When selected properly, a book light can reduce eye stress by providing excellent lighting while reading, even in darkened venues, and can 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 can do double duty as craft, podium, hobby or other task lighting. Light weight incandescent or LED designs can put just the right lighting exactly where 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 right amount and color of light, a 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 difficult. Obviously, the most perfect light for reading is natural sunlight coming directly from over your shoulder, but we often need to read when or where such lighting simply isn’t available. Hence, the right book light, a light we can use anywhere and anytime we choose, iscan be} an incredible convenience. Then, turning off the overheads and lamps lighting things other than our reading, we conserve considerable energy and the money required to pay for it.

When choosing between incandescent and LED designs, 3 primary concerns are: the different color or temperature of light produced by these two distinct technologies, the cost of original purchase, and the cost of maintenance and operation over time. Incandescent light sources typically produce a warm, somewhat golden-tinged light, and bulbs typically will provide light between 15-25 hours of use and then have to be replaced. LED lights produce a whiter, cooler light, with many designs now optimized to be the equivalent of the output of lighting from the sun. Hence, most readers find the output of modern LED designs 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 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 purchase price 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, as they can be used virtually anywhere. Unfortunately, batteries too are a replaceable item, lasting 20-30 hours of use at best, in either LED or incandescent designs. Optional A/C adapters are available for most book lights, and another possibility 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 are on offer. In addition, if your light is to be used close to an A/C outlet, an optional A/C adapter can be a money saving investment.

Finally, the uniformity of light dispersal and the area over which it is dispersed is also a 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 single LED or incandescent book light design will probably be adequate; however, if you read magazines, most hard cover books or a stand full of music, you’ll want a more powerful design which can distribute the light over an appropriately larger area. The best way to determine the most suitable design for any particular application will be to test it in actual use. When shopping, make sure your retailer offers both good pre-sale and return service, in case your first choice doesn’t work out. With a bit of application, you can find the perfect clip on light for just about any use.