While a bias light reduces eye strain, it also has a subtractive effect on the color on the screen. So, you do want the highest CRI possible. Older professional bias lights for CRT were tungsten. They had very high CRI, but generated a ton of heat and couldn’t fit behind many modern displays. The fluorescents that came afterward were not a great replacement. Generally speaking, poor SPD and lower CRI is harsher on the eyes. Many colorists aren’t working 8 hour days, but rather 12-16 hour days. The lower CRI/spiky SPD (in the perceptual range) light is found to be fatiguing, even comparing relatively high CRI fluorescent to high CRI LED.
I see what you are saying about a harsh curing light, but that’s an ultraviolet emitter, not being used to drive a blend of phosphors and also designed to be intense enough to cure a composite material. The lights in the MediaLight Pro are used to provide a dim surround reflected off of a neutral gray backdrop. SMPTE says the maximum brightness should be 4.5 nits. Imaging Science Foundation says it should be in the 10–20 of the maximum brightness of the display, even for HDR, all of the light reflected off of a matte gray surface.
We also tested chips from a number of manufacturers, and also with different SPDs. It is possible to more closely mimic D65 without the spike, or to see a less pronounced one, if you take a hit in CRI/TLCI. The feedback from our testers in the colorist community indicated a preference for higher CRI, even though there was not a perceptual difference when tested side by side with the lower TLCI D65-mimicking chips.
You aren’t going to get a suntan from this light and driving around town for 5 minutes on a cloudy day will subject you to more UV rays than many work hours in front of a display. Having windows in your house is going to subject you to thousands of times more near violet and ultraviolet radiation.
It’s really a niche product at this point. Our 95 Ra blue-emitter lights are what we recommend to 99% of our customers. However, if we stand still, we aren’t serving our customers well, so we are always trying to incorporate novel chips.