How tall should a bedside table lamp be?

The bulb should sit roughly level with your shoulders when you are sitting up in bed reading. Total lamp height usually lands 50 to 65cm including shade, measured from the surface of the bedside table. Too short and the light spills on the bedding; too tall and the bulb is in your eyeline.

What wattage is right for a bedside reading lamp?

8W to 12W in LED, equivalent to 60W to 75W incandescent. Brighter than that fights the wind-down purpose of bedside light. Run the bulb at 2700K to 3000K (warm white) for evening; cool white over 4000K suppresses melatonin and disrupts sleep. Add a dimmer switch if the lamp does not have built-in dimming.

Are dimmer-switch table lamps worth the extra cost?

Yes for any bedside or living-room table lamp where you want to read at full brightness and watch TV at low. Touch-dimmer lamps cost £10 to £30 more than fixed-brightness equivalents and last as long. Check the bulb is dimmable too; non-dimmable LEDs flicker on dimmer switches and shorten the bulb's life.

Do USB-charging table lamps actually charge a phone fast?

Most lamp USB ports output 5V at 1A (5W), enough for a slow overnight top-up but not fast-charging modern phones (which need 18W-plus). They are a useful tidy-cable feature; not a replacement for a wall fast-charger. Check the lamp's USB output spec on the product page before relying on it.

How much do table lamps cost to run in the UK?

An 8W LED bulb running 4 hours a day costs roughly £4 a year at the 2026 UK average electricity rate (around 35p/kWh). The shade and base do not affect running cost; the bulb does. Swapping a 60W incandescent for an 8W LED of equivalent brightness cuts running cost by around 85%.

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