Floor reading lamps that
put daylight on your page.
Small print harder work in the evenings? Your eyes need more light with every passing year, and ordinary floor lamps for reading cannot give it. We build Serious Lights to do exactly that, and each one stands at your shoulder as a floor-standing reading lamp. Try one at home for up to 90 days.
Your eyes need more light with every passing year, and an ordinary floor lamp cannot give it. Ours puts real daylight on your page. Try one at home for up to 90 days.
Alex Pratt OBE | Founder
Or call free on 0800 032 9364 · quote WEB2606
Summer Clearance · From £199.99
10,000 five-star reviews from the readers who use one every day.
What changes on the first switch-on.
When small print gets harder in the evenings, most people put it down to their eyes. After forty years of building reading lights, we can tell you it is usually the light. These are the three changes owners name most in their first week.
You read the small print where you sit.
You hold the medicine bottle at arm's length and read the label in your own chair, at night, without carrying it to the window or hunting for your other glasses.
The clues stay sharp at ten at night.
You see your crossword as clearly at ten in the evening as you would by a window on a clear morning, because the light over your shoulder is the same daylight.
You stop reading the same line twice.
Print stays crisp to the end of the chapter, so you put your book down when you choose to, not when your eyes have had enough.
This is the difference on your page.
An ordinary bulb only looks white. It leaves gaps across the spectrum, wavelengths missing from its light, and your eyes work to fill them in. Daylight has no gaps, and Daylight Wavelength Technology™ rebuilds it with 98% accuracy. The passage below is shown under both.
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen…
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen…
Only the light changes between the two. Every floor reading lamp below carries it.
Try this before you spend a penny
Take your book to a window on a clear morning and read a page there. That ease is full-spectrum daylight doing the work, and it is the standard to hold us to: the same ease at ten at night, in your own chair. The trial exists so you can check we meet it.
Find your perfect floor reading lamp.
A standard lamp lights the room. A Serious Light puts real daylight where you read. Where they differ is how much control you want over it, and all three are up to half price while summer stock lasts.
All three put real daylight on your page. Where they differ is how much control you want over it, and all three are up to half price while summer stock lasts.
Which floor reading light is right for you?
Start with what you want from it.
“I just want the best all-round reading light.”
HD Original Most people choose this one. It shapes the beam, holds your level, and remembers both. Black or white. Floor light from £224.99 →“I want to unplug it, or adjust it from my chair.”
HD Pro Our latest and best light, with cordless and remote control options. Black only. Floor light from £349.99 →“I want proper daylight at the lowest price.”
HD Essential One switch puts full daylight on your page. Black or white. Floor light from £199.99 →Still not sure? Call free on 0800 032 9364 and an adviser will give you an honest steer.
Our most popular light
HD Original
Shape the beam to fit your page, dim it to the exact level your eyes want, and the memory brings both back at your next switch-on, so the light is already right when you sit down.
Shape the beam, set your level, and the memory brings both back at your next switch-on.
Perfect forThe chair you read in every night. It stands at your shoulder, shapes to your page, and remembers where you left it.
90-day home trial · 5-year warranty · Free delivery worth £12.95
Hand-built in Great Britain
Code WEB2606 at checkout
Specifications
Heavyweight (most popular): 152cm, 6kg, 23cm base.
Lightweight: 144cm, 3kg, 20cm base.
Replaceable light engine, 5-year guarantee. 7 watts, pennies a week to run.
Our latest and best light
HD Pro
The Pro gives you the finest control of the three without leaving your chair. Shape the beam, dim it with real precision, and add the optional remote control, or the optional battery that runs it fully cordless with no cable to the wall.
The finest control of the three, with an optional remote and an optional battery that runs it fully cordless.
Perfect forReaders who want the remote in one hand, or no cable at all.
90-day home trial · 5-year warranty · Free delivery worth £12.95
Code WEB2606 at checkout
Specifications
152cm, 4.8kg. Quick-change cordless battery in the base, arm slots out for servicing. Optional carpet feet.
