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BEAM N READ® 3 LED HANDSFREE TRAVEL READING LIGHT
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Somebody set up us the bomb.

Beam N Read® 3-LED Handsfree Travel Reading Light, retail $19.95 (www.readinglight.com...)
Manufactured by ASF Lightware Solutions (www.readinglight.com)
Last updated 07-07-14

The Beam N Read® 3-LED Handsfree Travel Reading Light is a reading light that features a trio of wide-angle white LEDs in a rectangular illuminator head.

However, it doesn't clip to a book. And you don't wear it on your head. Rather, it dangles from your neck via an elastic (stretchy) strap -- and it directs a soft flood of light on the book or other close-range task where it belongs, rather than in your bed partner's eyes when they say something and you turn to look at them!

It's also handy for skulking around the house at 3:30am, changing a baby's poopy diapers at night without having to flip on the overhead lights and risk waking other children in the room {but if you're awakened by a squalling baby at 2am because his or her nappy is wet, chances are that the racket has also awakened other kids in the same room anyway, hahaha!!!}, shovelling up dog {vulgar slang term for multiple fudge bunnies} after taking Fido or Fi-Fi out for a midnight crap, etc.

One thing that this light has that others don't is a red clip-on filter; it not only blocks blue wavelengths, but only allows wavelengths greater than approx. 570nm yet still provides enough broadband emission that red text on white paper is still easily readable.

SIZE

The Beam N Read® 3-LED Handsfree Travel Reading Light is almost ready to use right out of the package; you only need install a quartet of AA cells (included; see directly below) and then you can go & find what made that squeaky noise behind the toliet or curl up with your favourite book on that new E-Reader that you just got for your birthday.

Using the elastic cord, sling the Beam N Read® around your neck, as the photograph directly below shows:

Picture of the Beam N Read® 3-LED Handsfree Travel Reading Light slung arond my neck like it was intended to be used.

Turn your Beam N Read® on by simply swivelling the illuminator head.

To neutralise it (turn it off), all you do is swivel the illuminator head back to its original flat position.

To use the red filter, simply snap it in place over the illuminator head.

The Beam N Read® can also be placed upon a flat surface such as the floor in order to help you locate dropped objects under a couch or chair; the low-angle causes the lost item to cast a noticeable shadow that may allow you to spot it more readily.
A prime example of this might be when you drop a tiny screw or a sewing needle on the floor and it rolls under the couch.

Unlike other reading lights, the Beam N Read® can be used with an AC adapter, so you don't have to worry about batteries at all. Save those suckers for when there's a power failure or a tripped circuit breaker in the basement.

The AC adapter (which can be ordered on the Beam N Read®'s website at this URL for $13.45) has an output of +4.8 volts at 500mA.

To use the AC adapter, plug the large end into any standard (in north America anyway) 110 volts to 130 volts AC 60Hz wall receptacle (or, "wall outlet" or even, "wall socket" if you prefer), and plug the small plug on the end of its thin cord into the small circular receptacle for it on the bottom of the Beam N Read®.
This wonderful little light will now be powered from mains voltage; saving its batteries! (the batteries in the unit are automatically disconnected, so you need not remove them).

To change the batteries in your Beam N Read®, turn the unit so it is face-down, slide the battery door off in the direction of the arrow embossed on it, carry it to a bridge over deep water (the Oakland Bay Bridge would be ideal; however, the Juneau-Douglas Bridge would also do in a pinch here), and throw it over the side so that it goes "blub blub blub" all the way to the bottom of Gastineau Channel with all of the bowling balls that were lobbed over that bridge in the 1950s and 1960s...O WAIT!!! YOU'LL NEED THAT!!! So just set it aside instead.

Remove the four dead, dead AA cells, and dispose of or recycle them as you see fit.

Insert four new AA cells, orienting each of them so that their flat-ends (-) negatives face the springs for them in each chamber.

Finally, slide the battery door back on, and start reading again!

Aren't you glad that you didn't huck that battery door over the side of the Juneau-Douglas Bridge now?

This is what the Juneau-Douglas Bridge looks like...or what it lookED like anyway before it was replaced in 1976.

And this is what the bridge looks like now.

This is a reading light, not a flashlight meant to be thrashed, trashed, and abused. So I won't try to drown it in the toliet tank, bash it against a steel rod or against the concrete floor of a carport in effort to try and expose the bare Metaltrailmon - er - the bare Metalblackwargreymon - um that's not it either...the bare Metalvenommyotismon...mmm...the bare Metalgrowlmon...er...uh...wait a sec here...THE BARE METAL (guess I've been watching too much Digimon again!

- now I'm just making {vulgar slang term for feces} up!!!)...O WAIT!!! WHERE'S THE METAL?!?, let my mother's big dog's ghost, her kitties, my kitty or my sister's kitty cat piddle (uranate) on it, hose it down with my mother's gun, run over it with a 450lb Quickie Pulse 6 motorised wheelchair, stomp on it, use a medium ball peen hammer in order to bash it open to check it for candiosity, fire it from the cannoñata, drop it down the top of Mt. Erupto (now I guess I've been watching the TV program "Viva Piñata" too much again

- candiosity is usually checked with a laser-type device on a platform with a large readout (located at Piñata Central {aka. "Party Central"}), with a handheld wand that Langston Lickatoad uses, or with a pack-of-cards-sized device that Fergy Fudgehog uses; the cannoñata (also located at Piñata Central) is only used to shoot piñatas to piñata parties away from picturesque Piñata Island, and Mt. Erupto is an active volcano on Piñata Island), send it to the Daystrom Institute for additional analyses, or perform other indecencies on it that a flashlight might have to have performed on it. Therefore, this section of the Beam N Read® 3-LED Handsfree Travel Reading Light's web page will seem a bit more bare than this section of the web page on a page about a flashlight that was born to be a flashlight and nothing but a flashlight.

