Offices ditch harsh fluorescent lights. New tech is on the way.

Improved, and potentially more healthful, lighting is high on the list for companies and building owners trying to lure employees back to offices after an era of remote work. They are investing in new technologies such as faux skylights that mimic natural light—complete with a virtual sun and moon—and adjustable illumination systems designed to sync with employees’ circadian rhythms.

“We’ve known for a long time that natural light is better and makes people feel better, so it’s not a completely crazy idea," says Peter Cappelli, a professor of management at the Wharton School.

Aside from psychological benefits, research studies have shown that light can have an impact on nonvisual brain function during cognitive tasks, particularly those that involve sustained attention. Office-lighting revamps are expensive—installing some of these technologies can add 20% to 30% to the cost of a project, those in the industry say—and it could take time for them to become mainstream. Here’s a preview of technologies coming to the workplace.

Programming the day

Playing into post-Covid wellness trends, office designers are exploring so-called circadian lighting to sync with the body’s circadian rhythms—the biological clocks inside our cells that time when we sleep and wake. Expect to see illumination that can be tuned by intensity—brighter or dimmer—and “color temperature"—cooler or warmer—throughout the day to mimic the light outdoors.

Efforts to develop such lighting took off after researchers in the early 2000s discovered photosensitive cells in the retina that detect light generally below the level of our awareness, says George Brainard, a professor of neurology at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. Those photoreceptors, independent of vision, can affect biology and behavior, researchers found.

“We have seen a huge uptick in requests," says Jake Pack, an architectural lighting and materials specialist at Seattle-based SeaTac Lighting & Controls. SeaTac worked with JPC Architects to install a mix of tunable LED lighting at the Seattle headquarters of Hargis Engineers. The mix includes cylinders mounted from the ceiling with technology that allows users to control color intensity and temperature. In this case, the lighting is preprogrammed by the company rather than tuned by individual workers.

The lighting will in theory help employees keep melatonin and serotonin levels in balance. But Hargis Engineers also wanted to showcase the technology for clients and its design staff, says Brendon Inman, a principal at the company. “As engineers, we’re always trying to have the cool new stuff within our space."

The virtual sky

Faux lighted windows give the illusion of a blue sky outside, fading to a sunset over the course of the day. Skylights show a virtual sun. At night, office workers see what appears to be the moon.

“I was always fascinated by trying to make stuff look more realistic," says Jonathan Clark, chief executive of Innerscene, a San Francisco-based lighting equipment manufacturing company that makes the products Circadian Sky and Virtual Sun. Clark, who previously co-founded a company that made videogames and who worked with Sony to develop 3-D graphics libraries for the PlayStation 2, likens the concepts to how virtual reality works.

The windows and skylights are intended for office spaces with little natural lighting. Floors in multistory-buildings that otherwise wouldn’t be able to have skylights, or where light is blocked by nearby skyscrapers are also potential uses. While prices vary depending on location and contractor, the products range from around $1,000 for the smallest, lowest-end versions to $15,000 for the largest and highest-end, Clark says.

In March, Innerscene announced its next product: sensors that sample the color and intensity of the sky and wirelessly transmit that data into the artificial windows and skylights to show the same view.

Won’t some workers find the illusions a bit odd and even eerie? “It’s really rare that we don’t get ‘Wow,’ " Clark says.

Flexible lighting

Forget industrial-style banks of fluorescent lights. Companies are turning to more variety to bring a “home" vibe into their offices and provide different working venues.

Working from a desk, soundproof booth or lounge area demands different types of lighting, says Jonah Takagi, an industrial designer who teaches lighting at the Rhode Island School of Design. He envisions offices using cordless rechargeable lamps seen in homes to allow employees to dock anywhere with their preferred lighting during the workday.

At LinkedIn’s offices in Sunnyvale, Calif., and in Omaha, Neb., workers can go into private focus rooms or break rooms and, with a remote control, tailor the intensity and color gradient of the light. “It’s all about giving employees more control over their space," says Kelly Dubisar, a design director at architecture, design and planning firm Gensler, which worked with LinkedIn on its offices. Gensler sought to incorporate aspects of chromotherapy, a treatment that aims to boost mood and well-being with exposure to certain color and lighting combinations, Dubisar says.

Adjustable lighting in conference rooms is on the rise, says Jean Chandler, senior director of design at Industrious, a division of commercial real-estate services and investment firm CBRE Group that provides co-working and other flexible-work spaces. For video calls, for example, a push of a button dims the central overhead light by 20% so that faces at the table have ample glow without shadows. Meanwhile, lights at the edges of the room darken by 50% to allow the participants on video to stand out.

Lighted portals

Imagine passageways that glow with lights leading from office areas to amenity areas such as a gym or game room.

“The intent is to give a real disconnect from your working environment as you’re taking a break," says Jason Romine, an associate principal at JPC Architects, which worked on such lighted “portals" for T-Mobile in Kingsburg, Calif., and Irving, Texas. The light portals started out in 2021 as purely functional bridges between different areas but have since evolved to include design elements such as tree imagery.

Clients now increasingly ask about the portals on new projects, Romine says. “It’s really become something that they gravitate to as both a wayfinding element and this kind of demarcation of place and time."

AI comes to your windows

Welcome to windows that tint themselves to cut down the sun’s glare.

On the 25th floor of The Eight, a new high-rise office building in the Seattle area developed by New York-based Skanska USA, large windows controlled with an app that uses artificial intelligence adjust automatically in response to outdoor conditions. The window glass, manufactured by View, based in San Jose, Calif., uses a proprietary coating that reacts to a small electric charge to make the windows tint according to how much light is coming in.

“In Seattle, natural light is at a premium, so we wanted the tenants to be able to always have access to that natural light and also to the views," says Charlie Foushée, executive vice president at Skanska USA’s commercial development division.

Write to Ray A. Smith at Ray.Smith@wsj.com