Dimpsy Tall

Dimpsy Tall

The floor lamp. It stands with the head above and behind a seated shoulder, and lights whoever is in the chair, the page they are holding, and very little else.

Dimpsy Tall standing beside an armchair in a room at night

Floor lamps are mostly sold as furniture that happens to glow, and are usually placed where they look right rather than where the light is needed. Dimpsy Tall was drawn around one position — behind and above a seated shoulder — because that is where reading light has wanted to be since long before there was electricity to power it. Everything else about the lamp follows from holding the head at that height without a shade, a hinge or a visible bulb.

Warmfall

Output and colour temperature fall together on one control, from 3,000K down to 1,800K. The curve warms slowly through the top of the range, where you are still working, and quickly through the bottom, where you are not. Standing behind a chair the lamp lights a person rather than a surface, and skin is unforgiving about colour. Falling to 1,800K keeps a face warm at the end of the evening instead of draining it the way a cooling light does.

Steadystate

Most dimmers switch the light off and on very fast and call the average a level. A proportion of people see it — not as flicker exactly, but as a faint unease they blame on being tired. This lowers the current instead, and measures 0 Hz at every setting. This is the lamp people sit under longest, often for a whole evening without moving. Anything that pulses has the most opportunity here to become the tiredness you blame on the book.

Spillguard

A plate inside the head stops the beam before it reaches the wall behind. What you get is a pool of light with an edge on it, rather than a general warming of the room and a bright patch above the desk. The baffle stops the beam before it reaches the wall behind the chair, so the light lands on the page and the reader and stops. A floor lamp without one turns the whole corner grey and takes the room with it.

One button

Press to wake, hold to dim, let go where you want it. The lamp remembers the level you left it at, so the second evening takes one press. Everything else is optional. The button sits at hand height on the column, roughly where your arm already is when you are sitting down. You will not look at it after the first week.


Calibrated to you

The lamp runs its curve on its own. The app adds scheduling, Apple Home automation, voice control, and a calibration that reads your sleep from Apple Health and moves the curve toward what your own eyes turn out to need.

Get on App Store
The Dimpsy app on iPhone

Specifications

Height148 cm
Base diameter26 cm
Weight4.4 kg
Output620 lm at full
Warmfall range3,000–1,800 K
Colour rendering97 CRI
Flicker0 Hz at every setting
Beam angle38°
Power2–14 W
Supply24 V DC, external
MountingWeighted base
Rated life50,000 h to L80

Questions

Why does it get more orange as it dims?

Because that is what the end of a day does, and because your eyes expect it. Below about 50 lux, cool light reads as clinical and warm light reads as evening. The longer version is on How it falls.

What is a Kelvin?

A measure of how warm or cool a light source is — lower is warmer. Candlelight is around 1,850 K, a domestic bulb is 2,700, an office ceiling is 4,000, and midday outside is about 5,500. It is not a measure of brightness, which is the thing most people expect it to be.

Will it be bright enough?

Yes, and brighter than you expect at full. It is a task lamp: a lot of light onto a small area rather than a little onto a whole room. If you want to light an entire room from one object, this is the wrong object.

Is there an app?

No.

How long does shipping take?

Three to five business days across the EU and the US. Everything ships from Ghent. There is no expedited option, because there is no warehouse to expedite from.

Can I return it?

Sixty days, opened, used, no reason required. Put it back in the box it came in. We pay return shipping within the EU; outside it, we split it.

Do you sell through retailers?

No. A shop that carries this alongside forty other lamps has to explain the dimming curve to every customer, and it turns out they do not.

What does the warranty cover?

Five years, the whole lamp rather than just the LED. The head detaches from the column without tools, so a failed emitter is a part we post to you rather than a lamp you post to us. The cable is replaceable for the same reason.