna research brain health. And you just kept moving forward into other areas.

Willie Duggan [52:22 - 53:08]: Yeah, and it's somebody's. They're fascinating topics once you get into them, you know, like, especially when it's, it's very relevant to you. At the time, you know, like I was going through it sort of like I had certain symptoms where it was like when I researched the latest research on the cerebellum, like the cerebellum was supposed to only coordinate movement and you know, this, whatever they. But there was a lot more research that it tends to coordinate sort of, you know, mental processes as well, so might have explained and some of it is just trauma to the brain. I think that it takes time to, to recover, but it's, it's. They're fascinating topics in themselves. But it's like this, it was probably, you know, it was a really positive thing for me and you know, in the bigger scheme of things. Even though at the time it was, you know, not straightforward.

Meredith Oke [53:09 - 53:44]: Yes. Well, I love it and I really, I feel like you're, you know, your work is leading the way for us to just live in a new paradigm where instead of waiting until we get a symptom and then going to the doctor to get something to treat or mask the symptom, we're shifting into a way of thinking where it's like, how do we create our living environment? How do we structure our lives in a way where we stay healthy?

Willie Duggan [53:44 - 53:45]: Yeah.

Meredith Oke [53:45 - 53:55]: And like our, our home and our office is part of that. And it's just, it's a totally different. It's a totally different paradigm.

Willie Duggan [53:56 - 55:24]: Yeah, yeah, completely. And it sort of. But that's what the quantum sort of health paradigm is sort of about, isn't it? You know, it's, it's like, yeah, it's, it's our environment that's. That's causing so much of our problems. And you know, it's obviously getting back to nature, getting outside. But then look in climates like I'm in Ireland, you're up in Canada, I think, and in the winter it can be harsh environments and we do, you know, end up in inside and it's just trying to, I think, trying to optimize our environment inside. I think my wife thinks I'm going crazy because I'm proposing so many different things. I'm looking at everything all the time. But it's sort of like I just feel there's an opportunity for us because we're building right now, particularly with the knowledge that I'm sort of gaining through to, to my journey to the quantum. You know, biology certification there before Christmas. And your, your podcast here is a fantastic resource to, to mindfully build things into the home. You know, like it's, it doesn't. If we can do it in the right way, you know, it's not going to impact our lives, of the functions in our lives, but it can, it can, it can keep us healthy and you know, so we can sort of have the best of both worlds.

Meredith Oke [55:25 - 55:43]: I think so. Super cool. Is there anything that you wanted to add or anything that's coming to you? You have so much knowledge in this area, you know, just in terms of what us non lighting designers can think about or look for in the world or anything at all.

Willie Duggan [55:43 - 57:46]: Yeah, I don't know. The collaboration, I think like, certainly like I've been pushing, I've sort of put in talks for the. There's an enlightened Europe conference this year. I'd love to get some, you know, like I think we need the two words speaking to each other. I like, I think the lighting design world, right. So it's sort of, it's the lighting designers and the likes of the, you know, at. The likes of the lighting designers push the manufacturers and it's the lighting designers that create the standards. So like there's, there's standards and recommendations that are Created and it's, you know, you have, you have engineers, you know, that would be an architects that will work a lot off these lighting and recommendation standards. But it's the lighting designers that drive those and make the changes to those. So I think we, it's been huge like for me we've been trying to create in our business here a co creative space and we have created a co creative space. But the vision was to bring your light professionals together. You know, people, you're working in light from visualization to. Because it's actually very exciting time and lighting because we can play with light like color, just like art, just like festivals. So like there is exciting. I know it's junk life but I mean we can use it at certain times of the day to create, you know, some beautiful, you know, lighting is a beautiful. So it's a beautiful medium to be creative with. So that's so exciting. And our vision with our space was to bring those type professionals together because they can, they can only help each other, you know. But I think as we developed it, Ireland is too small and our. And, and the likes of the lighting lighting professional sort of and the quantum maybe sort of community is still quite small. It's more of a worldwide thing. But I think I have a vision of sort of bringing different sort of lighting groups together to collaborate that we can get professionals from the health space talking directly at lighting design conferences or even hold. I know there's a water conference, but I don't know, sometime in the future could there be one based around light where we get. I actually talked to Jacob Israel Lieberman.

Meredith Oke [57:46 - 57:46]: I don't know.

Willie Duggan [57:46 - 58:54]: Yes, yes, there recently I just was fantastic because I'd read his book and I thought he was amazing and he's, he comes from the, he's an optometrist like originally so dealing with eye, eye sort of conditions. And he has so much, he has so much insight that can feed into lighting, you know, that can feed into health that can. And you know there's, there's me coming from the light design and if we can get the, if we can get professionals from, you know, all these, you know, design fields or health fields talking to each other, I think that, that, that ultimately could, could like we're all trying to solve the same problem, aren't we? We're all trying to solve this puzzle and I think it's by bringing people together from different backgrounds. I'd love to get. Yeah. And ultimately if we can get the lighting designers to see, to see that how important, you know, that human biology should be the number one thing. They'll push the manufacturers, they'll push the recommendations, and those standards will feed down to everyone. We need, you know, so, yeah, I don't know. I don't have a rule.

