‘Waste, waste, waste!’: Why motion-activated lights infuriate people

They can even get in the way of your work

Montage by Chris Baraniuk. Includes imagery from Nathan Cowley, Dunamosji Mosquera Jimenez and Ron Lach.

Like those poor visitors to Jurassic Park, the weather observers were trying to stay as still as they possibly could. Desperate not to move a muscle. Not because of a T-rex or velociraptor – in this case, the menace was a motion-activated sensor connected to their office’s lighting.

“We need the lights off so we can acquire night vision to do our work,” wrote one team member, exasperatedly, in comments to university researchers. If the lights were on, the weather-watchers could not see out of their windows at night to make their observations.

“It is just stupid,” the observer continued. “We all have to stay completely still for 15 whole minutes before the lights will turn off so that we can actually see outside. Once they go off, no one moves. It is very annoying.”