Latest news with #LEDlights
CNET
2 days ago
- CNET
Experts Answer: Why Our LED Lights Die So Quickly
Today's LED lights offer warm colors, smart connections -- and higher prices than old incandescents. That's what makes it so disappointing when they suddenly fail after a year or two of use even though they're promised for years of low-energy performance. It's happened to me and many others, too, so I asked the experts to figure out what's going on. It turns out our home LED bulbs fail for very specific reasons and there are steps we can take to keep them lasting as long as they should. Here's what's going on. 1. LED lifespan ratings are a broad average, not a promise Not all LEDs last the numbers you see on the box don't always work out in real life. LED bulbs do last longer but those claims about five to 10 years are estimates based on internal testing -- and companies are always looking for ways to show their bulbs in, well, the best possible light. So if the packaging says the bulb lasts seven years, that means testing showed an average of seven years, and you don't always know the math applied to get that result. Thomas Grable, from the LEDvance product technical team, said that when LED bulb averages fall within a normal distribution chart, about 95% of the values fall within two standard deviations of the mean. That still means some LED lights will experience short lifetimes -- and as Grable points out, we're more likely to remember the lights that flicker and die right away than those that plod on. Plus, companies may use sneakier language, like "up to seven years," which means they're probably doing serious weighting toward the very top performers in their bulb testing, making it more likely you'll see bulbs fall short. And don't forget to check LED bulb details for how the manufacturer is defining a single day of use in these year calculations (if it says). Some companies use a more honest 6 to 8 hours of use for a single day. Others may use two to three hours of use to greatly inflate their lifespan numbers. All that said, Grable reports that incandescent bulbs have an average of about 800 hours, far shorter than the average of most LED bulbs, so you should still be getting your money's worth unless something goes wrong. That's where other factors come in. 2. LED drivers overheat and fail Temperature plays a key role in LED life. Getty Images The LED, or light-emitting diode, is very unlikely to fail, and if it does, it goes out slowly over years. Instead, it's the other electrical bits in LED bulbs that fail and cut off the bulb's light. LED bulbs use DC power, which requires a converter and drivers to switch from standard AC power in homes. That means inside every LED bulb are tiny circuit components -- and their soldered contact points -- which are far more vulnerable than the diode itself. The Lighting Research Center of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute reports that research shows the delicate soldered points are most likely to fail in harsh conditions. Heat, in particular, can cause these components to quickly break, so installing an LED bulb in a hot corner of your home or in a deep-set socket with poor ventilation can cause the lights to go out far sooner than expected. You can help prevent these issues by looking for LED bulbs that have weighty aluminum heat-sink materials but ultimately LED bulbs won't perform the same in high heat conditions. 3. Your home electrical power may not be 'clean' Chris Wedel/CNET In electrical grid terms, clean power is steady and reliable, with very accurate alternating current and few unexpected spikes in amps. But not all electricity is like that. Depending on the electrical infrastructure near your home, your power may be on the dirtier side, with tiny spikes in power, and other problems. LED bulb converters need to manage all those small discrepancies, which can quickly wear them down and cause them to overheat. If you seem to frequently lose bulbs around the home for no good reason, you could have a dirty power supply. 4. Sockets may be old or installation may be poor An Ecosmart dimmable bulb against a wood surface. Tyler Lacoma/CNET Even if your electricity is clean, a bad installation could yield the same effects as dirty power. Old, dirty sockets won't transfer electricity as smoothly, creating burnout issues. And screwing in an LED bulb too loosely or too tightly can also create problems. Aim for a firm but gentle installation process in a clean socket for the best results. 5. Your home may have high humidity High humidity is bad for electrical connections that bulbs use. Olga Dobrovolska via Getty Humidity teams up with heat to wear down LED electrical components even faster. If you live in a wet area with high moisture content in your indoor air, LED bulbs aren't as likely to last their full lifespan. Luckily, CNET has several dehumidifier recommendations to help dry out your home. 6. LED bulbs and old dimmers don't mix LED bulbs might not work well with older dimmer switches. Treatlife Many LED bulbs can dim, but that doesn't mean they play well with older home dimmer switches. As LED installer Torchlight mentions, old dimmers are made to work with high-wattage incandescent bulbs. They don't really know what to do with low-wattage LEDs, which leads to burnout issues. You can either install an LED dimmer switch or -- my preferred option -- choose a smart LED bulb with self-dimming features you can control via app rather than relying on old-fashioned dimmers. 7. Quality control issues can be a factor LED bulb installation and manufacturing quality are key. Getty Images Finally, the manufacturing quality of LED bulbs will affect all the issues I've discussed above. Many manufacturers have serviceable diodes but try to save money on cheap drivers and converters (as well as sloppy assembly techniques), which is a major cause behind early failure. When picking an LED bulb, it's best to stick with well-known, reliable brands, even if you have to pay a bit more. For smart bulbs, our testers have found some of the best results from Philips, Wiz, Govee, Nanoleaf and Cree. To find the best LED bulbs for your home, visit our guides to the best LED bulb for every room in your house, what to consider when switching to LED bulbs, and the best LED floodlight bulbs we've tested.
