BEAM N READŽ LED 3 HANDS-FREE TRAVEL & READING LIGHT W/ USB/AC POWER KIT
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Somebody set up us the bomb. 
Beam n ReadŽ LED 3 Hands-Free Travel & Reading Light with USB/AC Power Kit, retail $19.95 {add'l $14.95 for the power kit} (www.readinglight.com...)
Manufactured by ASF Lightware Solutions (www.readinglight.com)
Last updated 11-21-14
The Beam n ReadŽ LED 3 Hands-Free 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 2:47am, shovelling up dog {vulgar slang term for multiple fudge bunnies} after taking Fido or Fi-Fi out for a midnight doo-doo, changing a baby's poopy diapers at night without having to flip on the bedroom/nursery light and risk waking other children in the room {but if you're awakened by a squalling baby at 3:30am because his or her nappy is soiled with urine or feces (piss or crap), chances are that the racket has also awakened other kids in the same room anyway, hahaha!!!}, etc.
One thing that this light has that others don't is red & orange clip-on filters; they not only block 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 ReadŽ LED 3 Hands-Free Travel & Reading Light is almost ready to use right out of the package; you only need install a quartet of AA cells (not included; you'll have to procure them elsewhere) and then you can go & find what made that squeaky noise in the wall behind the urinal or curl up with your favourite book on that spiffy new Kindle Paper White that you just found under the Christmas tree.
Using the elastic cord, sling the Beam n ReadŽ around your neck, as the photograph directly below shows:
Picture of the Beam n ReadŽ LED 3 Hands-Free Travel & Reading Light slung arond my neck like it was intended to be used.
Turn your Beam n ReadŽ 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 or orange filter, simply snap it in place over the illuminator head.
The Beam n ReadŽ 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 ReadŽ can be used with a USB adapter or 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 USB/AC power kit (which can be ordered on the Beam n ReadŽ's website at this URL for $14.95) has an output of +5.0 volts at 1A (1,000mA).
To use the USB/AC power kit, plug the small male mono phone plug on the power kit's cord into the female receptacle for it on the upper edge of the Beam n ReadŽ, and plug the other end into any USB 1.0 or 2.++ receptacle on your desktop or laptop computer. Alternately, you can plug the cable into the shockingly small AC adapter, and plug that into any standard (in north America anyway) 120 to 240 volts AC 60Hz wall receptacle (or, "wall outlet" or even, "wall socket" if you prefer).
This wonderful little light will now be powered from either your computer or from mains voltage; saving its batteries! (the batteries in the unit are automatically disconnected, so you need not remove them).
The cable is 6 feet in length; you can also obtain a USB extender cable to add an additional six feet if desired.
Outside the United States, you can plug this into a USB "wall wart" that fits your country's power system (home AC receptacles overseas have a different set of prongs/slots than US AC receptacles).
You can also plug it into a USB car charger and your Beam n ReadŽ will feed happily from its gift of power.
To change the batteries in your Beam n ReadŽ, 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 suffice), 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 bashed, 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 sidewalk in front of our house in effort to try and expose the bare Metalgrandgallantmon - er - the bare Metalwargreymon - um that's not it either...the bare Metalmalomyotismon...mmm...the bare Metalcalumon...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 cannoņata, drop it down the top of Mt. Erupto (now I guess I've been watching the TV program "Viva Piņata" too much again - candiosity is usually checked with a laser-type device on a platform with a large readout (located at Piņata 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 cannoņata (also located at Piņata Central) is only used to shoot piņatas to piņata parties away from picturesque Piņata Island, and Mt. Erupto is an active volcano on Piņata 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 ReadŽ LED 3 Hands-Free 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:
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 ReadŽ 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 ReadŽ 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 ReadŽ 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 ReadŽ 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.
Like some other lights you have reviewed, Beam n ReadŽ 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 ReadŽ 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 orange filter for a few days and then switch to no filter. You may be surprised how the unfiltered light feels. Then 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 ReadŽ with no filter, with the orange 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, the orange 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 ReadŽ enables them to sleep undisturbed. But for those more sensitive to ambient light the orange or 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 ReadŽ 3-LED Handsfree Deluxe Travel 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 ReadŽ LED 3 Hands-Free 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 ReadŽ LED 3 Hands-Free Travel & Reading Light illuminating the pages of the book, "Planet LED (A Coffee Table Book)" with red filter in place.
