Properly selected, a book light can reduce eye strain by providing excellent lighting 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 secure to your book, book holder, or book stand, and many designs do double duty as hobby, craft, podium or task lights. Light weight incandescent or LED designs can provide exactly the required amount of light anywhere you need it, without wasting energy or disturbing those around you, like a spouse or partner sleeping beside you.
By lighting your reading materials with the right quantity and color of light, the right 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 correct amount of light exactly where 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 have to read when or where such lighting simply 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 save considerable energy and the money it takes to pay for that energy.
When making the choice between incandescent and LED book light designs, 3 primary concerns include: the different color or temperature of light produced by these two technologies, the cost of original purchase, and the cost of maintenance and operation over the lifetime of the light. Incandescent light sources typically create a warm, somewhat yellowish or golden-tinged light, and bulbs typically last between 15-25 hours of use and then must 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 book lovers find the light of modern LEDs to be more “sun like”, producing greater contrast and making most printing easier to read. While replacement bulbs for many incandescent book light designs are generally available in local electronic retail shops, as well as over the Internet, the expense and inconvenience of replacement can really mount up over time. Because LEDs offer life expectancies of 10,000 to 50,000 hours, their 10-20% greater initial purchase price quickly becomes irrelevant. Generally, LED book light designs are now the preferred choice over the older incandescent.
Battery powered book light designs are the handiest, as your light can be used anywhere. Unfortunately, batteries too are a replaceable item, lasting 20-30 hours of use at best, in either LED or incandescent designs. Available A/C adapters are offered for most book lights, and another option is to make use of a good battery recharger and rechargeable batteries. Most book lights use either AA or AAA batteries, and many rechargeable options exist. In addition, if your light is typically used near to an A/C outlet, an optional A/C adapter is usually a worthwhile investment.
Finally, the area over which the light is dispersed is also a meaningful consideration when selecting 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 single LED or incandescent clip on light design will probably be adequate; however, if you read mostly hard cover books, newspapers and magazines, or even a full music stand of sheet music, you’ll need a more powerful light which distributes the lighting over an appropriately larger area. The best way to determine the most suitable light for any particular application will be to test it in actual use. When shopping, make sure your retailer provides both good information and advice before the sale, and a good return policy, just in case your first choice turns out not to be as suitable as you had hoped. With a bit of application, you can buy the best clip-on book light for each and every use.