Sycamores Care Home

Leamington Spa

Project name: Sycamores Care Home
Location: Leamington Spa
Lighting Designer: Commercial Lighting, WCS Care Group, John Bullock, Shelley James

Sycamores Care Home serves as the inaugural case study for our innovative Circadian Lighting system, a retrofit solution designed specifically for the Care sector. This system was developed through a collaborative effort between care operator WCS Care, lighting designer John Bullock, health consultant Dr. Shelley James, and Commercial Lighting.

The Circadian Lighting system is designed to replicate the natural daylight cycle, bringing the health and well-being benefits of natural light indoors for residents who can sometimes struggle to get outside, or are cared for in bed. By utilising wireless technology, the system precisely controls both light output and colour temperature throughout the day, ensuring optimal lighting conditions for both residents and staff.

Learn more about our Circadian Lighting system:

Circadian Lighting Systems

The lighting system

To replace the existing lighting at Sycamores, we designed a custom surface-mounted round fixture that fulfils all the requirements of the Circadian system. It includes a special tunable white board from Bridgelux that offers full-spectrum light adjustable between 2200K and 6500K. Two Casambi bluetooth mesh networks were created to manage the system: one for bedrooms and lounges, and another for corridors. This setup allows for flexibility, diagnostics, and the possibility of integration with other systems like fire alarms and building management platforms.

Each bedroom has two switches: a resident-controlled wireless switch to easily turn the light on and off, with the system automatically adjusting to the appropriate light level and colour based on the time of day, and a red emergency switch located higher above the door for caregivers to increase the lighting to full brightness if necessary at night.

In the corridor, PIR sensors are utilised to turn the lights on and off in groups as part of an energy-saving initiative, and they dim to a low level during the night. An emergency switch is installed at a high level in each corridor section. If this switch is activated during an emergency, it overrides the Circadian programme and sets all corridor lights to maximum brightness at 4000K.

Installation

Thanks to the wireless control and new kinetic switches, the full lighting system was easy to retrofit into bedrooms, corridor, lounges and reception without the need for any rewiring. Pre-progamming and calibration in the factory meant quick installation and minimal disruption to care routines, even in occupied rooms. Redundant old switches were capped off with fish key switches, and new switches were quick to install and setup.

Outcomes

Dementia Care Mapping (DCM), a structured observational tool from Bradford University, was used before and after the installation.

The results were striking:

Daytime sleeping dropped by an average of 58%
Interpersonal interaction increased by 470%
Mood scores improved by 360%
Negative mood dropped by over 94%

These weren’t just numbers. Residents who had previously spent the day withdrawn and sleepy were suddenly alert, engaging with others, smiling, and making eye contact. One resident had six falls in the year before installation. In the first five months after, she had none. She stopped banging on doors in the evening, and her mood score rose from 21% to 84%.