How often have we all wished for a third hand while we’re working on a vehicle or doing something in the dark? Having adequate light is often the difference between finding hidden problems or not. Bathing a fastener in bright light helps me find the best angle from which to remove it when working in tight spaces. I also can’t tell you how many times I have dropped and lost a nut or bolt because I didn’t have two hands to work with because one was holding a flashlight.

Even if you don’t do much DIY work, this Energizer VISION LED headlamp should still be in your emergency blackout kit. You don’t want to have to be holding a flashlight while you navigate around your house in pitch darkness and try to figure out what’s going on while keeping children and animals out of the way at the same time.

I use this headlamp every Saturday morning when I get up early before the sun to harvest for the farmer’s market. Even when it’s not on high mode, it lights up an entire raised bed and then some to allow me to see what I’m doing and still be able to work with my hands. It’s no problem using it in the rain if I have to, as it’s water resistant (just don’t submerge it in water.)

This headlamp provides 400 Lumens in high mode, which puts it into a league of its own compared to many other LED headlamps. There are six modes in all: high, low, spot, emergency strobe, red, and green.

This light is charged by a standard USB charger, which is included. A full charge takes approximately four hours. Energizer also makes the same light in a version that takes three AAA batteries. Even with the ubiquity and low cost of AAA batteries, I recommend the USB model because it feels lighter when it’s on your forehead and you’ll always have a way to recharge it if you’re near a phone charger.

As a military guy, I appreciate the green and red night modes. Green and red light still lets you see in the dark, but allows you to retain much more of your body’s natural night vision without needing to readjust your eyes to the darkness once you turn the light off compared with using a standard white light.

It’s pretty amazing how far flashlight technology has come in the past couple of decades, with LEDs making the greatest impact. This little light puts out several hours of superior light compared to much larger and heavier flashlights of the past that ran on multiple, expensive D-cell batteries and required periodic replacement of the incandescent bulbs.

I searched long and hard to find a bright, well-built LED light that would look good on my desk. I believe I’ve found it with this one.

I have two of these lights – one on my office desk, and another on my bed’s headboard. The light clamps securely onto a riser on my computer desk as well as the much thicker headboard, so there is quite a bit of range depending on what you want to attach it to.

The best feature is the ability to easily change the color temperature and brightness of the light. There are five temperatures available ranging from a very cool, office-like daylight for tasks that require excellent visibility to a very warm cozy yellow hue when you want to relax. I found the brightness levels to be appropriately stepped, although I usually use mine on the brightest or second to brightest setting.

I also really like the 30-minute auto-power off timer that you activate simply by holding the on/off button for two seconds. You can read a book before bed and not worry about having to rouse yourself to turn off the light as the sandman beckons.

There is also a USB port on the back of the base so that you can charge your phone or tablet.

This would make a great graduation gift for someone who is going off to college. With the range of brightness levels, this lamp would be ideal for reading at your desk without disturbing a roommate who is sleeping.

Insufficient light is the number one reason that people fail at starting plants from seeds. They buy fresh seeds, use the correct seed starting medium, provide sufficient water, and before you know it, the seeds have germinated and they think they’re off to the races. After only a few days, their plants start to become leggy as they try to reach toward whatever light source is available. Eventually the fledgling seedlings fall over into the soil as they continue their unbalanced growth and eventually die. Those that don’t die at this stage will die when you transplant them, as they haven’t developed a strong root structure.

As most amateur gardeners don’t have a greenhouse, many rely on a sunny window or kitchen counter to grow out their new seedlings. While these locations are fine for mature houseplants, they simply cannot provide the minimum 14 hours of high quality light that new seedlings need.

Enter the game-changing world of LED lighting, specifically the Barrina 42W LED Grow Light. I purchased 12 of these last January to start plants for my new market garden business. I clipped them to the shelves (two lights per 4′ shelf) of a rolling wire utility rack using S-hooks and a light-duty linked chain from Lowe’s. These lights do come with cables that allow the light to hang closer to the seed trays, but I found it easier to hang my lights a few inches down and raise my trays rather than lower my lights throughout the growing cycle.

You want your lights about three to four inches above the trays to promote faster germination. I see lots of pictures and videos online of people with their grow lights that are not close enough. Raise your lights (or lower your trays like I do) as your plants grow. You will be able to tell if they are too close. By the time my seedlings are ready for hardening off before transplanting, I usually have about 10 inches between my lights and the top of my plants.

I keep my lights on continuously until the seedlings get their first set of true leaves. At that point, I keep them on a 18-hour-on, 6-hour-off cycle until I am ready to harden them off by setting them outside in a location protected from sunlight and wind for a couple of hours per day.

You could easily fit three on a standard wire rack shelf and get faster growth without a doubt, but I consider two per shelf more than adequate provided the distance from the seed tray to the lights is appropriate.

These lights deliver only the wavelengths that the plants can actually use, so your plants are receiving an intense bath of light and still only using 42 watts per hour per unit. Unlike fluorescent tube lights, these should easily last over 15,000 hours.

My favorite thing about these lights other than the ridiculously low price per watt is the ability to daisy chain them together. I zip-tied a 12-outlet electrical outlet strip to one of the rear vertical tubes of my rolling shelving unit and plugged each light directly into this. Even with two lights per shelf with four shelves, I still have four outlets open for my seedling heat mats.