Hey folks, let’s examine the Lumos mask, one of the very few light therapy sleep masks currently on the market.
In this article, we’ll go over my test results, how I felt using it for my trip, how to use it, and who it’s really for.
The Overview
The Lumos Smart Sleep Mask is a powerful tool for circadian alignment, especially for frequent travelers. Its smart app offers advanced sleep-tracking and adjustment features, though the interface can be overwhelming at first. Comfort is hit or miss, depending on your head shape. While effective, expect some trial and error with fit and app navigation.
Pros
Cons
What Is the Lumos Sleep Mask?
The Lumos is a sleep mask engineered to help shift your circadian rhythm while you sleep. It’s primarily designed for shift workers or anyone who travels a lot and has to contend with jet lag of some kind.
However, there are also some neat features like a sunrise alarm clock setting, that I think could benefit just about anyone. More on that later!
A Closer Look
The Lumos comes with:
- Lumos sleep mask
- LED module
- USB-C charging cable
- Travel bag
Here is a look at the carrying case, it’s not much but you can fit everything you need inside:
When you get the Lumos, the mask and LED module aren’t put together, so you’ll have to do that. The reason these are seperate is so that you can wash the mask.
There is a small velcro opening on one side of the mask that you can slip the LED module into.
And this is the final product:
You can see the charging port on top in this shot. Lumos also sells a simple pair of fitover blue blockers that I got as well to test.
Build Quality & Comfort
The fabric on the Lumos is soft and the ends are tapered well enough to disappear while side sleeping.
The back velcro piece is very slim and not bulky like most velcro. Here’s how I’ve found it best to wear this:
Intuitively, you’d think that your ear goes inside of the bands, but having them over your ear works a lot better in my experience, otherwise it slides down too far.
Overall the headband stays on very well and after a night or two of adjusting to having something on your face, it mostly disappears.
I say mostly, because the small shoelace like band that goes behind your ear does cause me some mild discomfort after laying on my side for a while. In a future version, I’d like to see this band be completely flat instead of oval shapped.
Overall Fit
Now one issue I did have and something a few other people have reported on in reviews is that the Lumos didn’t really fit as well as I’d like.
There was a small gap under both eyes that remained no matter how I oriented the mask.
Luckily in a mostly dark environment like a bedroom or airplane, I don’t think will be too big of an issue. But if you’re expecting a complete blackout mask, this might not work for you depending on your face shape.
After reading through some of the reviews on Lumos’ website, it looks like some people have even taken the LED module out and retrofitted it into other sleep masks! So I guess that’s always an option to explore if you find the fit unsatisfactory.
Battery Life
I got about a week of sunrises and light therapy sessions out of my Lumos, but this depends highly on how often you’re using the sunrise or if you’re just using it for short 2-3 day adjustments.
Either way I think the battery lasts plenty long enough and the Lumos will warn you when it’s battery is too low to use for an overnight session, so you won’t be caught off guard.
How to Use the Lumos
During the initial account creation you are asked about your basic stats and sleeping habits:
After pairing your mask, you’ll be walked through a basic explanation about how Lumos works:
From here you can select any number of programs depending on your needs and schedule. On the home screen there’s a helpful questionnaire that will guide you to the best program for you, or you can hand select one yourself in the schedule tab.
What Does the Lumos Mask Do?
When a schedule calls for it, the Lumos does one of two things.
- 20 minute amber sunrise in the morning before you wake up.
- White light flashes early in your sleep to shift your circadian rhythm.
These two modes can effectively push or pull your circadian rhythm while you sleep.
As you saw above, the Lumos app will also recommend ideal times to wear blue blockers or get bright light exposure.
Scheduling a Night Shift Routine
To give you an idea of how this app works, I’ve recorded a session of setting up a night shift routine schedule, because there are just way to many screens for screenshots to work!
I did cut out the loading after the setup, it normally takes a couple of minutes for the algorithm to set things up.
