If all your indoor lighting was 5000K, then it would be like you would be living your indoor life constantly at noon.
It's why software like f.lux was created (and the functionality has been incorporated into some OSes as well).
> Further analysis of these 15 reports indicated that a two-hour exposure to blue light (460 nm) in the evening suppresses melatonin, the maximum melatonin-suppressing effect being achieved at the shortest wavelengths (424 nm, violet)
> The melatonin concentration recovered rather rapidly, within 15 min from cessation of the exposure, suggesting a short-term or simultaneous impact of light exposure on the melatonin secretion.
This seems like a very dubious claim - the "golden hour" is obvious to everyone, and there's an intuitive mechanism for sunlight being "warmer" in the morning and evening (blue gets scattered in proportion to the amount of air it travels through). Do you have a citation for this?
> It is crucial to control upward-directed light, but we now know that the color of light is also very important. Both LED, and metal halide fixtures contain large amounts of blue light in their spectrum. Because blue light brightens the night sky more than any other color of light, it’s important to minimize the amount emitted. Exposure to blue light at night has also been shown to harm human health[1] and endanger wildlife[2]. IDA recommends[3] using lighting that has a color temperature of no more than 3000 Kelvins.
* https://www.darksky.org/our-work/lighting/lighting-for-citiz...
I've seen high-quality incandescent bulbs however that do very well on my tests despite being "warm" but I think a lot of people like using daylight from out the north window for evaluating prints and it was was a revolution a few decades back when art museums realized that higher color temperature lights brought out colors better.
That’s what it’s good for. But do you want that lighting in your living room while you watch tv?
If I'm looking at color prints in a book or on the wall that is reflective light and it is dependent on the spectrum of the room. My main TV room has RGB Hue lights that can simulate "warm" or "cold" light but also specific colors. I think 100% green is the ideal light for hot summer days because a full spectrum is also coming in the windows and it gives the most light for the minimum amount of heat. I also find other colors fun sometimes. The guest room that also has a TV has sengled lights that can be tuned from cool to warm.
RGB lights that can produce saturated colors are not going to render reflective colors so well, see
https://blog.kasson.com/the-last-word/metameric-failure/
Personally I like high color temperature light but with the system we have we can have it any way we like. If I really need accurate color rendition I bring in high-performing spot incandescent and maybe someday LEDs. My work is all "born digital" so I spend at least 80% of my time looking at screens and looking at prints, handling paper and such is a small but essential fraction of that.
What I really gotta do though is set my system up so it can vary the room color together with what's on TV, that ought to be cool.
If you care that much about that, it would probably make more sense to get something like Philips Hue bulbs that can vary their color temperature.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Candle-shows-different-c...
I'd imagine that the "warm" color temperature is modeled after candle and gas lighting but after reading some articles on the history of light bulbs it seems that all the folks working on it were trying to make the brightest, whitest light they possibly could. Today's "daylight" bulbs would probably be perceived as an engineering wonder by those folks.
(I am over 60 and have some health problems that chronically elevate my levels of oxidative stress -- in all cell types, though the light-detecting cells in the retina are more vulnerable than other types of cells are.)
I.e., I wanted to buy an LED that vaguely approximated a 2700K incandescent, tried many brands, but could not find one, so I don't know what you are on about.
Bright blue light will make a brain more alert -- and the effect is immediate. That is probably why you young people like it, but I am baffled by your "a color temperature of only 2700K is often chosen" (not that color temperature is a useful way of summarizing the spectrum of and LED bulb).
I think there's a reason for this, which is that sunlight supplements indoor lighting during the day. People rely on indoor lighting more at night when those warmer tones are most desirable.
For daylight, people typically prefer daylight (5000K) bulbs.
