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If you share a bed with a light sleeper, a reading light can mean the difference between enjoying an old-fashioned paper book and succumbing to the distraction of your phone or other digital device. Neutral Bedside Lamps
We set out to find lights bright enough to read by and easy to use with a variety of books.
After testing 10 lights, we recommend the Glocusent Bookmark Style Reading Light and the Glocusent LED Neck Reading Light for sneaking in a few chapters before bed.
This chic and compact device offers the most light settings of all our picks, and its power indicator makes it easy to know when to charge it.
This wearable device offers bright light, and its adjustable arms angled the light at the page just how we wanted.
The lights are bright, and the clip is sturdy and grippy, but the bulky base makes it best for hardcover books. It may tear the cover of paperbacks.
If you want a multitasking light for walks, reading, and even camping, we recommend this bright, comfortable kid’s headlamp, regardless of your age.
This chic and compact device offers the most light settings of all our picks, and its power indicator makes it easy to know when to charge it.
The Glocusent Bookmark Style Reading Light stood out for its array of lighting settings and its lightweight design. It’s easy to twist and adjust the small light so it covers the full page and to adjust the brightness and temperature of the lighting (although we found the buttons almost too sensitive). The light was easy to clip onto the back or front cover of a book without weighing the covers down.
This wearable device offers bright light, and its adjustable arms angled the light at the page just how we wanted.
The Glocusent LED Neck Reading Light never felt heavy or uncomfortable on our necks and was convenient to use when in bed or traveling. The neck light offers fewer brightness and temperature settings than the Glocusent Bookmark Style Reading Light, but we were still pleased with the variety the device offered. It’s a good option for readers who dislike adjusting a traditional clip-on reading light.
The lights are bright, and the clip is sturdy and grippy, but the bulky base makes it best for hardcover books. It may tear the cover of paperbacks.
For readers who stick to hardcover books, the Vekkia Dual Heads Rechargeable Book Light stood out from the others in our tests. Two lights on bendable necks illuminate both pages of an open book, and you can adjust the brightness level. The clip was sturdy and grippy, which worked well on hardbacks, but it was too heavy for paperbacks—it could tear the cover.
If you want a multitasking light for walks, reading, and even camping, we recommend this bright, comfortable kid’s headlamp, regardless of your age.
If you want a reading light with a variety of use cases, we liked the Black Diamond Wiz Headlamp, our pick for kids in our headlamp guide. This headlamp surprised us: It fit adults while remaining comfortable and providing long-lasting light. This pick isn’t for everyone, but it’s a great option for those interested in having a reading light that’s meant to do more.
I’ve used many book lights over the years. For this review I spent multiple hours reading in the dark with the 10 models we tested. I also had Wirecutter staffers try out a few of our options while traveling or sharing a sleeping space.
I also spoke with an ophthalmologist to understand how much light people need to read for optimal eye health.
This chic and compact device offers the most light settings of all our picks, and its power indicator makes it easy to know when to charge it.
For about $15, the Glocusent Bookmark Style Reading Light offered all of the features we wanted, plus features we didn’t even know we should want. This light seems to be growing in popularity in online book-lover communities and on #BookTok—and it lives up to the hype.
It has customizable light settings. This reading light offers five brightness levels as well as three light temperatures to choose from, allowing you the greatest level of light customization of all our picks. When used on books of varying sizes, this device was able to cast enough light so we could read both pages clearly. We were also able to twist the light to adjust the angle as needed. Our testers found that the device never interfered with turning the pages, which was not true of all the lights we tested.
It has a compact design. This model is lightweight and has a slim clip, which made it a good option for both hardcover and paperback books, unlike bulkier options we tested. Unlike many of the lights we tried, you can clip the light to the front or back cover and still have a pleasant reading experience. Its slim design made it the easiest of all the lights we tested to store at home and pack away for travel.
It’s easy to charge and has a long-lasting battery. The USB-A connector makes for easy portable charging and is covered by a piece of plastic that was easy to take off and put back on. One of the other lights we tested had a similar charging mechanism, but the battery life of the Glocusent Bookmark Style Reading Light lasted significantly longer.
Unlike any of the other lights we tested, this reading light has a power indicator. All four of the lights shine green when fully charged. When we left it on full brightness for 12 hours, the power indicator dropped to two lights, which means we used about half the battery life. (This was the only light that we were able to approximate the remaining battery power of during our testing.)
The buttons are relatively sensitive, so some testers said they accidentally changed their light settings when adjusting the clip’s placement on the book. None of our testers had any issues with it turning on in a backpack or handbag during our testing.
This wearable device offers bright light, and its adjustable arms angled the light at the page just how we wanted.
If you’re looking for a wearable option, the Glocusent LED Neck Reading Light is the best available.
It’s wearable and multifunctional. The device is designed to sit around your neck and illuminate whatever is in front of you. It never felt heavy or uncomfortable during our tests. Because this light is wearable, it works well regardless of whether you’re reading hardcovers or paperbacks. It can also easily be used as task lighting, such as for knitting or crocheting. Some of our testers even set the light on a shelf to illuminate a hotel bathroom when the overhead lights went out.