RNZ News
3 days ago
- RNZ News
Night sky turning blue for Matariki
By Laine Priestley of Iona Church in Port Chalmers has had blue LED lights installed, giving a haunting effect for Matariki. Photo: ODT / Gregor Richardson High above Port Chalmers, a historic church is turning the night sky bright blue to celebrate Matariki. Historic Iona Church Restoration Trust committee member Bruce Clark was in the church for about five hours on Monday setting up the lights. The trust decided to light up the church to celebrate Matariki this Friday. "We wanted to show how the church can be used in different ways and also give back to the community a bit." He said it took 30 LED lights to fully illuminate the church. "When you walk around the church, it's actually glowing on the pathways around the church - some people are saying it looks eerie ... but it's just a blue glow on the windows." Project leader Bruce Clark tests the effect of the blue lights. Photo: ODT / Gregor Richardson Last year, the trust illuminated the clock tower and, after the great reception, decided to take it a step further and light the whole church. Money raised by the cruise ship passengers who visited the church paid for the display, Clark said. The church would glow blue until Sunday and he hoped it would draw some late-night visitors to Port Chalmers. People would be able to walk around the church grounds and take photos from outside. However, visitors would not be able to enter the church because of the amount of cabling used for the display. Any high point around the town was also a great vantage point, he said. The church lights run on a self-timer and would be on from 5pm to midnight. The clock, however, would stay blue day and night. This story was first published by the Otago Daily Times .
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
After surviving collapse, fire and Dillinger escape, Dakota County swing bridge begins new chapter
At 130 years old, one Dakota County bridge has been traversed by horse-drawn carriages, a notorious bank robber and firefighters in the nick of time. But its story isn't finished yet. The Rock Island Swing Bridge, which juts out about 680 feet over the Mississippi River from Inver Grove Heights, will begin its latest chapter on the evening of Tuesday, June 17, as it's lit up with thousands of LEDs. 'Council members, the Convention and Visitors Bureau, residents … everybody wants to stake claim as to whose idea this was,' Adam Lares, parks and recreation director for Inver Grove Heights, said with a chuckle. The $553,000 project will culminate in nightly light shows that run every quarter hour from 7 to 10 p.m. through the summer, Lares said. 'It's part of our identity,' he said of the bridge. 'We want to preserve the history. That's the key in all this.' As for the lights, there are 54 interior light fixtures, each containing 256 LEDs. The historic section of the bridge features 30 exterior flood-light fixtures, each containing 500 LEDs, which amounts to 28,824 LEDs across the bridge. 'Each light, down to about a quarter of an inch, can be programmed,' Lares said. He recalled a recent test run with a patriotic theme where the lights were programmed to mimic a waving flag. During events, the light shows will also feature music, he said. Mike Reis, front office manager of Twin City Marina, located half a mile northwest of the bridge, said he doesn't anticipate the lights will cause any issues for boaters and he hasn't heard any complaints from customers. 'We're all for the lights to make things more visible,' he said, adding, 'The colors are neat; hopefully they can do Vikings colors someday.' The cost to run the lights, estimated to be about $4,000 annually, will be covered by the Parks Department's operating budget, Lares said, which is consistent with how electrical costs are managed throughout the park system. Inver Grove Heights isn't the only Dakota County city with an affinity for flare, er, flair. Earlier this year, Eagan re-lit its historic Sperry Tower after a lightning strike in 2023 left it dark. 'The (bridge) once connected across the river and it was vital infrastructure before I-494 came along,' Lares said. 