Onyx has started selling a new Boox reading light. It’s the kind that you wear around your neck that rests on your chest with the light pointing outward.
Seeing it is like traveling back in time to when ebook readers didn’t have frontlights. Back then ebook reader reading lights were quite common.
Fittingly the pictures show the reading light in use with the new Onyx Boox Max3, which happens to be the one current Onyx model without a frontlight.
One interesting thing about the light is it has four different color temperatures so in a sense it’s kind of like dual color frontlights on ereaders these days.
While E Ink frontlights continue to suffer from color inconsistencies and unevenness issues, they sure are a lot better than the old school alternative of having to carry around a book light or using a lighted cover (they used to sell covers with lights attached). I’d take the Kobo Libra’s funky frontlight over having to go back to using a reading light any day (or evening, as would be more likely the case).
Onyx’s description for the reading light is pretty funny:
No more holding a flashlight by your hand or by your mouth, or wear a headlamp on your head, nodding your head like a robot to adjust the light directions when you are reading or busy in repairing. This flexible neckband hug light helps you just focus on what you are doing without worrying about the light, whenever for reading in bed or in garden/patio, walking dog, repairing, crafting, working and many others.
Thanks for a good laugh. I remember the old booklights. Their battery consumption was only eclipsed by the rate that the bulbs burned out. I assume these are LED but still, it’s an old solution for a problem that no longer exists.
Hey, I still have my old clip-on booklights. Now I just clip them on my embroidery frame so I can see what I’m doing. I swear the holes in the fabric get smaller every year.
lol, yeah thanks, swore off reading lights after my first and only reading device without a front light.
Even an LED reading light was an encumbrance beyond having to change the battery every so often.
I have a clip on book light that I sometimes use instead of the frontlight on my reader. I enjoy reading in my hammock in the evening, and if I use the light on my reader it will inevitably attract a bug or two, and they have an annoying habit of turning my pages! If I use a clip on light, they can bash their tiny brains against it without disturbing my reading!