It’s customizable and has a long battery life. The light offers three brightness levels and three light temperatures, and both bulbs at the end of the device can be turned on together or one at a time. We particularly loved this light’s long battery life—it lasted on full brightness for 12 hours straight during our testing. Senior staff writer Elissa Sanci has been using her Glocusent LED Neck Reading Light since February and took it on six flights and hotel stays throughout the country before having to charge it again.
We’ve seen very similar neck lights under many other brand names on Amazon; a representative of Glocusent confirmed that it produces this light as a white-label model in addition to its own branded version. To ensure that you get our specific recommended model, however, buy it directly from Glocusent or its Amazon shop.
Testers with fuller chests found that the light could cast a shadow on their books, depending on how the arms were angled. Adjusting the way they were sitting or how they angled the lights got rid of the shadow.
The arms can be bent inwards to fold the light for packing purposes, but the light can still be a little bulky in a bag compared with others we tested. We’ve found that the buttons are sensitive and the light has accidentally turned on while toted in a backpack.
The lights are bright, and the clip is sturdy and grippy, but the bulky base makes it best for hardcover books. It may tear the cover of paperbacks.
If you’re committed to hardcover books (or an e-reader that isn’t backlit), the Vekkia Dual Heads Rechargeable Book Light is the best light for you.
It has a bendable neck with two light settings. The device easily illuminates two pages, thanks to the two lights on bendable goosenecks. We bent each over both pages, and the lights never interfered with turning the page. You can turn each light on separately, and both offer two brightness levels, so you can adjust the lighting—but unlike our top picks, you cannot adjust the light temperature.
It has a sturdy clip. The clip grips a book cover well and stays in place throughout use. The clip is bulky, which does affect how the pages lay, but it was less disruptive than several other lights’ clips. We don’t recommend this light for paperback use, as the clip is too heavy and can tear the cover, but it works for hardcover books.
If the Vekkia Dual Heads Rechargeable Book Light is out of stock, try this similar Vekkia model, which also worked well for hardcover books. The light was bright enough to cover both pages, but we prefer the dual-headed option for more light customization if it’s available.
If you want a multitasking light for walks, reading, and even camping, we recommend this bright, comfortable kid’s headlamp, regardless of your age.
If you want a light to use beyond reading, we recommend the Black Diamond Wiz Headlamp from our headlamps guide.
The light is bright enough. In our testing, this headlamp provided bright enough light to read comfortably in the dark. It was brighter than the rest of the reading lights we tested, but it wasn’t too strong or harsh, like our other headlamp picks. The white-light setting works best for solo reading; if you’re reading a bedtime story to a kid you’re looking to impress, the multicolor lighting option can be a nice added touch.
It’s good for all ages. Although this is a kids headlamp, our adult testers were able to adjust the straps to comfortably fit their heads. The other headlamps we love were far too bright for indoor use.
After consulting with book lovers on staff, including Wirecutter’s staff book club of over 70 members, we chose which lights to test based on the following criteria:
We called in 10 models to test that were recommended by staffers, rated highly on Amazon and other bookstore sites, or recommended on Reddit, TikTok, and other social media sites. We used them over the course of a few weeks to get a feel for daily use and convenience.
The MightyBright Recharge Light is chic and aesthetically pleasing, but its dimming feature wasn’t intuitive to our testers, and the gooseneck got floppier with more use. At about $32, it was the most expensive light we tested, and the light quality wasn’t as good as cheaper lights we tried.
The Vekkia Bookmark Book Light’s unique design intrigued us, but the neck of the light was too short, so it got in the way of turning the page. You have to remove the bookmark part of the light from the clip base to charge it, and we found it challenging to get it back into place to use again.
The popularity of the Dewenwils USB Rechargeable Book Light on TikTok and its $10 price made us try it, but the light felt cheap and bulky, and it didn’t offer the same brightness and warmth options that the similarly designed Glocusent Bookmark Style Reading Light did. The light went out during the fourth hour of our 12-hour test; it lasted the shortest amount of time out of all the models we tested.
The Juesi Flat Book Light is also popular on TikTok (video) for being aesthetically pleasing, and we were surprisingly pleased with how bright it was and how long the light lasted. However, the light was not dimmable, it required batteries, it only worked on books of a certain size, and we had to move the light when turning each page.
The Vitchelo V800, our budget-pick headlamp, is far too bright for indoor use. It’s potentially good for outdoor, nighttime reading, but we did not test that particular use case.
This article was edited by Alexander Aciman, Catherine Kast, and Christine Cyr Clisset.
Gabriella DePinho is an updates writer at Wirecutter. Previously, she worked at NBC News writing about deals and product launches. She loves working in product recommendation but personally hates shopping—and she knows that doesn’t make sense.
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Tubicen Portable Lamp Wirecutter is the product recommendation service from The New York Times. Our journalists combine independent research with (occasionally) over-the-top testing so you can make quick and confident buying decisions. Whether it’s finding great products or discovering helpful advice, we’ll help you get it right (the first time).