Maximum brightness is 1,000 lumens – the approximate intensity of a 75-watt incandescent bulb. The battery lasts for about five hours at this brightness. At low intensity, this can extend to a dozen hours.
red shift
Photograph: Matthew Korfage
One additional feature I appreciate at night is the red-light mode. There’s little evidence that the blue light from your little smartphone is keeping you up at night. But several studies show that wavelengths of blue light can affect melatonin levels and thus your body’s circadian rhythm, while red light does not.
Red light therapy, of course, is as much the province of TikTok as it is science — an area where wild exaggeration resides alongside legitimate uses and benefits. One sleep study shows that red light is superior to blue light when it comes to melatonin levels, while another study shows that red light is associated with “negative emotions” before sleep.
So I can only offer my own experience, which is that the Edge Light Go’s red reading light provides me with a pleasant liminal space between wake time and sleep time, which is not provided by a basic nightstand lamp. It allows me to relax in a dark room, still give me the chance to see and read, and wander off a little easier.
If I fall asleep, the lights automatically turn off for 25 minutes, which means I won’t do what I often do, which is turn off while reading and then wake up in the middle of the night to a room full of bright lights, feeling anxious.
Warnings and quirks
Photograph: Matthew Korfage
That said, for all its portability qualities, the Edge Lite Go doesn’t have a heavy enough base to keep the lamp from falling over if I tilted it forward from its lowest hinge. This can be troublesome when trying to use the lamp as a reading light from a bedside table or the arm of a sofa.
<a href