When selected properly, a book light can reduce eye strain by providing excellent lighting while reading, even in darkened venues, and can save both energy and money. A well designed clip on book light design can make your light easy to attach 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 lighting your reading materials with the correct amount and color of light, a 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 correct amount of light for what we’re reading can be a real challenge. Obviously, the best light for reading is natural sunlight coming directly from over your shoulder, but we often wish to read when or where such lighting simply isn’t available. Hence, the right book light, a light we can use any time and any place we choose, iscan be} an incredible convenience. Then, turning off the overheads and lamps illuminating so much more than our reading materials, we save considerable energy as well as the money required to pay for it.

When choosing between incandescent and LED book light designs, 3 primary concerns 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 light sources typically produce a warm, somewhat golden-tinged light, and 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 be the equivalent of the output of lighting from the sun. Today, 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 incandescent bulbs are usually available in local electrical and hardware stores, as well as over the Internet, the expense and inconvenience of replacement can really mount up over time. Because LEDs provide life expectancies of 10,000 to 50,000 hours, the 10-20% greater initial cost of acquisition quickly becomes irrelevant. Generally, then, LED book light designs are now the preferred choice over the older incandescent.

Battery powered book light designs are the handiest, because they can be used almost anywhere. Unfortunately, batteries themselves are also a an item that must be replaced, lasting 20-30 hours of use at best, in either LED or incandescent designs. Available A/C adapters are available for most book lights, but another possibility is to make use of rechargeable batteries and a recharger. Most book lights use either AA or AAA batteries, and many excellent models are available from which to choose. 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 uniformity of light dispersal and the area over which it is dispersed is also an important consideration when identifying the best book light for a specific application. If your light is only to be used to illuminate a standard size, mass market paperback, a simple LED or incandescent portable design will likely be adequate; however, if you read magazines, most hard cover books or a stand full of music, you’ll need a more powerful light that distributes the light over a much broader area. The ideal way to determine the best light for your particular application will be to test it in actual use. When shopping, be sure your dealer offers both good information and advice before the sale, and a good return policy, in case your first choice doesn’t work out. With a bit of application, you can acquire just the right clip-on book light for just about any use.