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Whether you’re reading, dozing, or simply relaxing in bed, the right lighting goes a long way toward creating a soothing atmosphere. But finding lamps that look great, function well, and are reasonably priced can be a tall order. Small Portable Night Light
We considered dozens of options, ranging in price from $35 to $200, and we found seven that we recommend for a variety of bedroom styles and sizes.
Our picks include a wall-mounted lamp, a contemporary shaded lamp, a sturdy tripod design, a futuristic desk lamp, a tiny statement piece, a delicate shaded lamp, and a modern, banker-style desk lamp. For the most soothing lighting, we recommend pairing nearly all of our picks with a soft white bulb, such as our favorite LED bulb, the Cree 60 W Equivalent Soft White.
I’m a writer at Design Milk and the former managing home technology editor for Apartment Therapy. I’ve been writing about home design and products since 2006 for a multitude of design-focused outlets, including Lonny, Metropolis, and Design Sponge. Before that, I designed children’s toys and furniture as an industrial designer, learning the ins and outs of mass-market product design from conception to manufacturing. I’ve previously written about floor lamps for Wirecutter, and my obsession with lighting in the home realm hasn’t dimmed since then.
This space-saving lamp is easier to hang and comes in a wider variety of finishes than other swing-arm designs we tested. The arm and shade adjust so you can angle the light perfectly for reading.
Best for: People who like to read in bed, specifically those who have a small bedroom that lacks a bedside table.
Why it’s great: If you don’t have room for a bedside table, a wall-mounted swing lamp can be a great option. Of the three wall-mounted lamps we considered, the Onefortythree Wallace Lamp is the only one that’s easy to install and equipped with high-quality mounting hardware. Once mounted, the Wallace doesn’t wobble when you adjust the arm; it also looks great and casts an ideal light for reading. In a very small bedroom, the same single lamp could work over a bed and in a reading nook, since the lamp’s arm swings 180 degrees on the wall and the shade swivels 90 degrees vertically and 360 degrees side to side.
The lamp arm is available in an assortment of finishes and materials, from natural brass to colored, powder-coated steel, so you can customize the lamp to complement a range of interiors. The all-metal wall bracket is easy to install; you secure it in place with just a screwdriver or drill. And the optional wood-block bracket adds a touch of warmth, for an additional $10. You can also choose a dimmer switch or international plugs as add-ons for this made-to-order light (each one takes three to four weeks to build, if it isn’t already in stock).
Flaws but not dealbreakers: This lamp is expensive, but that reflects the higher quality of materials and the light’s made-to-order assembly.
This bedside lamp is nearly impossible to knock over. And when you pair it with a soft white bulb, the linen shade casts a relaxing, warm light.
Best for: Average- to large-size rooms with one or more bedside tables.
Why it’s great: Many table lamps tip over easily, but that’s not a problem with the Alina Table Lamp. In our testing, the 9-pound, drum-shaped concrete base never budged; other lamps with smaller or lighter bases shifted when we pushed them. At 25 inches high and 15 inches in diameter, this is a pretty big lamp; it looks best on a larger bedside table or dresser top, where its dimensions complement the space.
There’s nothing fancy about the Alina, but we like that it looks substantial and modern without drawing too much attention to itself. The lamp’s organic style—a matte concrete base with a large, 25-inch-diameter off-white linen shade—appears soothing when it’s off as well as on (particularly when paired with a soft white bulb). Although the shade isn’t adjustable, in our tests, reading near or under this lamp proved to be easy on the eyes.
Flaws, but not dealbreakers: Although owner reviews on the Wayfair site are overwhelmingly positive for the Alina, reviewers consistently note that the lamp’s color is more gray than the white/cream color in the photos.
Unlike those on cheaper tripod lamps, the fixed wooden legs on the Eden keep it from tipping easily. The three-way rotary socket switch allows for quick adjustments to brightness.
Best for: Average-size bedrooms with one or more bedside tables.
