Does It Disappear?

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A companion tool for “The Luxury of the Big Light”

Overhead light becomes a luxury experience the moment it stops looking like overhead light. Paste a fixture's spec sheet below and score it against the same four criteria the article uses.

Light Engine Visibility

Size, depth, and glare. Can you see the diode board, or has trim and regress hidden it?

Natural Dimming

Warmth when dimming. Does color temperature shift down like a flame, or just get darker?

Continuity of Color

Over space and time. Do ten fixtures match each other today — and still match in five years?

Controllability

Phase, 0–10V, DALI, or mesh RF — how finely and individually each fixture can be tuned.

Score a fixture

Rate your fixture

Give it a product URL, paste specs from the sheet or listing, or both — brand, model, trim/aperture size and depth, CCT range, dimming behavior, and control protocol. First two ratings are free.

Product URL (optional) Fixture details

At least one of URL or details is required. ~4,000 characters max on pasted text; the tool reads the page's visible text, not images.

How scoring works

1–5 per criterion, 4–20 total: Each of the four criteria is scored 1 (unnatural) to 5 (disappears). The total maps to a tier:
4–7 · Airstrip: Visible engines, fixed harsh dimming, mismatched color, on/off or basic control — the ceiling looks like a runway.
8–11 · Big Light: Functional and inoffensive, but the room still knows it's lit from above.
12–14 · Considered: Real design intent on at least two criteria; still gives itself away under scrutiny.
15–17 · Refined: Strong on nearly everything — the kind of fixture a lighting designer would spec without caveats.
18–20 · Disappears: The light, not the fixture, is what you notice — if you notice anything at all.

Live results

What people have run

A running leaderboard, scored with the same rubric the tool uses live — ranked best to worst as new fixtures are rated.

Fixture	Engine vis.	Nat. dimming	Color cont.	Control	Total	Tier