Meredith Oke [58:55 - 59:11]: No, I know that we are out in the unknown, I mean, universe. We were on a coaching call yesterday and someone was like, so is the future of it. And I'm like, you know what? Like, we're at the beginning here. So it could go in so many different ways.

Willie Duggan [59:11 - 59:14]: It's, you know, and that is the thing. We're not.

Meredith Oke [59:14 - 59:21]: You're creating the future. Your ideas are going to help to create what homes are going to feel like for the next 50 years.

Willie Duggan [59:22 - 59:34]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's. And it's so exciting. Yeah, yeah. You'd like to think, yeah, maybe 10, 15 years time we start. Well, maybe quicker. Quicker we start to see environments that are.

Meredith Oke [59:34 - 59:51]: Yeah, I mean, things are shifting so fast. There are things happening now. If you'd asked me six months ago, it had been like, that's impossible. We just have to stay in our little bubble in our little parallel universe, and no one's over there is going to change. And now they're all like, all kinds of things are happening.

Willie Duggan [59:51 - 59:52]: Wow.

Meredith Oke [59:52 - 59:53]: Okay.

Willie Duggan [59:53 - 59:54]: You just got to roll with it.

Meredith Oke [59:54 - 1:00:01]: It's great, isn't it? It's great. Like, okay, I'm getting my surfboard. Let's ride the waves.

Willie Duggan [1:00:03 - 1:00:18]: One last thing, actually, I am, as I said, I'm going to share my. I'm taking a leap. I'm going to share my home as I develop it across our social media channels. So if people want to follow it.

Meredith Oke [1:00:19 - 1:00:22]: Oh, fantastic. Yes. How do we do that? Tell us.

Willie Duggan [1:00:22 - 1:00:28]: So. Yeah, I don't know. You probably put it in the show notes. We've got an Instagram account. We've got a YouTube account. I put it on LinkedIn as well.

Meredith Oke [1:00:28 - 1:00:30]: Okay, and is that your name?

Willie Duggan [1:00:31 - 1:00:35]: It's Willie dugan, actually. Yeah. Willydogen.com is our website. So the business is called Willie Dugan.

Meredith Oke [1:00:35 - 1:00:38]: And are the. Is the social media mostly at Willy Duggan?

Willie Duggan [1:00:39 - 1:00:48]: Yeah, I think it's. I think, I think on Instagram it's Willy Duggan. Okay. And so that's YouTube.

Meredith Oke [1:00:48 - 1:01:15]: Okay. So w I L L I E D U G G A N. Stick that in. Keep the platform of your choice. And yes, that's going to be really fun. Yeah. Tag. Tag me as a collaborator. Tag the QVC as a collaborator. And I'll share it to our, to our feed as well, because people would Love to see with your training, your understanding, your access to resources, like, it's going to be really fun to watch what you do.

Willie Duggan [1:01:16 - 1:01:24]: Well, for me, like, it's, it's evolved. Like this is. I don't have all the answers. You know, I'm evolving to evolve something. So it's, it's a little, little bit of a leap of faith.

Meredith Oke [1:01:24 - 1:01:34]: Well, actually, yeah, that's true. You'll probably get some feedback because I'm telling you, the attention to detail on certain topics in this sphere, like people, the more feedback.

Willie Duggan [1:01:34 - 1:01:35]: Like if people had ideas.

Meredith Oke [1:01:35 - 1:01:40]: Well, actually if you moved it a quarter of a centimeter lower the angle of the.

Willie Duggan [1:01:41 - 1:02:01]: Even with the lights, infrared and trying to build that in and just trying to understand what wavelengths and stuff like that. But it's sort of. Yeah. God, people, ideas, great. But like the idea was to. Yeah. To work through the different spaces with people, give them my insight on what I'm looking to do and then look at as it develops and sort of. Yeah, just it's, it's putting a, you know, it's putting a framework.

Meredith Oke [1:02:01 - 1:02:08]: That's so fun. Well, we should do. We should do an Instagram live or a YouTube live and you can give us a tour when you're ready.

Willie Duggan [1:02:08 - 1:02:09]: Cool.

Meredith Oke [1:02:09 - 1:02:13]: Yeah, even just different stages of the progress. Oh, this will be really fun.

Willie Duggan [1:02:13 - 1:02:15]: Yeah, I'd love to.

Meredith Oke [1:02:15 - 1:02:31]: Okay. I love it. So good. Thank you so much for being on, sharing your journey. Yeah, no, I'm feeling really just the world is just so fun.

Willie Duggan [1:02:31 - 1:02:35]: Yeah. Loads of opportunity. Yeah, we're at a great time.

Meredith Oke [1:02:36 - 1:02:40]: Great. Well, really lovely to chat with you. Love to do it again.

Willie Duggan [1:02:40 - 1:02:41]: Cheers. See you.