When selected properly, a book light can reduce eye strain by assuring ample light while reading, even in darkened venues, and can help to conserve both energy and money. A well designed clip on book light design can make your light easy to affix to your book, book holder, or book stand, and many designs do double duty as craft, podium, hobby or other task lighting. Light weight incandescent or LED designs can put 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 just the correct quantity and temperature of light, the right book light can save your eyes from strain and assist your reading in darkened venues. Our eyes require more light as we age, and providing the right amount of light exactly where we’re reading can be difficult. Obviously, the best light for reading is natural sunlight shining directly from over your shoulder, but we often wish to read when or where sunlight simply isn’t available. Hence, the correctly selected book light, a light we can use anywhere and anytime we choose, iscan be} an incredible convenience. By then turning off the overheads and other lighting illuminating so much more than our reading materials, we conserve considerable energy as well as the money required to pay for that energy.
When making the choice between incandescent and LED designs, 3 primary concerns include: the differences in the type of light produced by these two technologies, the cost of original purchase, and the cost of operation over the lifetime of the light. Incandescent light sources typically create a warm, somewhat yellowish or golden-tinged light, and incandescent bulbs typically have service lives of between 15-25 hours of use and then must be replaced. LED lights produce a whiter, cooler light, and many designs are now optimized to be the equivalent of the output of light from the sun. Hence, many book lovers find the output of modern LEDs to be more “sun like”, producing greater contrast and making all printing easier to read. While replacement bulbs for many incandescent book light designs are readily available in local stores, as well as over the Internet, the cost of replacement can really add up over time. Since LEDs provide life expectancies of 10,000 to 50,000 hours, their 10-20% greater initial cost of acquisition quickly becomes irrelevant. Generally, then, LED lights are now the preferred choice over the older incandescent.
Battery powered book lights are the handiest, since your light can be used almost anywhere. Unfortunately, batteries too are a an item that must be replaced, lasting 20-30 hours of use at best, in either LED or incandescent designs. Optional A/C adapters are available for most book lights, but another option is to use a good battery recharger and rechargeable batteries. Most book lights use either AA or AAA batteries, and many rechargeable options are on offer. Additionally, if your light is to be used close to an electrical outlet, an optional A/C adapter is usually a worthwhile investment.
Finally, the area over which the light is dispersed is also an important consideration when identifying the right book light for a particular application. If your light will only be used to light up a standard mass market paperback book, a simple LED or incandescent clip on light design will probably be sufficient; but, if you read mostly hard cover books, newspapers and magazines, or even a full music stand of sheet music, you’ll want a much more powerful light that can distribute the lighting over a much broader area. The ideal way to determine the most suitable design for your particular application will be to test it in actual use. When shopping, make sure your dealer provides both good pre-sale and return service, in case your first choice doesn’t work out. With diligence, you can find just the right clip-on book light for each and every application.