'It gave you the opportunity to cross the Mississippi River. It was our legacy.' Completed in 1895 and spanning 1,661 feet, the Rock Island Swing Bridge was the largest of its kind in the country at the time. First used by horse-drawn wagons and trains, the bridge provided a connection between stockyards in South St. Paul and main rail lines across the river. The bridge's unusual double-decker design would later allow motor vehicles on the lower deck while trains rumbled across on the upper deck, the Pioneer Press reported. Rock Island Railroad operated it as a toll bridge until 1938, when the Legislature made it free to cross. As local legend goes, the bridge served as an escape route for Depression-era bank robber John Dillinger. The notorious outlaw crossed it in a stolen car while high-tailing to Chicago after a shootout with Dakota County authorities in the mid-1930s. In 1980, the railroad went bankrupt and as a result the bridge closed to rail traffic. Nearly two decades later, the bridge closed to vehicle traffic. In 2008, a 200-foot segment of the eastern stretch of the bridge collapsed into the riverbank and the remaining section was slated for demolition. Two days before demolition, former Gov. Tim Pawlenty gave the Dakota County side of the bridge a two-year reprieve when he signed the state's bonding bill, which included a moratorium. 'God bless Governor Pawlenty, different party than me, but we both traveled across that bridge as kids,' said Dakota County Commissioner Joe Atkins, who was a state representative at the time and introduced the moratorium. 'We passed that bill and got a respite to figure out the next steps.' Shortly after, the National Park Service hosted a bridge tour to gauge public interest in reusing the Inver Grove Heights side as a scenic pier. There were long lines all day to get on it, the Pioneer Press reported. In 2010, tragedy struck again as the bridge caught fire just three weeks out from being restored to a public pier. Firefighters worked for three hours on the pier and in boats to douse the burning creosote-soaked wooden deck stringers. It was concluded that the fire started from welding sparks. Despite the setbacks, the bridge reopened in 2011 as a public pier, spanning some 680 feet over the river. 'You've got this fixture in the community, over a century old, and it's found a way to remain relevant and popular with individuals and families for 130 years now,' Atkins said. 'This latest feature probably won't be the last. It seems to spur creativity and interest among residents across all ages and generations.' Northwest of the bridge sits Heritage Village Park, one of the city's latest development projects. At the park visitors will find an 11-acre off-leash dog park that was once a polluted rail yard. The dog park, which opened in 2019, cost just under $900,000, a total that includes a parking lot, lighting, fencing, benches, drinking fountains and storm water treatment. 'It's a very popular dog park. It is just off the charts the number of people that use it,' said Atkins, who was elected mayor of Inver Grove Heights in 1992 and held the position for 10 years. Next steps for the park include the construction of an inclusive playground, splash pad and expanded parking lot, according to city documents. Last November, Dakota County leaders celebrated construction of the first phase of the new Veterans Memorial Greenway, a three-part project that eventually will connect Lebanon Hills Regional Park and the Mississippi River Greenway with five miles of trails interspersed with memorials for military veterans and their families. Miss Juneteenth crowns Minnesota's young Black queens Here's how the 2025 MN Legislature impacted Ramsey, Washington, Dakota counties 2 federally charged with machine gun possession after violence at Twin Cities graduations Hastings' Smead Manufacturing sold to TOPS products in Illinois Metal manufacturer to lay off nearly 150 in Lakeville, Shakopee, Plymouth The first phase is the central section of the greenway, running for two miles between Alameda Path and Rich Valley Park in Inver Grove Heights. The Mississippi River Greenway, which runs for 28 miles along the river connecting St. Paul to Hastings, also includes a trailhead at the Rock Island Swing Bridge that opened in 2015. 'In my opinion, the swing bridge rivals the bison for the top spots people want to stop and enjoy along the Mississippi Greenway,' Atkins said, referring to the herd of American Plains bison that graze at Spring Lake Park Reserve northwest of Hastings. The bison, who were reintroduced to the prairie in 2022, are part of a plan to naturalize the park's landscape by restoring the oak savanna and prairie landscape of the past. 'We are trying to build connectivity back to that river,' Lares said of the lighting project. 'We're trying to make sure that we don't forget our history and pay homage to that bridge and the natural beauty around it.' When: 7 to 10 p.m. Tuesday, June 17 Where: 4465 E. 66th St., Inver Grove Heights Details: Cost: Free Miss Juneteenth crowns Minnesota's young Black queens Here's how the 2025 MN Legislature impacted Ramsey, Washington, Dakota counties 2 federally charged with machine gun possession after violence at Twin Cities graduations Hastings' Smead Manufacturing sold to TOPS products in Illinois Metal manufacturer to lay off nearly 150 in Lakeville, Shakopee, Plymouth
