What We Bought: This LED desk lamp gave me the best lighting for video calls

Over the past two years, my work-from-home situation has changed from temporary to permanent, and I've had to reconfigure my home office accordingly. I bought a standing desk, a monitor, and spent countless hours rearranging my furniture. One of my main concerns is that I have a relatively small space so I prefer things that can overlap. So when I decided to update my desk lamp, I knew I needed a multitasker that wouldn't take up a lot of space. For me, the Lume Cube Edge Light ended up being the perfect solution.

Before I bought the Edge Light, I mostly relied on a light I bought from CB2 almost twenty years ago. It looks good but it has a large six inch base that takes up quite a bit of space. It also does not provide the right lighting environment for video calls. While it's usable enough as a desk lamp, the light is just too warm and dim for Zoom sessions. Also, it's not flexible enough for me to angle the light to illuminate my face properly. This is a problem when, like most others, I suddenly had several video meetings per week. I really noticed it when I was a guest on a podcast; watching the video made me realize how poor the lighting was.

Lume Cube

Engadget

This prompted me to buy a cheap ring light from Amazon, but I soon realized that was a mistake. As a result, I had not one but two lamps that took up residence on my little desk. I knew I had to rethink my entire lighting situation.

That's why I was happy when I saw that Lume Cube, which is known for its portable photo/video lighting rigs, released the Edge Light late last year . It is basically an LED desk lamp that doubles as a video conferencing lamp. On top of that, it's a clip-on model, which means it wouldn't take up much space. It's quite expensive at $120, but since it seemed to solve so many of my problems, I decided it was worth it.

I've had it for a few months now, and I love it. It freed up so much space on my desktop. It's big enough to put behind my webcam when I need it for video calls, and thanks to its five pivot points, I can easily rotate it so I can use it to light up my desk. The lighting is also fantastic - I can adjust both brightness and warmth so it's bright but not too harsh. According to the company, it offers multi-level diffusion for soft light and has color adjustment between 3200 and 5600K.

Lume Cube

Engadget

The controls are quite intuitive: just press the circular button to toggle between brightness and warmth, then press the plus and minus signs to adjust the levels to your liking. The buttons are all "soft touch", meaning they don't need any pressure. On top of that, the light comes with two charging ports - one USB-A and one USB-C - which I always use to charge all my various devices and accessories.

Perhaps my only complaint is that the light produces a tiny bit of glare on my glasses when placed directly in front of me. The company suggests getting two Edge Lights to reduce this effect, but that's a bit too rich for my blood. I've since managed to angle the light so the glare isn't as bad, which is good enough for me.

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