Winter in Alaska? I Need Some Gadgets!

Posted July 2, 2002

Winter in Alaska? I Need Some Gadgets! By Tai Graham

I live in Fairbanks, Alaska where we are lucky to get 3 hours of sunlight on the darkest days of winter. My first year in Fairbanks, everybody warned me about how hard it was to adjust to the gloomy winter season. Of course, it being my first year, I was too excited to be living in Alaska to notice the long periods of darkness and quickly became quite skeptical of the claims of overwhelming depression and "cabin fever" that run rampant in this land of infinite darkness.

The next year I was not so lucky. The newness of Alaska had worn off and I became a quick victim to the dark-days-blues. This type of depression is medically referred to as Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and is marked by increasing symptoms of depression in response to the lack of natural light in the shorter days of the winter season. The main problem was that I just couldn't wake up in the morning; my body was desperate for an early sunrise to set its internal clock to. When it began affecting my work schedule, I began to do some research.

The solution was to fill my house with a false sunrise by somehow turning on the lights at 6 or 7 a.m. I could have used a regular plug-in timer and a lamp, but I want to light up my whole house and not just one area and I wanted the light to appear gradually. There were a few alarm clocks sold in town that simulated a sunrise with a large slowly lighting bulb, but they cost between $200 and $400!!! I needed some gadgets!!!

I had seen X10 ads all the time while using the Internet. I decided to give it a try. For less than $100 I bought the ActiveHome kit and several accessory wall switch modules, lamp modules, and appliance modules. Within a few minutes of wiring and plugging and programming, my house was a Jetsonian dream. I programmed the lights in my room to dim on from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. I also programmed various appliances that I use in the morning to come on just after 7 a.m. It works like a dream!!! I am SAD no longer. As a bonus, I have the security of being able to turn my lights on when I come home with the SlimFire key chain remote, or to light up the whole house with the touch of a button on the 6 in 1 SuperREMOTE. On top of all of this, it is entirely too entertaining to watch the reactions of other seasoned, "cabin-dwelling" Alaskans when I turn on my lights with the television remote.

Contrastly, Fairbanks is also home of the midnight sun in the summer. If X10 could just come up with a way to turn down the sun at night...

Thanks X10!!!

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