When selected properly, a book light can reduce eye strain by providing excellent lighting while reading, even in the darkest places, and can help to conserve both energy and money. A well designed clip on book light design can make your light easy to secure to your book, book holder, or book stand, and many can do double duty as hobby, craft, podium or task lights. Light weight incandescent or LED designs can provide just the right amount of light anywhere you need it, without wasting energy or disturbing those around you, like a spouse or partner on the other side of the bed.
By illuminating your reading materials with the correct quantity and color of light, a book light can help to save your eyes from strain and help you read even when the lights are low. Our eyes require more light as we age, and providing the right amount of light for what we’re reading can be a real challenge. Obviously, the most perfect light for reading is natural sunlight coming directly over your shoulder, but we often wish to read when or where sunlight isn’t available. Hence, the right book light, one we can use any time and any place we choose, iscan be} an incredible convenience. By then turning off the overheads and other lighting lighting things other than our reading, we can save considerable energy as well as the money required to pay for that energy.
When choosing between incandescent and LED book light designs, 3 primary considerations include: the different color or temperature of light produced by these two distinct technologies, the cost of acquisition, and the cost of operation over time. Incandescent light sources typically produce a warm, somewhat yellowish light, and incandescent bulbs typically will provide light between 15-25 hours of use and then have to be replaced. LED lights put out a whiter, cooler light, and many designs are now optimized to approximate the output of lighting from the sun. Today, many readers find the output of modern LED designs to be more “sun like”, producing greater clarity and contrast and making most printing easier to read. While replacement incandescent bulbs are usually available in local electronic retail shops, as well as over the Internet, the expense and inconvenience of replacement can really add up over time. Because LEDs offer life expectancies of 10,000 to 50,000 hours, their 10-20% greater initial cost of acquisition quickly becomes irrelevant. For these and other reasons, LED book light designs are now the preferred choice over the older incandescent.
Battery powered book lights are the handiest, because your light can be used anywhere. Unfortunately, batteries themselves are also a replaceable item, lasting 20-30 hours of use at best, in LED or incandescent designs. Optional A/C adapters are available for most book lights, but another possibility is to use rechargeable batteries and a recharger. Most book light designs use either AA or AAA batteries, and many excellent models are available from which to choose. Additionally, if your light is to be used close to an A/C outlet, an optional A/C adapter is usually a money saving investment.
Finally, the area of dispersal is also a meaningful consideration when choosing the perfect book light for a specific application. If your light will only be used to illuminate a standard mass market paperback book, a single LED or incandescent clip on light design will probably be adequate; but, if you read magazines, most hard cover books or a stand full of music, you’ll need a more powerful light that distributes the lighting over an appropriately larger area. The ideal way to determine the best design for your particular application will be to test it in actual use. Wherever you shop, make sure your dealer provides both good information and advice before the sale, and a good return policy, in case your first choice turns out not to be as suitable as you had hoped. With diligence, you can acquire just the right portable light for each and every application.
