Salud
A company not normally associated with CE creates a product that could inspire installers.
Some installations come along that you just can't keep your eye away from, and The Sky Factory's SkyCeilings just might fit that definition. It's a product you probably haven't seen around, because the company hasn't yet approached the customer installer market. But it could find a home in CE.
Even so, they are willing to talk to anyone interested in their product line and do envision applications for it in the home. Certainly an expensive addition to an installation, it might just be perfect for luxury home projects looking for a unique look. Basically, the SkyCeiling creates the illusion of a window ro the outdoors on a ceiling or wall using a thinly constructed panel system that combines T5 fluorescent lighting with a photographic image. T5 lamps are some of the smallest fluorescent tubes around and have the added benefit of being more pleasing to the human eye and more energy efficient.
More importantly, the bulb produces full-spectrum 6,500 Kelvin light, the same light that is used to treat Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD, a,k.a, the indoor blues) that workers who are not exposed to enough daylight can sometimes develop. Essentially, the human mind can't perceive the difference between this light and daylight. claims the company. This light also illuminates the photographic images more uniformly, thus furthering the illusion that you are really looking outside.
The SkyCeilings come in standard, modular grid-section sizes 2'x2' and 2'x4' but can also be customized depending on a client's needs. The panels are installed in a grid system that needs nine inches of overhead clearance from the bottom to house the lighting and photographic image, which is displayed on a translucent acrylic or polycarbonate. Additionally, "Sky Tile Elevators" snap into a T-Bar cell to raise the image and lighting so that a 3D effect is cleared.
The panels can be built in to ceilings, producing a faux-skylight effect, bur it can be installed into walls, as well. The company has a library of images, from forests to night skies, and even more elaborate images, such outer space vistas for more fantastic applications.
Pricing on the panels varies. It can run anywhere from $165 to $209 per square foot for T5 fluorescent systems or as much as $385-$397 per square foot for LED enabled systems (with which the company has been experimenting and using in certain projects). Much less expensive are non-luminous systems, which run $83 per square foot. The company has primarily been marketing to commercial architects who work on installations in places such as hospitals, laboratories and corporate headquarters, Bur some residential installations have occurred and it is a category on the company's Web site (theskyfactory.com). And while Vincent Marechal, a spokesperson for The Sky Factory, says that the home electronics market hasn't been a normal customer for the company, he is not ruling it out. Who knows, it could just be what a home theater customer is looking for.
