The best headboard reading lights

Six of seven checklist items, which matches the best-documented clip light in our registry and comes from the same brand. The figure to read first is the jaw: 2.36 inches is the widest but one in this comparison, and clamp width is what decides whether the lamp fits your headboard at all.

It reaches 1800K amber, which is the same bottom end as the brand's clip-on book lights and the setting that matters in a shared bedroom. Three modes rather than five, but the one that counts is there.

Two details the rest of this aisle mostly skips: a 30-minute auto-off timer, which is the answer to falling asleep with the light on, and a 78.7-inch cord, which tells you whether the socket by the bed is close enough before you order rather than after.

It is mains only. That is the norm here and it is still a prerequisite worth stating plainly: no outlet near the bed, no lamp. The blank is weight, which nobody in this category publishes, and the seller's listing also makes claims about melatonin and sleep quality that we do not repeat or endorse — our page on book lights and eyes sets out what the evidence actually supports.

The other six-of-seven listing here, and the one with the most control: ten brightness levels in each of three color modes, against five levels on most of this aisle. If you read beside somebody asleep, more steps at the bottom of the range is the thing you want.

The arm is the differentiator. Fifteen point eight inches of flexible gooseneck reaches further over a bed than the short necks on most clamp lamps, which matters because a headboard clamp puts the light behind your shoulder rather than above the page.

A strip head with 23 beads spreads light across a page width rather than into a circle, which is the same argument our clip-light guides make. Color temperatures are published in Kelvin, including a 3000K warm — not as low as 1800K amber but warm enough for a bedroom.

Plug-in only and the listing says so in as many words, which is more honest than the listings that leave you to infer it. The blanks are weight, as ever, and the clamp depth: 2.3 inches is published but there is nothing about how deep the jaw reaches onto the board.

The one to buy for a bunk bed or a dorm, and the listing is unusually specific about why: a reinforced silicone grip stated to hold on bed rails and round poles, not just flat boards. Every other clamp here assumes a flat headboard, and a bunk rail is a tube.

At 2.4 inches it also has the widest jaw in this comparison. That is a small margin over the others in numbers and a real one in practice, because headboard thickness is the single most common reason one of these goes back.

One hundred and ten LEDs is the headline and the seller makes the comparison itself, against the 23-bead lamps that are standard here. More beads spread across a wider head is genuinely better light on a page; it is not the same as being brighter, and no lumen figure is published by anyone in this category.

It is the most expensive pick on the page by a clear margin, and it publishes the least among the mains lamps: no Kelvin figures for its three modes and no warranty term. Aiming the head up for ambient light or down for reading is a real feature and not one you can check before it arrives.

The answer to the prerequisite every other lamp on this page carries: it does not need a socket. If the bed sits on a wall with no outlet, or the only socket is across the room, this is the pick and the rest are not options at all.

It is also the only one here whose clamp is described as U-shaped and padded rather than a flat jaw, which suits a rail or a rounded board — though unlike the others it does not publish an opening width, so whether it fits your headboard is a guess.

Now the finding, and it is the one that costs it a place. The listing publishes 1800 mAh and never publishes a runtime. Milliamp-hours describe the tank, not the mileage; without a figure for hours at a stated brightness there is no way to compare it against the clip-on book lights elsewhere on this site, all of which do publish both ends of a runtime range.

Five color settings are named as colors rather than in Kelvin, so the warm end cannot be checked either. Four of seven checks, and both blanks are the ones a cordless lamp most needs to answer.

The cheapest sensible way into this category and the one with the least to say for itself. Two color settings, two brightness settings, both on switches partway down the cord rather than on the lamp.

Inline switches are a genuine design decision rather than a corner cut, and which way you take it depends on your bed. A switch on the cord is easier to find in the dark than one on the lamp head behind your shoulder. It is also one more thing dangling over the side of the mattress.

The number to check before anything else is 2.17 inches. That is the narrowest jaw in this comparison, and plenty of solid wooden headboards are thicker than that. Measure yours; this is the single most common reason a clamp lamp is returned.

Two brightness steps is not much control for reading beside somebody asleep, and there are no Kelvin figures, so how warm the warm setting actually is remains unknown until it arrives. Five of seven checks, which is respectable, and the two blanks are weight and warranty as usual.