Characterisitcs of the Best Battery and A/C Powered Book Light Designs that Light Up Your Books
Posted March 7th, 2010 by adminProperly selected, a book light can reduce eye strain by providing excellent lighting while reading, even in the darkest places, and can save both energy and money. A sturdy clip on book light design can make your light easy to secure to your book, book holder, or book stand, and many designs can also function 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 others around you, like a spouse or partner watching TV.
By lighting your reading materials with just the right quantity and temperature of light, the right book light can 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 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 correctly selected 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 lamps lighting things other than our reading, we can save considerable energy and the money it takes to pay for that energy.
When choosing between incandescent and LED book light designs, 3 primary considerations include: the differences in the type of light produced by these two distinct technologies, the cost of acquisition, and the cost of operation over time. Incandescent lights typically create a warm, somewhat golden-tinged light, and incandescent bulbs typically will provide light between 15-25 hours of use and then must be replaced. LED lights put out a whiter, cooler light, with many designs now optimized to approximate the output of lighting from the sun. Today, many book lovers find the light of modern LED designs 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 generally available in local electronic retail shops, and over the Internet, the cost of replacement can really mount up over time. Since LEDs offer life expectancies of 10,000 to 50,000 hours, their 10-20% greater initial cost of acquisition quickly becomes irrelevant. Generally, then, LED book lights are now the preferred choice over the older incandescent.
Battery powered clip on lights are the handiest, since your light can be used anywhere. Unfortunately, batteries themselves are also a an item that must be replaced, typically lasting 20-30 hours of use at best, in LED or incandescent designs. Available A/C adapters are offered for most book lights, and another option is to use rechargeable batteries and a recharger. Most book light designs make use of 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 can be a worthwhile investment.
Finally, the uniformity of light dispersal and the area over which it is dispersed is also a meaningful consideration when selecting the perfect book light for a particular application. If your light will only be used to light a standard size, mass market paperback, 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 design that distributes the light over a much broader area. The ideal way to determine the best 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, just in case your first choice doesn’t work out. With diligence, you can buy just the right book light for just about any application.