From the manufacturer, comes the following {no changes to grammar, spelling, or syntax were made; however it was edited to remove references to the orange filter which does not come with this particular product}:

Viewing our lights in the context of the right tool for the right job, we feel we complement rather than compete with handheld flashlights and headlamps. Beam N Read® fills the gap for personal task lighting in near space by providing a wide and bright hands-free light that is not too bright or wide, not too dim or narrow, but just right. It provides an excellent balance between brightness and battery life.

Most other lights spend most days stored away waiting for the occasional need they are designed for. Beam N Read® lights, on the other hand, are used daily by many people whether for reading, quilting, jumping a vehicle at night, changing an infants diapers, taking a trip downstairs at night, on poop patrol while walking a dog, rummaging through the basement or attic, or looking for a lost item under a bed or sofa. In daylight when looking for a dropped tiny screw, I've found it useful to place the light on the floor so a small shadow appears behind the tiny object making it a little easier to find.

Most portable, personal lights shine a circular beam with a hard shadow around the central beam. You test targets show this. For near field tasks this change in intensity can make the eyes work harder. Beam N Read® lights shine a horizontal oval beam that gradually diminishes away from the central area which is easier on the eyes. Our goal is to provide comfortable near field task lighting rather than focused beams that can light up objects a distance away.

Beam N Read® lights are turned on/off by flipping the large reflector head up/down. This makes it easy to operate for those who have trouble with small buttons or switches.

Beam N Read® Hands Free LightsLike some other lights you have reviewed, Beam N Read® is not designed for abuse. I have, however, dropped mine many times. The battery cover flies off, batteries come out, and you put it back together and it still works. I performed the ANSI/NEMA FL-1 drop test at one meter dropping a Beam N Read® 6 times (once from each side) onto concrete. There were no cracks and the light worked fine. Again, it's not designed for abuse but should handle typical tumbles that occur in everyday life.

If you read in bed at night, do try the red filter for a few days and switch back to no filter. It may be interesting to see a set of spectrographic charts comparing the Beam N Read® with no filter and with the red filter and the filters impact on reducing blue light. I assume you're familiar with the issues of blue light, but if not just Google "blue light and sleep" and you'll find lots of information.

Take note of the ambient light levels for no filter and the red filter. When used for tasks in bed at night such as reading or knitting, the red filter really makes a difference in how much light is bouncing around the room. For many people, having a bed partner use an unfiltered Beam N Read® enables them to sleep undisturbed. But for those more sensitive to ambient light the red filter may make a big difference. Most other lights don't seem to concern themselves with this day-to-day use issue.

Does this evaluation look an awful lot like the one I made for the Beam N Read® 6-LED Handsfree Deluxe Reading Light?
Thought that you'd say so.
That's because they're similar in appearance and basic functionality; therefore I was able to use its eval. as a template for this one.

Picture of the Beam N Read® 3-LED Handsfree Travel Reading Light illuminating the pages of the book, "Planet LED (A Coffee Table Book)" with no filter in place.

Picture of the Beam N Read® 3-LED Handsfree Travel Reading Light illuminating the pages of the book, "Planet LED (A Coffee Table Book)" with red filter in place.

Spectrographic analysis of the LEDs in this reading light (no filter).

Spectrographic analysis of the LEDs in this reading light (no filter); spectrometer's response narrowed to a band between 440nm and 460nm to pinpoint native emission peak wavelength, which is 452.590nm.

The raw spectrometer data (comma-delimited that can be loaded into Excel) is at http://ledmuseum.candlepower.us/46/bnr3-n.txt

Spectrographic analysis of the LEDs in this reading light (red filter).

Spectrographic analysis of the LEDs in this reading light (red filter); spectrometer's response narrowed to a band between 420nm and 450nm to pinpoint native emission peak wavelength, which was undetectable.

The raw spectrometer data (comma-delimited that can be loaded into Excel) is at http://ledmuseum.candlepower.us/46/bnr3-r.txt

USB2000 Spectrometer graciously donated by P.L.

TEST NOTES:
Test unit (along with their 6-LED version) was sent by B.F. of ASF Lightware Solutions) on 06-27-14, and was received on the early-afternoon of 06-28-14.

UPDATE: 00-00-00

PROS:
Very unique design hangs from your neck rather than going 'round your head or being clipped to a book
Red filter is truly useful!
Long battery life
Batteries it needs are common and relatively inexpen$ive

NEUTRAL:
I kind of wish that the illuminator head had a bit more range of motion -- however, this is a subjective opinion that will not affect rating
Not waterproof -- but it wasn't meant to be; so again this will not affect rating

CONS:
None that I've yet to find

ASF Lightware Solutions

Hang-around-neck reading/task light

White LED

3 wide-angle T1¾ (5mm) LEDs

Medium spot; ovoid hotspot with wider corona

Flip illuminator head on/off

Plastic

4x AA cells

Unknown/unable to measure

Very light splatter-resistance at maximum

¡¡¡UN TRUCO O TRATADOR VESTIDA COMO LA GRAN CALABAZA ORINAR EN UN JACK-O LINTERNA, NO!!!

4x AA cells, red filter, elastic strap

96mm L x 81mm W x 18.50mm D

152.10g (5.370 oz.) incl. batteries

China

90 days

plus the Beam N Read® 6-LED Handsfree Deluxe Reading Light

more than

Beam N Read® 3-LED Handsfree Travel Reading Light * www.readinglight.com...

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