The Sun
27-05-2025
- Lifestyle
- The Sun
Shoppers are raving over 3 IKEA garden buys including a £8 find that'll ‘endure rain and wind & still look brand new'
HOMEOWNERS are going wild over three IKEA buys that will transform your garden on the cheap. With summer practically here, millions of green-fingered Brits have been racing to get their outdoor space ready for the BBQ season ahead. 2 But whilst many may assume that giving their gardens a glow-up will set them back a fortune, one thrifty woman recently proved there's no need to fork out a huge sum. Taking on TikTok, content creator only known as Kjg_home shared how she used £6 and £8 finds from IKEA to transform her garden, leaving many open-mouthed. Sharing her top buys online, the woman recorded herself in the popular Swedish retailer, where she snapped up budget-friendly LED solar-powered pendant lamps. The home interior fan bought the outdoor globe lights in two sizes - the 30cm size which sells for £8 each and the smaller 22cm version, that goes for a mere £6 each. The shopper was thrilled with the ' great buys ', which she described as 'the perfect garden IKEA finds'. According to Kjg Home, there's no need to be wary of the low price tag - as the lights are ''made from water-resistant fabric' - which is a must for the rainy British summers. She went on to rave about the wallet-friendly find in the video, saying: ''Comes in other colours and has an easy hook to hang. ''Leave to soak in the light - they automatically light up at night,'' the IKEA fan said, showing the gorgeous romantic display on her page. ''Hand them anywhere in your garden and watch them transform your space through all the seasons,'' she instructed. Another must-have item to look for next time you plan an IKEA trip is a basic black tray, as well as assortment of faux greenery to create realistic wall display. I hate my new build garden being overlooked so found a 5 METRE privacy fence to block out nosy neighbours for under £30 To make the simply yet stunning piece of art, the savvy DIY fan used a bit of hot glue to attach the mini fake plant pots to the tray. If needed, she went on, trim the ends for a more neat look and use a simple hook to hang the decorated tray. Last but certainly not least was a gorgeous table centrepiece - which also acted as a cheap remedy to keep those pesky mosquitos and bugs at bay. Garden features that add the most value to a house A well-kept garden can add anywhere between 5-20% to the value of a property. carried out a study and consulted 36 estate agents, garden designers and property professionals from across the UK. And the experts revealed the garden feature which adds the most value to a property is a shed. Shed - 82% Patio or paving - 76% Secure fencing, walls or gates - 72% Outdoor lighting - 66% Sturdy decking - 62% Water features eg. fountain or pond - 58% Modern garden furniture - 54% Artificial lawn/grass - 40% For this, you will need IKEA cylinder vases (a three-pack will set you back just £10), as well as some slices of lemon, lemon peel, a few drops of lemongrass oil, fresh rosemary and water. Once you've combined all the ingredients in the vase, top it off with a floating candle, she demonstrated. The IKEA super fan said: ''A beautiful display and smells amazing - but more importantly, keeps the bugs away!'' The TikToker, who's won close to 431k fans on the platform, wrote in the caption: ''3 Ikea finds for the garden! It's due to be lovely for the next few weeks so I'm sharing some of my fave garden finds from @ikeauk. ''Update on the Solvinden water resistant solar lanterns-these have lasted a winter outside in all conditions including snow and still work and look like new.'' 'Will definitely use these' Since being shared online, the video has taken the internet by storm, winning the DIY whizz a whopping 310k views, over 4,100 likes, as well as a staggering 2,518 shares. Dozens of social media users flooded to comments to thank the interior fan for the inspiration. One person wrote: ''Can't wait to own a home so I can make my backyard look pretty.'' ''Thanks for sharing such a great idea,'' a fan penned.
