What a wonderful, lightweight, powerful light for night reading and lots of other potential uses
Over the years, I’ve had several little book lights for reading in bed. One clipped to the book with a big plastic paper clip-like clip that you put over the pages. Another had a pressure clip like a binder clip. Both had to be plugged in to an outlet with an adapter and cord to the unit. Neither was satisfactory; I used them for a few nights, then left them in a drawer. Not only did they trail power cords, but to turn the page, you had to unclip it, turn the page, then reclip it. And it made the book awkward, heavy, and off-balance. I was excited when I saw this item, however, for several reasons. One, it doesn’t need a power cord. Two, it doesn’t clip to the book. Three, it’s light and hangs around your neck, making it useful for a lot more than just reading books, although it’s wonderful for reading. Unpacking the unit from its little box, you find two items: the unit itself and a short USB charging cable. See the picture. The unit is capable of twisting itself down into quite a small little space. That illustrates how flexible this lightweight little item is. You hang it around your neck and point the lights wherever you need the light. Then you don’t need to fuss with it any more. It is very handy. It is powered by a healthy USB-rechargeable battery. Since its primary use—at my house anyway—is to read in bed before going to sleep, it’s super-easy to just plug it in when I’m ready to sleep, and it’s ready to go the next time I need it. They say it’ll run for 8 hours on a charge and will recharge in 2 hours. I haven’t tested that yet. Is it comfortable to wear? Yes. I use it to read before sleeping two or three nights a week. It’s just comfy and easy. It occurs to me, however, that its comfort for reading in bed will depend on how you use your pillows. It’s possible that the thicker housing of the battery at the back of the neck could be uncomfortable if the lower back of your neck lies flush against the pillow. Mine doesn’t, so it’s like the thing wasn’t even there except for the light it puts out. It’s not just a simple light, either. Each of the two heads contains two bulbs. There’s a tight-focused spot beam and a wide-focus flood light bulb in each head. Each head has a little button switch. One push turns on one bulb. Two pushes turns on the other bulb. The third push turns on both bulbs at once. The fourth push turns both bulbs off. You can see the little push button switch in one of the pictures. There is a switch in each of the two heads, so you need to turn each one on and off separately, which can seem a bit odd at first. But it gives you total control of where your light goes. It can be used for all sorts of applications where you need good light to do something close in. I don’t knit, crochet, or fix cars, but I do take pictures of books that I’m going to sell here on Amazon and elsewhere. I just sit at my desk and shoot simple pictures, which has always left something to be desired because the lighting was not good. Now I wear my little blue neck light and direct the light onto the item being photographed. It’s a great improvement. If I needed to wander around the house at night, I’d put it on and would be able to go anywhere comfortably. I haven’t needed that yet. I suspect that as time goes by, I will find more and more uses for this handy little gadget. Read more
