I love light and lighting. However, I can’t stand direct or overly bright lighting. As a nerd, I simply prefer a more diffuse light. That’s why I don’t turn on ceiling lights. They’re too bright and too direct. At least in normal everyday life. But having the screen as the only light source in the dark is also strenuous.
Fortunately, there’s a good solution for this now: monitor light bars. These are thin LED lamps that you can attach to your monitor to illuminate the desk area in front of it. Without lighting up the screen itself and causing reflections. A great idea, I think. And because it’s so great, you can get them for very little money, but also really high-quality ones for over €150. And then there are only a few models that fit my monitor.
My monitor is curved and, at 34 inches with a 21:9 aspect ratio, also quite large. The standard light bars are straight and thus protrude into the curve. As a result, you get reflections again and uneven lighting. So I also need a curved light bar. And as mentioned above: the selection here is much smaller and therefore more expensive. Not €150, but not €30 either.
In the end, I opted for the MELIFO light bar on Amazon for just under €77. Not a bargain, but the other serious alternative was over €100. It does come with RGB lighting on the top, but I don’t need that. The goal was simply to illuminate the desk without causing reflections. And to spoil the surprise: the MELIFO bar does just that.
But let’s get into the details. The bar is delivered quite unspectacularly in a brown cardboard box. A quick start guide, the lamp, and a USB-A to USB-C cable are inside, that’s it. But you don’t need anything more. Assembly is correspondingly easy. You fold out the counterweight, place the frame on the monitor, and then adjust the angle of the counterweight so the frame rests evenly. Plug in the lamp, turn it on, and adjust the actual bar so that you can’t see the LEDs yourself, but they also don’t shine on the screen. Done.
A small note on this: adjusting the light bar so you can’t see the LEDs only works if you’ve set up your monitor correctly. That is, the screen surface should be at a 90° angle to your desk, and the top edge of the screen should be at eye level. This way, you’re looking slightly down most of the time, which relieves strain on your eyes and neck.
Once the light bar is in place, it can be controlled with gentle touches on three zones. Since my monitor is curved at the back, the mount relies on balance and can’t clamp on. So I can’t press too hard on the zones, or the light bar will shift. But I can’t think of a better solution off the top of my head either.
What can be controlled? One zone for On/Off. I like that. It means you don’t have to do it via the dimmer, and it doesn’t get readjusted when you turn it off. You can dim using the zone to the left of it. Tap and hold once for brighter, do the same again and it gets dimmer. On the right side is the switch for the color temperature, which can also be steplessly adjusted from cool white to warm white and back again. The settings are saved when the lamp is turned off. So you don’t have to set it up anew each time, a problem with my previous desk lamp.
In summary, I’m happy with the MELIFO light bar. It could be a bit more stable on the monitor and is also slightly too expensive, but it was worth it to me personally. Finally, a pleasant light on my desk without blinding me directly or indirectly via the screen. Depending on the situation, I can adjust the light color and brightness, which is a big plus. An upward-facing light might have been nice, but I haven’t missed it so far. My eyes, however, are thankful that I’m no longer sitting in the dark in front of a brightly lit monitor.