The Drive
23-05-2025
- Automotive
- The Drive
I Loved Driving at Night, Until a Rare Condition Changed Everything
The latest car news, reviews, and features. The night my vision changed, I was driving home from my girlfriend's place. Lights became cloudy streaks; letters and numbers on green highway signs repeated in trails. It was a lot like waking up really dehydrated, when you're acutely aware of how dry your eyes are. In such situations, I'd typically rub them, but I had contacts in and no backup pair of glasses, so that wasn't going to work here. No amount of blinking set things back in alignment. I drove for about 40 minutes, got home, and got into bed. My eyes would feel better in the morning, I thought. Why wouldn't they? It's been three-and-a-half years since then, and my eyes still don't feel right. Fixing them has entailed so many doctor's visits that I've lost count, and eye drops made from my own blood that insurance doesn't cover. But that's skipping ahead. Ever since I began driving, I loved to do it at night. That's become less fun over time due to the onset of LEDs and everyone driving trucks, but this condition has pretty much ruined one of my greatest pleasures. When I woke up the morning after that drive home, I couldn't immediately tell anything was amiss until I sat down at my desk to write. Had my monitor always been this bright? And why did simply looking at it give me a headache? Clearly, I needed to rest my eyes, so I went for a walk outside. Breaks didn't help, and after a few days of this, I realized something was seriously wrong. Driving home on that very first night, my vision kind of felt like this. Mint Images via Getty Images What I'd come to learn (but not before several erroneous diagnoses) was that I had something called corneal neuropathy. Confocal imaging, using a special microscope that could get a look at the nerves that sheet the surface of my eye, showed an alarming lack of them. Nerve endings are supposed to show up like straight-ish squiggles, and mine were faint, kinked, or marred with fuzzy, balled-up clusters; these had responded to whatever trauma my eyes had undergone by regrowing malformed. But in a less technical sense—and the words of one of my ophthalmologists—the nerves in my eyes were ' pissed off .' Corneal neuropathy is like any kind of neuropathy, in that it presents in strange, unique ways for every individual because the human body is a pseudopredictable mess. If you're looking for yet more ways to depress yourselves on the daily, peruse the r/dryeye subreddit. Some folks there have classic dry eye syndrome, which can be debilitating enough on its own; three doctors diagnosed me with the condition while noting that I was far too young to have it. Others in the community have unrelenting, excruciating pain, despite tear ducts that behave perfectly normally, which sometimes goes hand-in-hand with cluster migraines. Corneal neuropathy happens to go by many names, and one of them is neuropathic dry eye; a patient might feel like their eyes are dry, when every possible form of examination indicates that they aren't. Fortunately, my neuropathy does not present as debilitating pain. My eyes feel gritty much of the time, sure, but for the most part, it's a minor annoyance I can deal with by wearing glasses instead of contact lenses and liberally applying over-the-counter tears. Unfortunately , it presents as perpetual sensitivity to highly concentrated, artificial sources of light, more so than broad sunlight. And this brings us to why my experience is here on The Drive , rather than in a case study in the American Journal of Ophthalmology. Though if you look hard enough on Reddit, you might be able to find my story there, too. You may have noticed that modern headlights are bright. They're so bright that even people with healthier eyes than mine are fed up. The problem is twofold. On one hand, today's LED headlights are indeed brighter and emit cooler light than the halogen lamps of 20 years ago. But—and this part tends to get lost in the conversation—car design also plays a role. As vehicles get larger and ride taller, their lights that used to mostly point downward, illuminating the path ahead, now project directly into the retinas of anyone driving anything smaller and lower. You could fight fire with fire and replace your daily with something equally elevated, but that doesn't really fix the problem, and besides, we enthusiasts like to drive what we like. All that is to say that right now is a seriously frustrating time to drive at night for many people. For some dry-eye sufferers, phantom or otherwise, it's harder still. Teenagers appreciate the freedom of driving when they get their learner's permits but of course, after a while, you take it as a given that a car enables you to go anywhere, at any time, limited only by distance and fatigue. But when every streetlamp has a hazy glow to it; when every road sign seems just a touch less sharp; when you can't seem to make the interior lights dim enough; when you have to start positioning your car with a generous buffer zone before oncoming traffic passes because you know you're about to be effectively blind for a second or two; when the night seems darker than you can ever recall, you start avoiding things. One strange side-effect for me through all this is that driving in the rain actually makes my eyes feel more normal. An expert might be able to tell me why, but I'd guess that rain gives my brain an explanation for its cloudy or distorted vision. RifatHasina via Getty Images Sometimes I'd be aware of my avoidance, and sometimes I wouldn't. If I needed to run around the corner to a grocery store to get that one ingredient we'd forgotten for dinner, I might ask my partner to drive. It was the same for long trips through the night. Sometimes, my eyes might feel a little more comfortable than usual, and I'd be more willing to try. Other times, I'd wonder if I was a danger to myself, anyone riding with me, and