Replaceable light engine, 5-year guarantee. 7 watts, pennies a week to run.
Daylight made simple
HD Essential
Small print is easy again, in our simplest light. It carries the same Serious daylight without the extra controls, using a fixed wide beam and a press-and-hold dimmer. You switch it on, you sit down, and you read.
Our simplest light, with a fixed wide beam and a press-and-hold dimmer. You switch it on, you sit down, and you read.
Perfect forPlain, everyday reading by your chair. Switch it on and sit down.
30-day home trial · 5-year warranty · Free delivery worth £12.95
Hand-built in Great Britain
Code WEB2606 at checkout
Specifications
Heavyweight (most popular): 152cm, 6kg, 23cm base.
Lightweight: 144cm, 3kg, 20cm base.
Replaceable LED bulb, 3-year guarantee. 6 watts, pennies a week to run.
Why it costs what it costs.
The specialist components in a single HD light cost more to manufacture than many entire lamps sell for. That is where the price goes. Around fifty lights a day leave our workshop in Aylesbury, and each one is made to be repaired rather than thrown away, with a light engine that lifts out for servicing instead of a sealed unit that fails and takes the lamp with it. Spread over just the five years of its warranty, a half-price HD Original comes to around 12p a night.
Our light engines have been chosen for the British Museum, for operating theatres and for the Heathrow control tower, and the lamp that stands beside your chair carries the same engineering.
Not all light is the same.
We fuss over mattresses, diet and exercise, yet light reaches our eyes every waking hour and rarely gets a thought. We have spent forty years on nothing else.
We have spent forty years on nothing but the light you read by.
An ordinary standard lamp lights the room and leaves your page in shadow.
It is not about brightness. An ordinary bulb gives out a thin, uneven slice of daylight. Print flattens, colour drains, and your eyes strain to fill the gaps. You can have three lamps on, and your eyes are still not getting what they need.
Read how the light works
True daylight, indoors, makes every word sharp.
Daylight Wavelength Technology™ rebuilds the full spectrum of noon daylight with 98% accuracy. Switch it on, and black print turns crisp on white, down to the smallest type in your book. See the independent research.
Nothing about this light is left to chance.
The head swivels through a full 350 degrees to bring the beam over your shoulder, and slow-start technology fades the light up gently rather than snapping on. Shape it, dim it, and every adjustment holds exactly where you set it: the light lands on your page, never in your eyes.
Side by side
The three floor-standing reading lights, compared.
← Scroll to compare →
|
Most popular
HD Original
Our most popular floor light
|
HD Pro
Our latest and best
|
HD Essential
Daylight, simply delivered
|
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| Best for | All-round reading | Cordless and remote | Simple value |
| Offer | Up to half price | Save £150 | Up to half price |
| Finishes | Black or White | Black only | Black or White |
| Beam | Adjustable, shapeable | Adjustable, shapeable | Wide, even, fixed |
| Dimming | Stepless with memory | Stepless with memory | Press-and-hold |
| Remote control | ✕ | ✓ optional | ✕ |
| Cordless | ✕ | ✓ optional | ✕ |
| Home trial | 90 days | 90 days | 30 days |
| Warranty | 5 years | 5 years | 5 years |
| You save | Up to £225 | £150 | Up to £200 |
| Floor light price | From £224.99 | £349.99 | From £199.99 |
| Order Original Floor | Order Pro Floor | Order Essential Floor |
HD Original
Our most popular floor light
HD Pro
Our latest and best
HD Essential
Daylight, simply delivered
“
We now have 4! Once you've tried them, you can't revert to ordinary lamps.Mrs Fisher, Devon
Before you order.
A few straight answers.
What makes these different from an ordinary lamp?
Two things. The light itself: Daylight Wavelength Technology™ rebuilds natural daylight to 98% colour accuracy, which an ordinary bulb cannot manage at any brightness. And the engineering that delivers it: a beam built to land on your page at reading distance, shaped and dimmed to your eyes. Print stays sharp and colours stay true, however small the type. The home trial lets you compare the two in your own chair.
