Living With ADD

Buying the Best Battery and A/C Powered Book Light Designs that Properly Illuminate Your Books, Crafts, Hobbies and Podium

Properly selected, a book light can reduce eye fatigue by assuring ample light while reading, even in the darkest places, and can help to save both energy and money. A sturdy clip on book light design can make your light easy to attach to your book, book holder, or book stand, and many designs can do double duty as craft, podium, hobby or other task lighting. Light weight incandescent or LED designs can put exactly the required lighting exactly where you need it, without wasting energy or disturbing those around you, like a spouse or partner sleeping beside you.

By illuminating your reading materials with the correct amount and temperature of light, the right book light can help to 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 over your shoulder, but we often wish to read when or where sunlight simply isn’t available. Hence, the right book light, one we can use anywhere and anytime we choose, iscan be} an incredible convenience. By then turning off the overheads and lamps lighting things other than our reading, we can save considerable energy and the money it takes to pay for that energy.

When making the choice between incandescent and LED book light designs, three primary concerns include: the different color or temperature of light produced by these two technologies, the cost of acquisition, and the cost of operation over the lifetime of the light. Incandescent light sources typically produce a warm, somewhat yellowish light, and incandescent bulbs typically last between 15-25 hours of use and then must be replaced. LED lights create a whiter, cooler light, and many designs are now optimized to be the equivalent of the output of lighting from the sun. Today, many readers find the light of modern LEDs to be more “sun like”, producing greater contrast and making most printing easier to read. While replacement incandescent bulbs are readily available in local stores, as well as over the Internet, the expense and inconvenience of replacement can really add up over time. Because LEDs provide life expectancies of 10,000 to 50,000 hours, the 10-20% greater initial purchase price quickly becomes irrelevant. Generally, then, LED lights 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, and another option is to make use of rechargeable batteries and a recharger. Most book lights make use of either AA or AAA batteries, and many rechargeable options exist. Additionally, if your light is to be used close to an A/C outlet, an optionally available A/C adapter can be a money saving investment.

Finally, the area over which the light is dispersed is also an important consideration when choosing the right book light for a particular 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 likely 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 more powerful design which distributes the lighting over an appropriately larger area. The best way to determine the best light for any particular application will be to test it in actual use. Wherever you shop, be sure your dealer offers both good pre-sale and return service, in case your first choice turns out not to be as suitable as you had hoped. With a bit of application, you can buy just the right portable light for just about any use.