anyone I shared the road with. Those are depressing questions to ask yourself. But the especially insidious part was how early on in this journey, dread would set in every night, and I never knew why. It might hit me with the passing of the day, or when I'd go to take out the trash. Of course, I didn't realize what I'd actually been dreading—the loss of freedom and the inability to easily do something I love. Through most of my 20s, I'd guess more than half of my driving happened after the sun went down. I honestly preferred it that way. That was partially down to having a job at a newspaper production office, where I wouldn't go home until we sent content to the presses. But those first few years out of college were full of late hangs with friends, impromptu Wawa runs, and trips to and from basement shows. I usually had the most fun when I was going somewhere at night. And when I had the car to myself, it was therapeutic. There's still no greater solitude to me than being alone on a back road; that's when I most deeply feel the joy of driving. I don't necessarily have to be going fast either, and trust me, along the Delaware River, that's the perfect way to inadvertently control the deer population. At night, the world is only ever as large as what my headlights can see, and that's a pretty comforting feeling. Corneal neuropathy almost destroyed it, and for the last several years, I doubted I'd ever get it back. When I was diagnosed with this condition, a doctor told me the only thing that was likely to help was autologous serum eye drops (ASEDs). These drops are a combination of serum from the patient's own blood, and saline. Doctors prescribe different concentrations of serum and recommend different regimens for every patient (for what it's worth, I'm on a 20% concentration eight times a day), but the principle here is that, unlike artificial tears, ASEDs 'share many of the same biochemical properties as real tears,' per Medical News Today , and contain even higher concentrations of biological nutrients like vitamin A, proteins, and transforming growth factor than natural tears do. That stimulates healing when nerves in the eye struggle to heal on their own. I tried ASEDs, alongside fancy glasses, occasional steroids, and a host of different drugs that target chronic nerve pain, on and off, for two years. Serum tears are expensive—I pay $400 for a three-month dose, and insurance doesn't cover them, because why would they? I'd pass on refills because I wasn't seeing the results I hoped for, and couldn't stomach the expense. It already angered me that I was ripping through $20 bottles of normal eye drops every three weeks; $400 for a treatment I wasn't sure was helping and made travel an absolute pain (you've got to keep them cold all the time , and I fly a lot) was an indignity for someone who used to pride themselves on needing nothing but coffee and Advil in the morning. Every three months, I get a box of these little vials full of eye drops made from my own blood serum. They arrive frozen, and when I travel, I put a bottle or two in that insulated tumbler and fill up the rest of the space with plastic ice cubes. TSA hasn't given me grief yet! Adam Ismail It took a long time to admit that this was just my life now, and I might see results if I just stayed the course of treatment. I shifted to a different ASED and drug regimen, and today, I feel like I'm doing a little better. Imaging of my corneas backs that up—more squiggles, less fuzzy balls. If you asked me precisely what 'a little better' feels like, it's definitely not 'healthy.' Headlights still have clouds and feel like they take up too much space and create too much noise in my visual field. But it's all a smidge less overwhelming. My doctor isn't even satisfied with my pace of improvement and believes I should be further along than I am now. At this point, I'm just content to be improving at all. All this has been a tremendous inconvenience at best, and a deeply personal, often unrelatable-feeling source of anxiety and panic at worst. It's impacted every facet of my life, but it's notably reshaped my relationship with something I love to do, which I've also essentially based a career around. I have regrets that I wish I'd taken better care of my eyes, or somehow enjoyed those late drives more than I knew to at the time, but those feelings are illogical and unrealistic. Being grateful is good, but it isn't natural—it's learned, and it's work. It's also taken me years to get to this point of acceptance, and I still haven't perfected it yet. To anyone who enjoys driving and, for whatever reason, finds it more difficult now than ever before, my heart goes out to you. So too if you know exactly the treatment you need and can't afford it. There are plenty of people suffering from the same condition I am, but it's still not terribly well researched, and 'many clinicians are unfamiliar with [its] existence,' let alone how to manage it, per The Scientific Journal of The Royal College of Ophthalmologists . Also, it should go without saying that none of this is medical advice; I encourage you to see a doctor if you have similar concerns. What you've just read is something I've wanted to write for a long time. Whenever I tried, I'd get stuck on what purpose it'd serve. Frankly, I'm still not sure, but it's always cathartic to vent. And if it gets even a few more people talking about things like this—hell, if it gets more attention on how scorchingly bright today's headlights are—I'll take it. We could all use some relief. Have your own story about struggling with night driving? Comment below or contact the author directly: Adam Ismail is the News Editor at The Drive, coordinating the site's slate of daily stories as well as reporting his own and contributing the occasional car or racing game review. He lives in the suburbs outside Philly, where there's ample road for his hot hatch to stretch its legs, and ample space in his condo for his dusty retro game consoles.
