Dyson Work Light

Saw a cool-looking desk lamp at Best Buy the other day and made the mistake of letting the Dyson vendor start talking to me about it.

It’s a work light.

That costs $599.

Because (a) the arm conducts heat away from the leds, you know how leds are infamous for burning out because of heat, right, well thanks to the arm these can last YEARS until you have to replace the entire unit because it’s special magic LED that will cost you more replace than a new worklight! (b) it has super-high-tech secret sensors that allow it to match the ambient light.

Or: It costs $599 because it has a special LED, designed to get really super hot, attached to a heat-conducting metal arm with a heat-pipe in it that will conduct that heat straight into your hand when you try and adjust the lamp – which you will do regularly because you can’t tell whether the light is on or not.

Frankly “can’t tell whether the light is on or not” is the opposite of what I look for in a lighting solution. And when the guy demod it for me, it really did match the ambient light so well that we both had to tilt our heads to look directly at the bulb to be able to tell it was on.

The guy took great pleasure in showing me how you could raise or lower the arm, how it rotated, and then nearly flipped out when I started to reach for it..
Not only can you not tell whether the light is on or not, you can’t point it where you want, and people keep breaking his floor models by trying to twist or pivot it. The mechanism on the stand looks exactly like the kind of mechanism that would allow you to tilt or twist the arm. The picture on the front of the box is even taken from a bizarre angle that makes it look like the lamp has had the head tilted upwards.

Actual:

But it was standing in-front of images like these:

And what I refer to as the “light comes out here” picture

But I think this actual Dyson promo picture sums it up

“The light from my phone is reflecting off the lamp”
“I can’t quite read whats on my phone, I’ll have to lean forward for a closer look”
“This posture looks totally natural”
“It’s a touch screen, that’s why I’m not looking at it”
“I’m calling 911 to report this thing, and not taking my eye off it”

Yep – if there’s one thing you want from a work-lamp, other than light, having it directly overhead of what you want to work on, right at eye level, that’s got to be right up there… I’d throw my money at the screen but it’s too dark in here to see my money or the screen…