Why is it that table and desk lamps are so badly designed nowadays, I
have several I have bought over the past couple of years and not one
of them is ideal. It's not as if getting it right would be difficult,
it's just total lack of thought about the design.

There are several problems, as follows:-

1. You can't simply turn the light on and off. Most lamps now have
ways of adjusting brightness and some even have colour temperature
settings. These are all very handy but you don't want to have to go
through lots of settings every time you turn the light on or off, you
just want to turn it on and off. (Torches also suffer from this,
torches I have to click more than once to turn off drive me crazy!)

2. The on/off switches are 'quirky' in some cases. I have one light
where you push a switch on the end of the light to turn it on and off,
the trouble is you have to hold the light with your other hand to do
this otherwise it falls over. If they had used a touch sensitive
switch in this position it would work well but, almost to make it
awkward on purpose, it's a clicky switch that needs a push. Another
lamp I have has a switch in the cable which I can see no good reason
for, it's difficult to find!

3. One desk lamp that I have that's *almost* Ok has a very silly
fault, the controls are on the flat base of the lamp and it has a
separate control for on/off so doesn't have problem 1 above. But, for
some wonky reason, the controls are lit only when the light is on,
completely pointless as then they are illuminated by the light itself.
They are nice, small, low-powered blue LED indicators and would be
perfectly OK to have on in the dark, quite pointless when the light is
on!

If I could mix and match the features of my several lamps I could get
a sensibly designed lamp, none of them was desperately expensive so
it's not cost that dictates the bad design, it's just lack of
bothering to think about it.


Ggggrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!! :-)

--
Chris Green
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