Why it’s great: The Adesso Eden Table Lamp is physically and visually lighter than the heavier Alina lamp, making it a better choice for smaller spaces or a room where you want to preserve the flow of natural light from a window. The Eden doesn’t easily tip (unlike other tested tripod lamps with lighter-gauge legs that, when nudged, splay willy-nilly like the legs of a newborn giraffe). The Eden’s fixed ash legs proved immune to teetering or wobbling under our simulated “reaching for my glasses but missing horribly” nudges, shifting only an inch or two when we hit the lamp directly.
We like that this lamp comes with a fabric-covered cord, which is unusual for a model at this price. The cord should prove more durable than rubber-coated ones, and having a lamp’s “tail” look as good as its body is a nice aesthetic touch. The Eden is just the right height for reading in bed, and it has a tasteful, well-constructed gray fabric shade. The three-way rotary socket switch allows you to make quick changes to brightness; pair it with a three-way soft white bulb of up to 100 watts for best results.
Flaws but not dealbreakers: Some minor glue remnants were present where a leg was adjoined to the center pipe, marring an otherwise smooth and fine finish.
Halfway between a night-light and a lamp, the Goodnight Light casts a softer glow than traditional reading lights. The striking shape, touch sensor, and heavy base elevate it to a tiny design statement.
May be out of stock
Best for: Bedrooms where you want to add ambient light rather than focused reading light.
Why it’s great: The Andrew Neyer Goodnight Light is for anyone who’s looking to add a minor statement piece in the bedroom, and it’s the best of our picks if you simply want to add an ambient glow. Although it’s the smallest lamp we tested, it stands more solidly than others, thanks to the quality of its powder-coated steel column and the oak base hidden underneath; the light feels surprisingly heavy for its 4-by-1¾-inch dimensions. Designed to be topped with an exposed and oversize round bulb (included), this lamp resembles an inverted exclamation point, complemented by a delightful touch-sensor on/off switch.
Flaws but not dealbreakers: Although the base is sufficiently heavy and stable, the attached power cord is way too thick and challenging to position smoothly behind the lamp.
The Matin’s pleated shade illuminates the room with color, even when the lamp is off. And when the Matin is on, its glow invites the transition between reading and sleep.
Best for: A bedroom with other sources of light, inviting the Matin to warmly fill in a bedside corner.
Why it’s great: When looking at the HAY Matin Lamp, I saw a minimalist design evocative of Paris and chinoiserie. My wife saw the spiral remnants of a gigantic sharpened pencil. Either way, we both took an immediate liking to the idiosyncratic personality of the Matin Lamp, a delicate-looking model with a very lightweight, yet stable, base. At the lamp’s brightest setting, the periphery of its pleated, plastic-laminated cotton shade offers a very agreeable light for reading; at its two lower settings, the lamp takes on a more romantic presence. All three brightness levels are easily accessible using a touch-sensitive in-line dimmer that looks and feels superior to the rudimentary on/off switches included with most table lamps. The touch switch makes switching from “time to read” to “time to get into something more comfortable” as easy as tapping a smartphone.
Flaws but not dealbreakers: Installing the PVC-laminated shade looks easy in the how-to video, but in person it took a few attempts to align and secure the Matin in place. The integrated LED bulb means it’s not replaceable, but this type of bulb is rated for 25,000 hours (which is around 8½ years, if it’s kept on for eight hours a day).
This contemporary take on the banker’s light works well as a bedside reading lamp, particularly due to its V-shaped shade, which you can angle conveniently where needed.
Best for: Anyone who often reads in bed and doesn’t want to disturb their partner with excess light.
Why it’s great: If you like to regularly settle into bed with a book, tablet, or crossword puzzle before sleeping, the EQ3 Oxford Table Lamp is your lamp. A modern makeover of the traditional banker’s lamp—in black, silver, or brass, with a dark gray marbled base—the lamp practically disappears when lights are out. When turned on, the Oxford puts out an even and warm light (which never tired our eyes). A rotating center tube and 180-degree V-shaped shade make the illumination easy and quick to adjust. We also found that when it’s time to call it a night, the shade is a convenient place to hang magazines, bookmarking where you left off.
