If you use your computer in a dark environment, buy a monitor light!
I am a hobby programmer and spend most of my evenings coding. My monitor has a built-in backlight, but I've always found that just a bit too weak for my liking. Turning on the lamp in the room is too bright and produces glare, using a table lamp is directional and imbalanced. Using an LED strip on the underside of the table does not illuminate my desk at all, so it's not particularly useful.
Recently, I stumbled across monitor lights again, and for some reason impulse-bought one. A super simple ~45cm wide, dimmable straight one with warm white colour. Let me tell you this thing is incredible. It provides exactly enough light without producing glare. The light comes from the centre and my hands cast an unobtrusive shadow. I've only used it for a couple of hours at this point, but the difference is remarkable. My eyes feel way less strained.
For context I'm using a 32:9 UW monitor with 1800R curvature, so this doesn't cover more than ~40% of the screen, yet there is absolutely no visible glare at all! The monitor looks completely unaffected.
Do you use one as well? What's your experience with it?
I go full mushroom and embrace the darkness.
I… never have a problem with that. My monitor has a light sensor built in and adapts the backlight level to the ambiant light level. I have a hard time imagining how the backlight could be too dim in a dark room, for me it’s the opposite it’s often too bright (on other monitors) that it feels like it’s burning my retina.
I keep my office fairly dim by most standards. I have light strips on the back of my monitors to illuminate the area a bit as well as an adjustable stand lamp with a shade on the other side of the room that does a good job of lighting everything up without adding glare to my monitors.
I have a desk lamp kind of off to the side and the way it casts light is quite harsh so I really don't like using it, but there's no other light nearby and in the winter the sun sets around 4 pm. Just ordered one, hadn't really considered that form factor for a light before.
I have an adjustable desk lamp with different white /warm/cool and then intensity for this too. It's one of those extending light bar sort of things and is just perfect to balance light levels of the monitor and ambient dark for late or early morning computing.
Does it not bother you that the light coming from the lamp (presumably offset to a side) is not is one-sided? Or do you have your lamp centred somehow?
I have this ridiculously overpriced desk lamp, I got it with my bonus one year.
I've got to say though, I love this thing. I didn't know I needed light along with my monitor until I had it, I'd gotten it for writing.
That picture is wild. No backrest on his seat, perched forward, far too close to the screen especially one that size, using an Apple Magic keyboard pushed all the way forward, and specifically only looking at the top part of the screen while the actual light projection of the lamp that the ad presumably is about is not even visible.
If I worked at BenQ and had to greenlight this picture I'd send it back for review.
Through that pic I can't decide whether or not it's a decent product so I'll take your word for it instead.
It was the only pic I found with a monitor for size context. My office is currently not I a state where I could get a good pic, I’m painting. In the mean time I’ve been sitting on a sofa with a cheap dimmable reading light behind me and higher than my head, it was set up for normal reading.
The fancy light is also dimmable and you can change the color temp. The stand lets it go above my monitor when I want it out of the way and the base is so heavy I have zero fear of a cat knocking it down. I also think it’s pretty, a good selling point for past me with a bonus in my pocket that mostly went to emergency savings. The people around me kept encouraging me to also buy something I otherwise wouldn’t so it actually felt like a bonus. Other years I used my bonus to buy linen sheets and a fold up kayak. It was really nice to be in that position, I don’t regret any of those purchases. Those were the days.
I have it off to the side and behind a monitor as I have a pair of them on monitor arms. It helps to diffuse it at the mid-high when I need to actually see a bit more so I'm not directly staring at it. I have moved it out when doing fine work on computer stuffs mostly and other electronics.
Overall, incredibly useful
I have an articulating desk lamp with a warm white bulb I’ve been using for the purpose. It’s got its head turned to face the wall behind the desk to make for a nice soft indirect glow most of the time, but when I’m building a keyboard or cracking open a laptop or something where I need more light I’ll turn it to face the desk surface.
I'm not sure I've seen the kind of product you're referring to. Do you have a link to what you're talking about? Sounds really nice!
I'd assume they mean something like this: https://a.co/d/04hrhy3f (not a recommendation, just randomly grabbed a link to one that'd work as an example)
Is it? I guess I was envisioning something that was more of a backlight than this. That's interesting though.
I have a light with a shade behind my monitors that works like a monitor light. Definitely recommend some sort of light for anyone who has issues looking at a screen in the dark.
There's also TV Lamps, some of the older ones are neat and would work just fine for monitors. Won't have the color changing options some of the monitor lights have though, unless you can find a color changing bulb for them.
I have this one. I love it. It clamps to the desk. I can control the brightness and warmth. Even has a remote control that I have on my nightstand so I can turn it on/off from my bed.
And then in my other room with a desk, I have this one. Basically same features, except it's a typical desk lamp with a base and doesn't have a remote. I came across this in a hotel in Seattle and was like "I NEED this." Though it's not really a monitor lamp.