This $15 Gadget Transformed My Desk Setup

• Monitor light bars cut eye strain and set a cozy desk ambiance without screen glare.

• Even a cheap monitor light can be great.

• They're double as convenient reading lights and even photography lights.

Desktop upgrades are usually either expensive, underwhelming, or both. It's easy to spend a fortune on some piece of equipment, only to realize later that it's completely useless. However, with this particular gadget, the opposite is true—it's both cheap and incredibly effective.

Monitor Light Bars Are a Game-Changer

If you've been keeping an eye on the desktop PC space lately, chances are you've seen those expensive light bars gracing the top of people's monitors. These monitor light bars are specially designed to provide focused lighting at your desk without creating a distracting glare on your monitor screen.

This does a couple of great things for your setup: it creates a warm, welcoming ambiance in the space where you spend most of your time, and it also helps reduce eye strain by adding light around your monitor, softening the contrast between a bright screen and a dark room.

However, many of these monitor lights are rather pricey gadgets that are hard to justify if you're on a budget. For instance, the BenQ ScreenBar Pro is $140 , and the Razer Aether Monitor Light is $130 .

While these are undoubtedly premium, feature-packed light bars, their spicy price tag is higher than a good part of my computer's individual components (including my 32GB kit of DDR5 RAM ). Heck, they're even more expensive than some budget high refresh rate monitors that you could stick them onto.

It Doesn't Have to Be Expensive

I don't know about you, but I find it hard to justify spending that much on a fairly simple array of LEDs, even with fancy touch or app controls, RGB, an additional light behind the monitor, and a lengthy warranty. Admittedly, cheaper options can also get the job done, such as the Quntis ScreenLinear Pro , but even this budget-friendly alternative is around $40.

My colleague Patrick loves this monitor light , and I almost bought it myself, except it cost $70 where I live (Amazon isn't available here).

So, not willing to pay the spicy markup and risk it, as I wasn't even sure if I wanted a monitor light, I turned to Temu instead and ordered the cheapest light bar I could find. With a price under $15, over 600 sold, and a 4.8-star rating, I figured, how bad could it be? It's a cheap USB gadget, so even if I ended up disliking it, it wouldn't be the end of the world. I could probably find some other purpose for it or gift it to someone.

When the light bar arrived, it looked just as cheap and flimsy as I expected, which is totally fine for the price. It's just a few LEDs meant to illuminate my desk; it doesn't have to feel like a premium product. The control knob and its cheap plastic weren't much better, but at least it's there, meaning I won't have to rely on the fickle capacitive button on the side.

After gluing the magnetic plates to my monitor and magnetically attaching the light, I turned it on and was instantly taken aback by how bright it was. It gets seriously bright, to the point that its full brightness makes it hard to view my screen.

Of course, I'm only going to use this level of brightness if I'm doing something at the desk, so I immediately turned it down to around 25% to create a cozy and inviting ambiance that also allows me to see a bit better at night.

Another cool feature of this light is that it has two sets of differently colored LEDs (warm and cool white) that can be mixed to fine-tune the color temperature. I mostly keep it on the warmest setting possible, but the cool white light is nice when I need to see something at my desk clearly.

What impressed me most about this light, though, is its ability to create focused illumination exactly where I want it without causing any glare at the brightness level I use (although going close to max does produce some glare). I wasn't expecting much at this price point, but now that I have it, I'd gladly buy it again.

Monitor Light Bars Can Be a Multi-Purpose Tool

While monitor light bars are fantastic for setting the mood and reducing eye fatigue in dark rooms like mine, that's far from their only benefit. They also make for a pretty good banker's lamp (aka reading light) that sits in the most convenient position possible—right above your desk.

I often work on mini projects at my desk, such as repairing gadgets, modding my mice and keyboards, replacing keycaps and switches, or anything else where I need strong, focused light. The monitor light also doubles as a great photography light when I need to take photos of my desk or gadgets for articles.

In fact, since all a monitor light really needs is a USB power source and a place to clamp or magnetically attach, it can serve as versatile backlighting for a wide range of uses. Should I ever replace it with a better monitor light, I could use this one to illuminate my plants or diecast model car collection, clip it behind the desk for ambient lighting, or even as a ring light alternative (come to think of it, it would make a great shaving light).

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If you don't have a monitor light but are curious to try one, I suggest picking up the cheapest monitor light you can find and giving it a shot. Many of us discover that having a light in front of us helps reduce eye fatigue. Plus, the contrast between your illuminated peripherals and the rest of the desk looks incredibly cool, making it well worth the small investment.