Page 46 - Lighting-Magazine-August-2014

Spin CyCle

Heads UP!

Electric ceiling fans and incandescent light

bulbs have been around since the late

1800s, but both have been undergoing

massive changes lately.

he time is coming when the average to an innovative product line. Last year, the Sleep- The Enigma from
consumer might not even recognize a Fans founders began designing a few ceiling fans Fanimation challenged
ceiling fan when they see one. Sleep- for Savoy House. Due to some of the mechanical people’s perceptions of
what a ceiling fan could
Fans’ engineer Tim Peery hints that in diferences between portable and ceiling-mounted look like. It was so avant-
Tthe not-too-distant future, “You will see fans, those ceiling fans do not ofer the sleep-pro- garde that it was used in
a ceiling fan that’s not really a ‘fan’ at all.” He adds, moting technology; however, they do feature the the 2004 futuristic Will
“You will also see a ceiling fan with no motor in the same high efciency. Smith movie I, Robot, and
is still an atention-geter
middle. I don’t see a future for ordinary fat blade One aspect of ceiling fans that the SleepFans 10 years later in lighting
ceiling fans.” trio took note of was that typical ceiling fans were showrooms.
Peery knows a thing or two about unusual fan less aerodynamic than their pedestal fans. “If you
design. In 2011, he co-founded SleepFans with were to stand directly below a ceiling fan’s center,
two other aerospace and aviation enthusiasts you won’t feel the same amount of airfow [as you
(SleepFans products are distributed through would from the side]. In most fans, the air blows
Savoy House). What made their initial product down from the tips,” Peery says. Their challenge
line distinctive was their interest in research that was to design a ceiling fan that would blow air
demonstrated how sound frequencies afect brain down evenly regardless if one was standing directly
activity and can help people achieve a beter below or on the side. “Once we got our tapered
night’s sleep. As a result, SleepFans portable mod- airfoil blades [from the pedestal fans] up there, we
els feature custom-designed fan petals that emit saw an opportunity for some real optimization. By
a low-frequency noise – also known as red noise twisting the blades, we were able to achieve more
– that reportedly leads to relaxation and easier even fow versus the output from fat blades. I used
sleep. Those research fndings plus their explora- a winglet design I did for an aircraf to reduce the
tion in adapting airfoil designs to portable fans led circular vortex at the tips that causes much of the

44 enLIGHTenment Magazine | august 2014 www.enlightenmentmag.com