Flaws but not dealbreakers: There’s no dimmer, nor is there a power switch on the base, which means you might fumble a little bit to find the in-line switch while turning the lamp on and off. The LED is an integrated bulb, which means it’s not replaceable, but it’s rated for 50,000 hours (which works out to around 17.1 years, if the light is on for eight hours per day).
Compared with other task lamps we tested, this desk lamp is sturdier and sleeker, and provides better light. The dial control lets you customize the LED lights to a granular level of brightness.
Best for: Average to small bedrooms with one or more bedside tables, and for people who like to read or work in bed.
Why it’s great: Although the Xiaomi Mi LED Desk Lamp is a desktop task lamp, its minimalist design and highly customizable light make it a standout bedside lamp for anyone who loves reading or working in bed. Other desk lamps (including ones we like) can look clunky, but the Mi lamp offers a refined and minimalist design. It has a near-seamless finish and a red flat cord that ribbons outward, connecting the lamp’s three main components with a dash of style. The sum of its less-is-more design earned the Mi lamp both a Red Dot award and an iF World Design Guide award in 2017.
With the turn of a dial, you can precisely adjust the brightness and temperature of the light (it goes up to 300 lumens and spans a color temperature range of 2,700 to 6,500 Kelvin). Turn it up all the way to read a book, or turn it down halfway or more when you’re using a backlit device such as an iPad. Because the long arm can fold down, the lamp is useful for tiny spaces, too.
You can also control the lamp through a compatible iPhone or Android phone. Preset modes control the lighting and color temperature for different activities, including reading and working with a computer. If you prefer voice control, you can even use the Mi Home app to connect the lamp with Google Assistant for voice-activated operation, eliminating the need to press or turn anything when you want the lights on, off, brighter, or dimmer.
Flaws but not dealbreakers: The Mi LED Desk Lamp’s pared-down, modern design presents more of a desk-lamp feel than that of a traditional bedroom lamp, but the spare dimensions should help it blend into most bedrooms. Although the LED lights are rated for 25,000 hours (around 8½ years, if kept on for eight hours a day),1 they will eventually burn out, rendering the lamp useless. But this is an issue with most long-arm task lamps and integrated LED bulbs. Also, one of our senior editors purchased this lamp, and the dimmer dial cracked after a few months of use. We haven’t noticed this being a widespread problem, but we’re keeping an eye out for this issue and will update the guide if needed.
The ideal bedside lamp will fit nicely in your room, offer sufficient brightness for your needs, and help create a relaxing atmosphere that invites sleep. Here are a few questions to ask yourself when you’re deciding what type of lamp to buy:
How large is your bedroom? If your room is on the tinier side, we recommend getting a lamp without a shade, or at least getting one that has a smaller shade. Lamps with shades or a tripod-style base require more space, and they look best on bedside tables with enough surface area to keep them from inching toward the edge (a half-foot of space on each side should be sufficient for avoiding accidental knock-overs). A large table lamp on a small surface in a small room can look out of place. If you’re especially tight on space, consider wall-mount swing-arm lights.
How much light do you need? If you regularly read before bed, you may prefer a lamp that allows you to adjust the brightness to illuminate the page or screen without excessive glare. Too bright of a light, and your eyes will tire quickly; too little light, and you’ll strain your peepers from squinting. If you share a bed with someone who is easily disturbed by light, both of you will appreciate an adjustable shade and a dimming function; they’re great for those evenings when you want to finish a chapter but your bedmate wants to begin counting sheep early.
What kind of mood are you trying to create? The bulb you choose, the location you pick for the lamp, your wall color, and the shade you use can all affect the overall atmosphere of a room. For a relaxing hue, we recommend a soft white bulb rated within the range of 2,700 to 3,000 K (this number is usually written on the package); most of our picks would work nicely with a Cree 60 W Equivalent Soft White bulb, our favorite LED bulb. Positioning a lamp near the corner can make a room look brighter by bouncing light off the walls and ceiling to reduce eyestrain. White or lighter-colored walls accentuate brightness by reflecting light, while dark-colored walls absorb light, requiring brighter bulbs for equal effect. You may need to experiment with a few bulbs, but you can also use this lumens/watt calculator to figure out the best bulb for your room.