Traveling Somewhere New
The travel planner is pretty extensive too, featuring airport lookup, layovers, multiple stops, etc.
Here I book a round trip to California and it’s very easy to enter all of your times and destinations, very handy!
That’s really a taste of what the Lumos app has to offer. I think it does a great job of creating programs that help you shift your circadian rhythm in which ever direction you need.
My Testing & Results
I busted out Henry again to take a closer look at the Lumos’ light output!
Henry is our spectrometer eye equipped mannequin head, here is is with the Lumos mask on:
This setup allows us to measure light right where your eye is!
Spectral Testing
The Lumos outputs amber and white light, however I’ve been unable to get a spectral reading of the white diodes since they only flash quickly during use.
I was able to get a full spectral capture of the amber diodes used during the sunrise though, which you can see below:
As for the sunrise, it’s a nice logarithmic increase as you can see below:
Peaking at just under 1200 lux, the Lumos sunrise gets very bright! I’ve tested a number of the best sunrise alarm clocks and my favorite, the Lumie Shine 300 only peaks at around 730 lux.
So on the one hand, there’s a chance you may find the Lumos too bright. On the other hand, it’s certain to work well, and if you’ve tried conventional approaches and found them ineffective, the Lumos may be just what the doctor ordered!
Perhaps the main downside of the Lumos’ sunrise effect is that it’s completely fixed. It lasts for 20 minutes and then shuts off, with no options to adjust the brightness or duration.
There is a setting to adjust “light intensity” but I changed this and it didn’t change the brightness of the sunrise, so that setting must just be for the white light flashes.
Flicker Testing
I also tried testing flicker but the only way to really get a reading is during the sunrise animation, but this is constantly changing brightness, so there’s no way to get a steady reading.
Regardless, I took a couple of samples and it looks like this is flickering quite a bit.
This type of flickering does technically fall into the high risk category, however given that these are used while you’re asleep I’m not sure that’s a huge issue.
Testing the Blue Blockers
I also tested the blue blockers that Lumos sells and they performed great! The gray line is my sample light while the rainbow spectrum is what the Lumos allow through the lenses.
As you can see they block all blue light and a decent amount of green which is a perfect combination.
My California Trip
I recently took a week long vacation in California visiting some family and I used that as an opportunity to use the features on the Lumos!
Since I live in Michigan and would be traveling east 3 hours, I would need to delay my circadian rhythm, essentially waking up 3 hours later than I usually do.
To do this the Lumos suggested evening bright light exposure and also implemented its “white light flashes” in the early part of my sleep, which was very interesting!
These are experiences as very quick very bright flashes of light in what must have been my early REM transition stage because I recall it as somewhat dreamlike.
There is a setting for lowering the intensity of these flashes if you find them too strong.
Before leaving California for Michigan, I was given advice to wear blue blockers early in the evening and a sunrise alarm was scheduled on my Lumos for early in the morning as well to help advance my rhythm back to EST time.
Again the advice was spot on and so was the execution.
Final Verdict: Who Should Buy It?
All in all I really appreciate this product and the thought that has been put into the app suggestions and prescriptions. Phase shifting can be kind of confusing even for me sometimes, throw in a variable schedule and the odds that you’re going to do it optimatlly are slim to none.
An device and app like the Lumos take all the friction and guess work out of this process, and that’s really where this shines.
There are some tradeoffs with comfort so if the need isn’t strong enough, I fear you may find this mask more trouble than it’s worth. However, it’s possible it fits you better than me, in which case there aren’t as many tradeoffs. There’s also the sunrise feature which you may want if you like the idea of a sunrise alarm clock but currently wear a conventional sleep mask (making it impossible).
In any case, there are very few products out there trying to solve the deeply troubling issue that is shift work. There are a ton of very important roles in society that rely on people who sleep at odd times of the day, and we’d all benefit if they had more robust circadian rhythms.
If that’s you, give the Lumos a try! It might just change your life.
Lumos Smart Sleep Mask
