Lucy Is a Smart Mirror that Redirects Sunlight

Natural light has all kinds of health benefits: improving sleep, mood, metabolism, and even workplace performance. But every room has its dark spaces, and sometimes you can’t avoid turning the lights on when it’s sunny out—wasteful as it seems.

Sit the globe-like smart mirror in a sunny spot, orient its “pointer” toward where you want more light, and it will do the rest. The solar-powered Lucy, equipped with photo sensors and photovoltaic cells, will tilt its mirror to follow the sun, ensuring that it sends as much light as possible to darker areas.

Now you can replace all those feeble space lamps with a single, solar-powered mirror. “Lucy,” developed by Italian design team Solenica, is a robotic mirror that detects and reflects sunlight across an entire room. With photo sensors tracking the sun’s position, Lucy gradually rotates throughout the day to maintain a room’s natural lighting. All you have to do is point the “nose” of the orb at the ceiling of the space you wish to illuminate and Lucy takes care of the rest, dispersing sunlight all day long—no batteries, plugs, or electricity required.

Lucy might look like a futuristic crystal ball, but it packs a real punch—7,000 lumens of light, to be exact (an average room needs 5,000). The device measures about a foot in diameter and weighs 5.5 pounds, so you can easily move it wherever it’s needed. No matter how tiny your apartment is, you’ll still be able to soak up the sun.

Diva Tommei, CEO of Solencia, came up with the idea for Lucy because she was suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder.

This sun-sucking robot draws its influence from nature, following the sun across the sky like a sunflower to harvest its rays. Unlike a plant, though, Lucy doesn’t absorb the beams; it bends them into your house to illuminate rooms with natural light.

A pointer on the front of the orb-shaped bot directs the concentrated sunlight and shoots it against the wall like a laser beam. Point it at the ceiling and the sunlight will scatter when it hits, raining down an evenly distributed natural glow throughout the room.

Diva Tommei created Lucy while at Columbia University. The robot was designed to treat seasonal affective disorder, a form of depression often attributed to seasonal changes and vitamin-D deficiency. With help from Alessio Paoletti, a designer who has helped craft luxury goods for brands like Bulgari and Cavalli, Tommei started Solenica and turned Lucy into an Italian-inspired, minimalistic piece of home decor.