Which is the best floor standing reading light?
For most people it is the HD Original, and it is the one most of our customers choose. It shapes the beam, dims without steps and remembers both settings, which covers almost every kind of reading. Pick the HD Pro instead if you want the remote or the cordless battery, and the HD Essential if you want the same daylight at the lowest price. All three sit at the top of any list of the best floor standing reading lights UK readers can buy, because all three carry the same daylight spectrum; what changes is how much control you get over it.
Will it help with macular degeneration or cataracts?
Our lights are not medical devices. What they do is put far more usable light on your page, and customers living with AMD, cataracts and age-related vision change tell us print looks sharper and higher in contrast under one. The home trial lets you find out with your own eyes.
Will a floor-standing reading lamp reach over my chair?
Yes. A Serious floor light is a floor-standing reading lamp, what some call a standard lamp, made for reading rather than lighting a room. It stands beside your armchair, and its arm and head adjust so the light comes over your shoulder onto your page rather than into your eyes. Every floor lamp here is also made as a table light if you would rather it sat on a side table.
Is a standard lamp for reading better than a table lamp?
It depends on your chair. A reading standard lamp stands on the floor beside you and brings the light down over your shoulder, which suits an armchair or a sofa with no table next to it. Reading lamps floor level like this also free up the surface you already have. Where there is a side table at the right height, a table light does the same job from a lower start. Both carry the same daylight, so it is your room that decides, not the light.
Are these LED floor reading lamps?
Yes. Every light here runs on LED, which is why a lamp this bright costs pennies a week. The HD Original and HD Pro use a replaceable light engine rather than a bulb, and the HD Essential takes a replaceable LED bulb. An LED floor reading lamp built this way runs cool enough to sit beside you all evening, and you are not up a stepladder changing a bulb every year.
Why do they cost more than an ordinary lamp?
Almost none of it is the shell. You pay for the daylight spectrum, an arm and dimming that hold where you set them, and a build made to last, with a five-year warranty. An ordinary lamp is built down to a price; this one is built to read under for years. The home trial lets you judge it at home before you commit.
No web page can prove any of this properly, which is exactly why the trial exists. Read under one in your own chair for up to 90 days, and if it is not for you, we collect it free and refund you.
See the offersDo the home trial and warranty still apply?
Yes, in full. You get 90 days at home with the Original and Pro, 30 with the Essential, and the standard warranty on every light. A clearance light gets the same service as one at full price.
Why are they so much cheaper right now?
Summer is the quiet season, so we run our strongest prices of the year to keep the workshop busy. These are current lights, brand new and boxed, not seconds or old stock. We hold more White than Black, so White carries the biggest saving. Once a finish sells out, it is not restocked.
How long does delivery take?
UK delivery takes five to seven working days by tracked courier, free on every light in this clearance. The Original and Essential arrive fully built, and the Pro's arm simply slots into its base. Either way, you plug it in and read the same evening.
The story behind the light.
Aylesbury, 1988
Alex built the first one for his mum.
By 1988 our lights were already on production lines and in laboratories, and then Alex's mum began losing her sight to macular degeneration. He built her the first High Definition home reading light so she could carry on reading, and stay independent, in her own chair.
Every light on this page descends from that first one, and it is why we take the small print on your page more seriously than anyone.
When light matters, Serious is there.
Since then the engineering has been chosen for places where seeing clearly is not optional.
The Agulhas II carried Serious light when she found Shackleton's Endurance.
RNLI crews navigate by it on board their lifeboats.
It lit the zero-error assembly of the Hubble Space Telescope.
Air traffic controllers at Heathrow work under it in the control tower.
The floor reading lamp that stands beside your chair carries the same engineering.
While stocks last.
Summer is our quiet season, so these are the strongest prices of the year. You get up to half price with code WEB2606, at checkout or by phone. Once a finish sells out, it is gone.
See the offersOr call free on 0800 032 9364, Mon–Fri 8:30am–5:30pm.
Prices effective until 30th September 2026. Offers cannot be combined.