Sponsored Review
When we moved into our current home, K and I had a debate over whether the lights should be warm yellow or cool white. Being the bookworm that I am, I insisted on cool white so that every corner of the house would have optimal lighting for reading or other near work such as sewing. K, however, felt that warm yellow lighting would make the house more welcoming, whereas cool white tends to make everything look clinical. I won that argument, so our house is so brightly lit, surgeons could perform surgery in it.
As it turns out, my reasoning was a bit too simplistic. One shouldn’t just consider colour temperature when choosing lights. According to Dr Lee Sao Bing, an eye surgeon who is also the Medical Director of the Shinagawa LASIK and Eye Centre, lights that are overly bright cause glare which strains the eye while making it more difficult to see. Proper lighting, therefore, should reduce glare.
Light flicker is also an important consideration. Quick and repeated changes in light intensity are caused by fluctuations in the voltage supplied to a light. Although we don’t always realise that a light is flickering – we notice it only at a frequency of 50 Hz or fewer – our eyes do, and they make their displeasure clear in the form of eye strain or headaches.
I think we all know when we experience glare, and we’re bothered when a fluorescent tube goes on the blink, but we don’t really associate these two things with long-term eye health. The 3M LED6000 Polarizing Light, however, reduces both glare and flicker, so you can make your kids revise for their exams for as long as you like without having to worry about them going blind. Like so:

Notice the ventilation holes on the top housing? That helps heat dissipate from the lamp. This maintains LED performance at 70% light output even after 50,000 hours of usage (a very long time).
We have been long-time fans of 3M’s table lamps, having owned lamps from when they first started making them. Since I already have an older-model lamp on my desk, I installed the LED6000 on Alison’s study table. This lamp is definitely a lot sleeker than the other two that we have, and the funky green colour is a plus for kids. Alison particularly likes adjusting the brightness levels of the lamp and adjusting the lamp head to suit. Compared to our older lamps, the LED6000 is also a lot lighter and easier to move around.

You can control the brightness and turn the lamp on or off by running your finger along the touch dimmer.
We’re hoping that 3M will come up with a floor lamp model next. Since we moved in, K has removed some of the bulbs from our ceiling lights in a bid to conserve electricity (two bulbs per light and several lights in a room made it really, very bright) so a sleekly designed floor lamp would be welcome in the living room. How about it, 3M?
The LED6000 retails at $269 (w/GST) and is available now at Best Denki, Homefix DIY, Popular Bookstores, UrbanWrite, Prologue and other leading retailers.
I received this lamp from 3M for the purposes of this review. All opinions are my own.



























