“The Eyes are the window to your soul.” The care and protection of the eyes has become a very important topic in people’s life.
However, since the beginning of the 21st century, myopia has become increasingly prominent among children and young people and it is showing a tendency of lower age of onset.
Research shows that about 80% of early learning is acquired through vision; eyesight health is related to the healthy development of children’s body and mind. Poor eyesight, not only affects children’s life, learning, but also will affect their whole life.
In addition to genetic factors, inappropriate lighting of the space is one of the main reasons for the high incidence of myopia among children .
Inappropriate ambient Lighting – “Invisible Killer” of Children’s Eyesight
Kids Space includes kindergarten classroom, indoor playground, library, etc. Since the healthy development of children is a major concern for the education industry, the overall environment design of children’s r classrooms can be properly controlled by education experts. As children’s playground is a commercial space with different levels of operation and design standards, the ambient lighting design is not usually taken into serious consideration. This article focuses on the indoor playground space.
A child’s eyesight is gradually developing and changing. And it is easy to develop various eyesight problems if affected by various adverse factors.
However, in order to attract children and enhance the thematic atmosphere, some indoor playground operators will create a dark environment in the children’s space without enough illumination, with a variety of strong light effects at certain areas, to bring children and parents a dramatic visual experience.
However if the playground space is poorly illuminated just to create a sense of mystery, the strong lighting effects caused by big illumination difference will irritate visitors’ eyes seriously. Staying in such an environment for long time can harm a child’s eyesight and hinder the normal development of their eyes!
Indoor Playground Lighting Design Specification
Good lighting design provides a comfortable ambient lighting environment that protects children’s eyesight and an enjoyable experience for children and parents.
There are several international standards like EN 12464, ISO 8995 for the ambient lighting design in children’s spaces, which can be found in the IESNA Lighting Handbook.
And with reference to China’s “architectural lighting design standards” GB 50034-2004, indoor playground illumination standards needs to achieve 300lx or higher, with a uniformity of 0.6 or higher. And areas involving reading and operation shall refer to classroom standards, which also need to meet 300lx.（Picture1-1）
2. Illumination Uniform
Children are in the visual development period. Indoor playground‘s ambient lighting design should be based on overall lighting, to ensure uniformity of light space and to make light as bright and adequate. It will be more beneficial to children’s eyesight development. （Picture1-2）
3. Avoid Glare in Lighting Design
If the lighting is much brighter than the general indoor environment, people will feel the “glare”.（Picture1-3）
From the table above we know that the “UGR” of a children indoor playground should not exceed 22. This requires the use of low-gloss surface decoration materials on the equipment and masking lighting to prevent children from looking directly at the light source. It is also important to avoid the reflection of lights on the screens of entertainment equipment, which can cause “glare”.
4. Choosing the Right Color Temperature
The “Architectural Lighting Design Standards” states that the “Ra” of the lighting source shall not be less than 80 for rooms or places where long-term work or stays are performed. If the color rendering index of the light source in the children’s space doesn’t meet the standard, it will affect the children’s color recognition ability and reduce the product presentation effect in the children’s space. （Picture1-4）
The children’s playground lighting should be warm. The lighting is recommended at a color temperature of 4000k, a color temperature that provides a warm feeling while awake. Kids will also be more at peace.
5. Avoiding “Strobes” in Children’s Space
Studies have shown that “strobes” can have varying degrees of impact on human health. （Picture1-5）
If there is a serious “strobes” problem with screens and light sources in the playground, it can cause headaches, eye strain, poor eyesight and distractions. Lighting design should try to use high-quality lighting and screen, to avoid “strobes” problems.
Indoor Playground Multimedia Equipment Planning Consideration
In recent years, more and more indoor parks have added a large number of digital multimedia interactive products in order to enhance the users interactive entertainment experience. Due to the low brightness of traditional projectors, the brightness degradation and lack of color saturation can commonly occur during operation. These projectors used in brightly lighting indoor spaces can result in poor image on the projection screen and cause visual fatigue, affect children’s eyesight and spoil the customer’s play experience. These projectors have been phased out of the multimedia market.
With the increasing maturity of laser technology, laser projectors are gradually taking over the market. While inheriting the advantages of digital display technology, it also solves the problems of uneven light and large color gamut color reproduction in display technology.
