How 'boob lights' took over US homes

• "Boob Lights" have become a common sight in standard American homes.
• Despite its widespread use, it's the cheapest option for many new home builders.
• Its origins come from lightbulb innovation, but they will soon become an antique of the past.

Following is a transcript of the video.

Narrator: Yeah, you recognize this. Do you have one in your home? Do you have more than one? I have four in my one-bedroom apartment, including this one that's now home to a dead roach.

If I can be honest, I hate them. Call it Freudian if you want, but they just collect dust, they're an insect graveyard, and they're just ugly. So I'm gonna start replacing them, and along the way, I'm going to find out, why boob lights are on the ceilings of so many homes. Why are they everywhere? Why are they designed like that? And with all of your options when it comes to how to light your home, why? Just, why? I don't get it.

All right, let's be fair. We're gonna call it by its G-rated term which is a flush mount dome light fixture. but speak to any lighting designer or a contractor, and then they're gonna call it exactly what you think.

In pursuit of answers, I spoke with Charles Brill, co-founder of designer lighting manufacturer Rich Brilliant Willing.

Charles Brill: 'The boob light', it has a really simple construction It's usually a plastic or opaline glass sphere with a little threaded nut in the middle that kinda holds the glass in place and allows you to easily re-lamp the light fixture. That style of fixture, a sphere, a dome, with a perimeter metal is basically the bare-bones construction method of a flush mount.

Narrator: The term for materials like these is builder grade, an inexpensive construction solution, as long as you're not the one living with it. Flush-mount fixtures are super-popular in construction because then you don't have to deal with hanging chandeliers or worrying about how low lights are gonna hang in a room. There are thousands of flush-mount designs from hundreds of companies.

The lighting industry, in general, is booming, reaching $43 million in revenue in 2019, and boob lights are some of the cheapest, especially if you're buying in bulk. Look, I can get a pack of six for $40. But frugality can't be the only answer, can it? Who designed this and decided this looks great on a ceiling? To find out, we have to go back in time...

...or to your local craft bar. You recognize these, though: Edison bulbs! They're the trendiest thing now, but before 1904, they were the only name in the light-bulb game, and they kinda sucked. They were powered by a carbon filament that wasn't very bright but burned hot. Not a great thing to enclose in a diffuser and shove in the ceiling. Fire inspectors would not have approved. Builders usually hung them from ceilings but kept them low, in pendant lights.

Then as cities grew, builders looked for ways to light smaller rooms with shorter ceilings, and their prayers were answered by the improvement and mass-production of the incandescent light bulb, in the early 1900s. Invented in Britain and developed by William Coolidge, these bulbs swapped the hot, dim carbon filaments with a tungsten filament. The new bulbs burned much cooler and were bright enough to be installed right next to the ceiling. Builders also loved installing flat-mount light fixtures newfangled concrete-based homes because they didn't have to install hardware in the concrete ceiling. Designers like Virden, Beller, even Sears and Roebuck created fixtures in this new style. Early flush mounts played around with the design, often relying on screws around the edge to keep the diffuser in place.

Finally, around 1930, perhaps as a result of some new technology making hardware smaller, an anonymous light-fixture designer discovered that the finial could be placed at the center of the dome. This secured it in place, making it easier to swap out bulbs, and changed history forever. After that, it was game on for the boob light. The growth of the suburbs during the '50s saw a surge of construction and secured the light's position on hardware store shelves. Through the decades, styles came and went, but one thing stayed the same: This was the cheapest option. If you were building a house on the cheap, your ceiling had a boob light.

"So what", you may be thinking - and you're right. Besides being distracting, there's nothing wrong with relying on a boob light. The targeted lighting for a 100-square-foot living space is 2,000 lumens, which a flush-mount will do fine, but it's one source. From a lighting-design perspective, they're kind of basic.

Charles: When you start with a room with only a flush-mount, the ambient light is created through the flush-mount. To really define a space, you want to be able to wash the walls, to define the perimeter of the space. Work with floor lamps or other track lighting that have a focal light to feature textiles on your sofa or an area rug.

Narrator: At the end of the day, it's not that I have anything against boob lights, it's that lighting, like everything, is an art form. It should serve as both form and function, and it's fine to design a light that stands out or blends in, but this does neither, which just makes it so much more confounding that they're everywhere.

It's impossible to talk about lighting in 2020 without mentioning LEDs. They've been changing the game since the early 2000s. As of 2018, LEDs own 76% of the lighting market. As more new homes are built, the slim, barely-there profile of low-power LEDs will inevitably push out the bulky boob light as the default ceiling light in newer homes.

If you live with boob lights and you like them, you do you. But don't be afraid to consider alternatives. See what your local lighting shop has in stock. If the wiring is intimidating, there are even diffusers and shades that can fit easily over the existing fixture. But if you're feeling HGTV vibes, swap it out, even if you're in a rental. Just remember to turn off the breaker. It does wonders to individualize your living space.

Just store the boob somewhere safe and swap it back in if you do end up moving. Chances are, you'll probably be swapping out a boob light again real soon.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This video was originally published in December 2019.