Dyson has a very smart Philips Hue rival called Lightcycle that can help you work, sleep and chill

published 21 March 2019

Dyson Lightcycle looks set to give both Philips Hue and Anglepoise a run for their money, combining as it does app-controlled, time-sensitive, sun-mimicking light with really sexy industrial design and a great deal of flexibility in how you can use and install it.

The Lightcycle is actually the successor to the Jake Dyson CSYS task light, which launched under Jake Dyson's brand rather than the main Dyson one, a few years back. That was dimmable, but had no smart functionality, although it was very smart. It's part of a suite of sexy wellness products Dyson just dropped, which also includes the Dyson V11 Absolute – this Dyson cordless vacuum is good for your health because it filters out more crud, and because cleanliness is next to godliness, I dare say – and the new Pure Cool Me 'personal' air purifier, which adds to the Dyson fan line up.

Dyson Lightcycle in silver-grey or white

Lightcycle packs in a remarkably long list of features for what essentially looks like a task lamp. Controlled via the Dyson Link app (which also controls the company's fans, robots and so on), it's able to track local daylight and adapt the temperature and brightness of the light it emits to match, keeping your body clock more aligned with the real world.

This could conceivably assist alertness during the day and, er, non-alertness at night. It certainly helps you to read and see things better.

Lightcycle offers 6 preset modes: Study, Relax (warmer), Precision (brighter), Boost (even brighter). There are also Sleep and Wake-up modes, with the light fading gradually down and then back up again, respectively. Finally, there's an 'Away' mode to fool burglars. You can also manually control with slide-touch dimming and colour temperature selection.

An ambient light sensor means it can adjust to changes in background light, while an infra-red one can be used to switch the light on and off when you approach or leave its presence.

The light, shown here with its creator, Jake Dyson – yes, he does look like his dad, doesn't he? – emits over 1,000 Lux brightness, with low optical flicker and 'glare protection', whatever that means. In layman's terms, it's a very good task light.

LED lights all, in theory, have great longevity but Lightcycle uses heat-reducing 'Heat Pipe' technology to give a claimed working life of 60 years – admittedly that's a claim I'm going to struggle to conclusively prove, without dying of old age first, but my descendants will get back to you with confirmation in 2079.

The light is actually beamed from an array of LEDs: 3 warm and 3 cool, to produce that simulated sun effect.

Interestingly, Dyson claims the light, via the app can be personalised, and it 'intelligently adjusts for age, task and daily routine' – a 65-year old needs up to four times more light than a 20-year old – but I was not able to try this at the device's debut in Paris.

“Light matters to our wellbeing and task performance. When trying to recreate the characteristics of daylight, light quality is vital. So we developed a way to protect it for the long term,” says Jake Dyson.

To that end, the Lightcycle a 'unique time, date and location driven algorithm to calculate the colour temperature and brightness of daylight, anywhere in the world.' A 32-bit processor uses this daylight data to adjust the optical driver all day long. Lightcycle can simulate daylight colour temperatures from 2,700-6,500 Kelvin.

Dyson LIghtcycle also wants to help you see better by reducing glare and flicker, and with 'a uniform pool of high-quality, powerful light' it exceeds recommended light levels for studying.

Finally and most crucially of all, there's a built-in USB-C port for charging compatible devices. Let there be Light, indeed…

In truth, the main reason I think you should consider buying a Lightcycle is that it's a very attractive, flexible and well-made task lamp indeed. The welter of clever features are more like just tech icing on Jake Dyson's delicious aesthetics cake.

Duncan is the former lifestyle editor of T3 and has been writing about tech for almost 15 years. He has covered everything from smartphones to headphones, TV to AC and air fryers to the movies of James Bond and obscure anime. His current brief is everything to do with the home and kitchen, which is good because he is an excellent cook, if he says so himself. He also covers cycling and ebikes – like over-using italics, this is another passion of his. In his long and varied lifestyle-tech career he is one of the few people to have been a fitness editor despite being unfit and a cars editor for not one but two websites, despite being unable to drive. He also has about 400 vacuum cleaners, and is possibly the UK's leading expert on cordless vacuum cleaners, despite being decidedly messy. A cricket fan for over 30 years, he also recently become T3's cricket editor, writing about how to stream obscure T20 tournaments, and turning out some typically no-nonsense opinions on the world's top teams and players.

Before T3, Duncan was a music and film reviewer, worked for a magazine about gambling that employed a surprisingly large number of convicted criminals, and then a magazine called Bizarre that was essentially like a cross between Reddit and DeviantArt, before the invention of the internet. There was also a lengthy period where he essentially wrote all of T3 magazine every month for about 3 years.

A broadcaster, raconteur and public speaker, Duncan used to be on telly loads, but an unfortunate incident put a stop to that, so he now largely contents himself with telling people, "I used to be on the TV, you know."