Although shaded table lamps are often synonymous with “bedside lamp,” we didn’t limit our search to this definition. Instead we focused on four styles—shade, task, wall-mount, and small-space designs—that we believed would work for a range of bedrooms. While reviewing thousands of lamps labeled as being for the bedroom, we pared our research down to 50 models—taking into account aesthetics, price, user reviews, and the criteria listed below—before narrowing our initial testing list to 11. In October 2020, we tested six more lamps and added three new picks. We used the following criteria to determine our top picks:
We are currently testing a few new options, including portable lamps that are rechargeable. Some of the new lamps we are testing include: Tala's Alumina Lamp, the Loftie Lamp, HAY's PC Portable Lamp, the Bellhop Portable LED Table Lamp, the Pantop Portable Lamp, and the SOWDEN PL1 Portable Lamp. We will add notes on these as soon as we're done testing.
The Target Project 62 Modern Marble Accent Table Lamp (now discontinued) used to be one of our picks, but the design has been discontinued, so we’ve removed it from our lineup.
Article’s Gira (now discontinued) table lamp offers a striking, contemporary design, but in our tests it wobbled. Its large size makes it best for low surfaces with sufficient space all around.
The Anglepoise USB 90 Mini Mini Desk Lamp is a beautiful rendition of the archetypal desk lamp, but we don’t think it’s best for most people’s bedrooms, since it runs on a USB port. If and when this lamp becomes available in a standard-outlet version, we’ll revisit it as a possible top pick.
The adjustable height of the West Elm Telescoping Table Lamp is its best feature, but it’s marred by legs that wobble a little when you extend the lamp.
The brass finish of the Mistana Forrest Swing Arm Lamp arrived with visible scratches and marks across its arm, almost looking as if it had been used and repackaged. The included mounting hardware wasn’t the best quality; we’d recommend replacing that with a higher-grade substitute before mounting the lamp.
The CB2 Swing Arm Black Wall Sconce looked great out of the box, but it was extremely onerous to install because of its nonstandard mounting hardware. We broke three of the four mounting-screw tops while using a screwdriver.
The cute, mushroom-shaped Lexon Mina M is marketed as a “Medium LED lamp,” but it’s smaller than many real-life mushrooms we’ve found while foraging. The light it casts is more of a suggestion than a declaration of illumination.
The luxurious golden finish of the Target Project 62 Dome LED Accent Lamp is only skin deep, and as soon as you pick it up, you realize why it’s so affordable. The lightweight base is just too easy to push or knock over.
If you’re really strained for space, the dual-function Edge Light Clock might offer an acceptable compromise, combining the features of a small light with an alarm clock. But as a bedside lamp, it’s way too small, and the light’s too dim for any task beyond finding glasses or phone in the dark.
Michelle Ullman, How to Pick a Bedside Lamp, The Spruce, February 9, 2019
Sherry Nothingam, Lighting It Right: How to Choose the Perfect Table Lamp, Decoist, January 12, 2016
How to Select the Perfect Table Lamp, Lamps Plus: Ideas & Advice, July 18, 2018
Ronda Kaysen, Light Bulbs That Help You Sleep, The New York Times, February 10, 2017
Extreme Remake: Bedroom Edition, The Better Sleep Council, November 30, 2018
Becca Caddy, The hidden superpowers of smart lights, The Ambient, February 21, 2018
Riya Patel, 10 best bedside lamps, Independent, July 10, 2018
Gregory Han is a design, travel, and lifestyle writer, and the co-author of Creative Spaces: People, Homes, and Studios to Inspire. His work can be found at Design Milk, Dwell, Domino, Apartment Therapy, and Airbnb.
Children's Night Light Wirecutter is the product recommendation service from The New York Times. Our journalists combine independent research with (occasionally) over-the-top testing so you can make quick and confident buying decisions. Whether it’s finding great products or discovering helpful advice, we’ll help you get it right (the first time).