Velux Launches Virtual Reality Daylight App

Every now and then someone comes up with something which is so deceptively simple and yet so brilliant that you wonder how we managed without it. Now today’s “thing” isn’t quite Google or sliced bread in its magnitude, but it’s pretty damn clever  and, I think, may well become one of those things that anyone who’s planning anything building related may come to rely on.

Behold the first virtual reality daylight app. Designed, using the power of gaming technology, by Velux, My Daylight (which you can download in the app store for free) allows you to see how much light you would gain if you added a skylight. Now if you are thinking of converting a loft you might think you’re pretty relaxed on that front as you’re obviously going to have one or two windows – probably skylights – and you’re probably, in the early stages at least, more interested in the amount of extra space you’re going to get rather than the light, but that’s where it starts to get interesting.

Last week Kathrine Westermann, of Velux, came to the Mad House to personally demonstrate the new app to me. We sat in my loft, converted three years ago and sporting two Velux windows (phew – might have been embarrassing if they were by someone else) and she explained it all to me.

The first key point to note is that you get twice as much light through a slanted window than through a traditional vertical. I know! Take that to the water cooler why don’t you. Which brings me to my second point – if you’ve got a sloping roof anywhere on your building then even if you don’t want, or can’t have, a loft conversion, it might be worth adding a skylight there to bring more light into your home.

We are nearly at the end of January and it does seem that this one has been particularly long and dark – or maybe that’s just because I wasn’t drinking – but anything that anything that increases the natural daylight that reaches us has got to be a good thing. There have been countless studies on the benefits of natural light on both our psyche and our health and I don’t need to expand on that here.

In fact, I remembered when I was showing Kathrine up to the loft, we have already done exactly that. Now the Mad House is already quite light. When we first moved in I was forever yelling at the kids to turn the lights off and realising that it was, in fact, just the daylight. But there was one dark spot. Outside the 14yo’s room was literally where the sun didn’t shine.

And so, when the builders came to convert the loft, we asked them to open the roof and add a pane of glass (it’s not Velux, we figured it didn’t need to open, although three years in and clearly it never has been – and never will be – cleaned, so actually an opening one might have been good) and now there isn’t a dark spot in the house and it makes such a difference, especially in winter.

And that is where the app comes in. You can programme in the floorspace you have and the angle of the roof and tell it to add a window and hey presto, you immediately get an idea of how much extra light you would get – as these pictures demonstrate.

So if you’re wondering if it’s worth it, then now you get a chance to imagine how it might look without having to pay someone to create a 3D render.

But it’s also useful if you are thinking of a loft conversion. When we told the council we were planning to convert ours (it was permitted development) they said we could have two windows and sent us on our way.

I have to admit I didn’t really pay much attention to the actual placement of the windows and perhaps I should have done. We decided to squeeze the bathroom into the smallest space under the eaves and forgo a shower so we could maximise space in the main room. I mused about lying in the bath and looking at the stars. I even painted the ceiling navy blue to encourage that fantasy.

However, when the room was done and I finally got round to having a bath in it (some four or five months later) I realised that if my eyes were in my stomach I would indeed be looking straight up at the sky. And that’s because the builder put the window in the middle of the room. Which is an entirely logical thing to do. But it’s not where my head is when I lie in the bath. And since it’s a sloping roof rather than the front of a building, the symmetry is less of an issue. Not to mention the fact that all the neighbours who have loft conversions have different windows in different positions and different sizes so it could have gone anywhere on the roof and would looked fine.

So, yes it’s a small point but one that, had this app existed, might have allowed me to get the windows in the right place for the room inside and not just to please the birds flying past outside.

Look also at the picture above and below and see the difference that four small (or two large) windows makes. Perhaps if you are creating one room without a bathroom, or you aren’t restricted to two windows, this might be an option worth considering.

In addition to helping you position the windows to best advantage, the app also allows you to pick the season – so you can see what it will be like in the low winter light or when the sun is high in the summer – and place the windows accordingly. You can see how the light will travel across the sky lighting the room from east to west and this will, in turn, help you decide on the placement and number of electric lights that you might need. We decided not to have spotlights as I don’t like them, but the ceiling wasn’t high enough for pendants so we have lots of lamps. In retrospect a couple of downlighters hidden in the beams would have been a good thing for those winter days when it doesn’t really get light at all.

But the app doesn’t stop there. Once you have given it all the information, it will come up with a room and put some furniture in it – so you can decide if you want to move the window or perhaps just the sofa or bed. You can tell it if it’s a bathroom, a bedroom or an office. Choose, within a fairly limited palette, the colour of the walls and the material for the floors. It’s not an interior design app although there are clearly possibilities for future updates.  However, to really maximise the gaming technology, you can also send off for some vr glasses into which you slot your phone and then it’s like you are walking round your new space. Watch out though as that’s when I tripped over my cup of coffee back in the real world.

So go to the app store, look for mydaylight and start experimenting. Like I said, it won’t change your life but it might change your loft.

This is a sponsored post but you know me well enough by now to know that I only work with people I want to work with. I have had my Velux windows for a while (paid for in full) before Velux approached me about this app and I thought it was a great idea that, as you have read, could have helped me. So I have written about it.