This (fake) Coelux window recreates sunlight from different places around the globe

There’s been a lot of press in recent months about the smart light bulbs we can now use to fill our homes with everything from warm, ambient lighting to vivid flashing colours all with a touch of a button (or a swipe of our phones). But we love this slightly different twist from window manufacturer Coelux.

The innovative company is producing a range of fake windows that can recreate the light you’d experience in different places around the world. For now the focus is on making you feel like you’re basking in tropical (OMG yes please) light, lazing around in a Mediterranean glow or feeling refreshed in the Nordic sun.

The ‘windows’ use a special kind of nanoparticle technology that’s designed to mimic the way sun refracts through glass in particular countries. The windows are positioned at different angles, depending on where in the world you’d like to pretend to be. So for example, Coelux 45 places an LED lighting system behind a pane of glass placed at a 45 degree angle, creating an atmosphere that’s distinctly Mediterranean.

Although part of us feels a little sad that we’re putting so much time and energy into creating fake experiences, just imagine the possibilities for huge office blocks where workers see very little light throughout the day, tiny flats with tiny windows, dingy hospital wards or even subway systems and the underground here in London. Bringing this kind of sunlight technology to those dark, gloomy and, let’s face it, rather depressing places could not just make the place look brighter, but could massively impact the moods of the people working, living and travelling there too.