Sitting in a room with the wrong lighting can kill the vibe you’re trying to create. Flicking the big light on can often seem too harsh, yet you’re left with just the TV to brighten the room without it. This can be fine for movie night, but having a suitable lamp can make all the difference.
The same goes for where you’re working, an excellent desk or corner lamp. A nicely lit office can help you concentrate, making Microsoft Teams meetings look much nicer.
The right lamp can set the mood, and nothing says that more than the sunset lamp, which went viral on TikTok and now here we are, creating picture-perfect photos for the ‘Gram like your life depends on it. Whether it’s bleak out, the sun has even set, and it’s 10 PM, the Sunset lamp creates an ambience that even Barry White and Huey Morgan’s love child couldn’t work up.
Smart lights have been the way to go for years, creating different colour schemes in the same room with clever LED lights that change to any colour or hue you want. Philips has generally been the market leader here, naming theirs the Hue, but now there seems to be one every shame of, erm, hue (sorry) of the ever-popular light.
For those affected by Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD, often referred to as the ‘winter blues’, it can have a marked effect on a person, with symptoms such as depression, weariness, reduced sex drive and troubled sleep. While if you’re one of those people who likes to read a good book to get them off to sleep, then a clip-on reading lamp, leaving you like a human angler fish, hunting for the right words to drift off will not only save you money on electricity but be your perfect companion.
So, let’s take a look at the different types of lamps to set the atmos in your room just right.
The Best Office Lamp
LED lights, generally speaking, offer more light and are more efficient than single bulbs. The downside can be that they often look harsher than a singular bulb. However, with ten different brightness levels, each scenario has a light setting. The swingarm is clampable to the desk, so it saves on desk space, and it’s adjustable in height and reaches to make the most of your room.
Pros
- Adjustable
- Energy saving LEDs
- Small footprint
Cons
- Not the sleekest of designs but would suit a studio style
www.johnlewis.com
Available in a wide range of colours, this ANYDAY desk lamp by John Lewis is sure to be a hit. You’ll have to go manual with the shade of white, which comes from choosing a bulb to suit you, but its classic look and design, combined with colours, is timeless.
Pros
- Timeless design
- Minimalistic
- Colour options
Cons
- The wiring looks slightly odd
www.johnlewis.com
Mix the ANYDAY above with the LED desk lamp above, and you get the Elliot Desk Lamp. The Elliot has a classical style but is much bigger than the ANYDAY, with a small footprint taking up your desk space. Adjustable in height and reach, it will look very classy on the corner of your desk.
Pros
- Adjustable height and reach
- Classical design
- Minimalistic
Cons
- The lamp is only adjustable up and down
Keep everything organised and in one space for a tidy desk and tidy mind. This lamp will charge your phone, hold your pencils and pens and provide light. While it takes up a slightly larger footprint on your workspace, at least it will have things like your phone. The lamp is bendable and collapsible.
Pros
- Desk tidy as well as a lamp
- Somewhere for everything on your desk
- Simple design
Cons
- Low cost doesn’t always mean durability
The Best SAD Lamps
For helping you drift off and wake up without the grump.
A portable slim, portable light therapy solution, meaning you can take it to the office or if you’re working away. Producing 10,000 lux at 16cm with a large face, 20 x 28 cm, 30 minutes is recommended to help combat ‘Winter Blues’ and SAD.
Pros
- Compact
- Small footprint
- Adjustable orientation
Cons
- None for this price
Simulating natural daylight of 10,000 lux at a distance of 10cm, this Beurer lamp is powerful and compact, easy to use with the press of a single button to turn it on and off. Great for use while working in your home office in the winter.
Pros
- Compact
- Easy to use
- Portable
Cons
- While it’s bright, some find it too bright
7.
Lumie Halo
Looking more like a mirror than a light, it’s a feature to have on the table. Its design means it’ll be less of an eyesore and more of a feature to most tables around the home. It offers an excellent way to look at something functional and pleasant.
Pros
- Nicely designed
- Not as big as you’d think
- 10,000 lux at 20cm
Cons
- High price
The Best Smart Lights
Let’s look at three different solutions when it comes to bulbs, there’s not a huge amount in it, but you can change a room with strip lights and wall lights.
Just take out your old bulb; as long as it’s a bayonet fitting, this one goes in its place. Super easy to install, and as long as you have a smart device in your home, like a Google Home, Nest, or Alexa, you can control the lights just by talking to your smart device. The lights are also controllable from an app, meaning you can change their colour to any hue and brightness.
Pros
- The original in smart lighting
- Two in this bundle
Cons
- Expensive
Perfect for a strip of light under your sofa, behind your TV, computer set up or under shelving. These light strips create an ideal addition to the ambience. Again you can control them with your smart speaker or an App. They will connect for up to 10m of strip lighting.
Pros
- Excellent Ambient addition
- It provides an excellent level of light.
- Fantastic for bias lighting behind the TV
Cons
- Cannot be cut to size
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Take wall art to a whole new lit-up level. These slot into each other to create the perfect lighting set-up for any feature wall, kids’ playroom, dining room, well, any room really – these really brighten things up and can be changed by your smart speaker and even respond to music.
Pros
- Looks fantastic when set up
- Easy to install
Cons
- Not cheap
The Best Reading Lamps
A simple solution to reading to sleep.
A simple solution to reading at night is dangling one of these around your neck; they clip more than dangle so that you can see what you’re reading. However, you can choose from three different colour options, yellow, warm white and cool bright, meaning they’re better for other times of the day.
Pros
- Different colour options
- Different brightness settings
- Rechargeable
Cons
- Around the neck doesn’t always brighten the book
Super simple double LED clip-on reading light. Just clip it to the hardback of your book for support. You can clip it to several pages if your book isn’t a hardback, but this doesn’t always provide vast amounts of support and can leave you with a floppy light.
Pros
- Simple design
- Cheap
- Works well on hardbacks
Cons
- Not so great on paperbacks
More for your bed than your book, this will clip onto your bedframe or a bedside table to give you the reading light you desire. USB rechargeable with a flexible neck to get the light in the correct position; a simple touch of the lamp will turn it on and off.
Pros
- Three brightness levels
- Rechargeable
- Flexible Neck
Cons
- You could get a bedside lamp
The Best Sunset Lamp
Made with an optical glass lens, as opposed to an acrylic lens, with a sturdy aluminium alloy shell, this lamp claims to be brighter than its rivals, too, for those even brighter sunsets for your Instagram feed.
Pros
- Sturdy materials used
- Said to be more durable
Cons
- Only one colour
With a USB plug, you can take this lamp on the go to create sunsets anywhere and even power it with your laptop if you wanted to. A thickened aluminium base provides a sturdy stand, and a 360-degree adjustable stand leading up to the lamp means you can project anywhere.
Pros
- Low Cost
- USB Plug
- Energy saving modes
Cons
- Questions over durability
Plot twist: This sunset lamp has four different lighting modes. Yes, you can make your sunset in different ways, the standard OG, a Rainbow, Sunset Red and Sunlight. The manufacturer claims this lamp has more power, with a steel steering head for durability and an optical crystal lens over a plastic or acrylic one.
Pros
- Different lighting settings
- 10W of output
- Glass lens
Cons
- Quality is lacking