Picture of the Beam n ReadŽ LED 3 Hands-Free Travel & Reading Light illuminating the pages of the book, "Planet LED (A Coffee Table Book)" with orange 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 451.180nm.
The raw spectrometer data (comma-delimited that can be loaded into Excel) is at http://ledmuseum.candlepower.us/47/bnr3-2-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/47/bnr3-2-r.txt
Spectrographic analysis of the LEDs in this reading light (orange filter).
Spectrographic analysis of the LEDs in this reading light (orange 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/47/bnr3-2-o.txt
USB2000 Spectrometer graciously donated by P.L.
Picture of part of the back of the packaging materials, showing multiple spectrographic analyses overlaid upon one another to show how the red & orange filters compare with the white LEDs themselves (unfiltered); this demonstrates how the filters block all of the blue radiation that's detrimental to rest, relaxation, and sleep). So I'm blowing my own tuba here a bit!
Brief video that shows the Beam n ReadŽ LED 3 Hands-Free Travel & Reading Light with USB Power Kit malfunctioning (this does not appear to be the fault of the Beam n ReadŽ itself; problem appears to be with the cables & jack -- unit operates perfectly with batteries).
This video is 144.5558053267 megabytes (144,793,858 bytes) in length; dial-up users please be aware.
It will take no less than seven hundred twenty two minutes to load at 48.0Kbps.
TEST NOTES:
Test unit was sent by B.F. of ASF Lightware Solutions) on 11-09-14, and was received on the early-afternoon of 11-13-14.
The USB/AC Power Kit appears to be defective; I receive the following when the unit is plugged directly into a USB port on my computer:
The Beam n ReadŽ itself still lights up after receiving this pop-up, so "no harm no foul" as they say.
(I've since been told that the, "Power Surge On Hub Port" message is actually surprisingly common on Windows XP systems, and does not actually indicate a problem with the Beam n ReadŽ LED 3 Hands-Free Travel & Reading Light with USB/AC Power Kit)
UPDATE: 11-21-14
I received the replacement BNR3 unit and USB/AC Power Kit a couple of days ago, and everything appears to function as intended.
PROS:
Very unique design hangs from your neck rather than going 'round your head or being clipped to a book
Red and orange filters are 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
MANUFACTURER: ASF Lightware Solutions
PRODUCT TYPE: Hang-around-neck reading/task light
LAMP TYPE: White LED
No. OF LAMPS: 3 wide-angle T1ž (5mm) LEDs
BEAM TYPE: Medium spot; ovoid hotspot with wider corona
SWITCH TYPE: Flip illuminator head on/off
CASE MATERIAL: Plastic
BEZEL: Plastic
BATTERY: 4x AA cells
CURRENT CONSUMPTION: Unknown/unable to measure
WATER- AND URANATION-RESISTANT: Very light splatter-resistance at maximum
SUBMERSIBLE: ĄĄĄUN TRUCO O TRATADOR VESTIDA COMO LA GRAN CALABAZA ORINAR EN UN JACK-O LINTERNA, NO!!! 
ACCESSORIES: Red filter, orange filter, elastic strap
SIZE: 96mm L x 81mm W x 18.50mm D
WEIGHT: 152.10g (5.370 oz.) incl. batteries
COUNTRY OF MANUFACTURE: China
WARRANTY: 90 days
PRODUCT RATING:
(for the Beam n ReadŽ unit:)
(No, you aren't seeing things -- that really is seven stars you're seeing up there!
This {plus the Beam n ReadŽ 6-LED Handsfree Deluxe Reading Light} is the best product to have landed in my lab in the last 15+ years!!!)
(for the USB/AC Power Kit:)
Beam n ReadŽ LED 3 Hands-Free Travel & Reading Light with USB/AC Power Kit * www.readinglight.com...
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