- Choose Laser Projectors to Enhance Screen Brightness
（Picture2-1）
Laser projectors use a laser beam to project an image with a wide color gamut and uniform light. Its color rendition capability is more than twice that of a regular projector, and its color saturation is extreme.
Laser projectors also make up for the shortcomings of regular projectors that the brightness of the projection won’t be decreased over time. At the same brightness, the laser projector provides higher clarity, maintaining high brightness and saturation for a long period of time. Even in bright spaces, the projected image of laser projection are always bright and fresh.
2. Choose Laser Projectors to Extend the Life of the equipment
Traditional lamp projectors use Metal Halide Lamp or Halogen Bulb, which typically has a lifetime of about 5,000 hours. Based on 12 hours of use per day, the lifetime is about 1.2 years. Considering about the cost of wearing parts and maintenance, after-sales maintenance costs of traditional projector are relatively high. （Picture2-2）
The laser projector uses a solid-state laser as the light source, and the laser light source can last for more than 20,000 hours. Based on 12 hours of use per day, the service life is at least 4.5 years.
Laser projectors do not require frequent lamp replacement and have low failure rates and low after-sales maintenance costs.
3. Choose High-Performance Processors to Enhance the Interactive Experience
In the planning of interactive multimedia equipment, in addition to the choice of projector, the choice of system processor is also very important.
Some indoor playgrounds have chosen low performance processors for their interactive equipment planning in order to keep costs low. But the performance is too low to adequately meet software requirement to achieve smooth visual effect. Especially when it comes to rapid game interaction, it is easy to cause the screen fluctuation and strobes during the interaction process, which not only makes the interactive effect greatly discounted and can also have a negative effect on children’s eyes.
Intel® Core™ processors are gaining traction in the children’s entertainment industry. The processors feature higher performance Intel® Core™ graphics cards that support higher resolution Ultra HD 4K multimedia and high frame rates streaming (FPS) processing. The processor is well suited to the demanding requirements of image processing.
Equipped with Intel® Core™ processors, the device has better graphics and a smoother interactive experience, which not only ensures interactive effects, but also protects children’s eyesight and brings a pleasant play experience to children and parents, and increases the chance of repeat purchases.
Sindrax Technology Joins Hands with Intel. “Technology + Scenario” Leading in the Children entertainment’s Market
Competition in the children’s entertainment industry is continuing to heat up. To continue to gain a position in the market, companies in the industry need to pay more attention to technology.
Sindrax is the first to discover this industry trend and with the concept of “technology + scenario” Sindrax has been leading the industry.
As a leader in children’s entertainment industry, Sindrax is the first to launch an industry partnership with Intel. Supported with Intel IoT end-to-end solution, Sindrax provides its Intelligent Gamified Kids (Pre-School) Education Solution. The solution integrates the current emerging interactive multimedia, natural human-computer interaction technology, animation content and preschool education concept. Thus to provide a range of digital interactive gamified education products for children aged 2-6 years in scenarios such as kindergartens, early childhood education institutions, children’s museums, retail stores and kid-friendly restaurants.
The solution is powered by Intel® Core™ processors to ensure a smooth display of interactive content and improved picture quality. The processor provides powerful back-end management capabilities to easily manage devices, content and data across all scenarios, helping offline children’s indoor playgrounds build “interactive experience + data-driven” intelligent children’s play space.
In the choice of hardware, the solution uses laser projection equipment and anti-glare high-definition touch screens to integrate bright and vivid visual effects into the various play equipment. It offers unmatched advantages in terms of long-lasting brightness, image quality, form factor, zero consumables and low maintenance costs.
The solution brings more joy to children’s experience while reducing glare effect and visual fatigue, which can safeguard children’s eyesight health. Sindrax is dedicated to further help upgrade the traditional indoor playground and create a multimedia interactive playground. Now Sindrax products have covered 3000+ children’s play scenarios in China and abroad and are widely praised by customers.
As practitioners of the children’s industry, children’s health and safety is our responsibility and mission, to think of children, to further enhance the understanding of the importance of child safety, to create a scientific and reasonable, suitable for children’s eye environment, in order to ultimately win the trust and support of customers.