Ocushield Oculamp

This is completely life-changing (it just is!): a slim, adjustable light that casts a strong glow on your reading matter – or your work, if you’re sitting (say) at your desk/the kitchen table – with the stimulating blue light filtered out. It’s rechargeable, with simple finger-touch controls for different light levels. (And frankly ought to win prizes for the design!) Kept in its box, to protect against damage in transit, it now lives in Jo’s overnight bag to use in dimly-lit hotels and under-equipped spare bedrooms! And with a 20-hour battery life, powered by micro-USB. 

Ocushield’s founder is an optometrist, Dhruvin Patel, who actually developed Ocushield as part of a university competition (which, unsurprisingly, he won). Since then, you might have seen the brand on Dragon’s Den. Their philosophy certainly chimes with ours: ‘When your eyes are healthy, you sleep better, you feel better, you get more done. By taking care of your eyes, you take care of so much more.’ As they point out, with so much time spent on backlit screens, phones, iPads and other devices, eyes are under much more strain than they used to be. 

So they offer all sorts of products to tackle the problem of blue light, including medically-rated filters for most devices (iPhone, Samsung), iPads, MacBooks, even Nintendo Switch. Alternatively you can buy a pair of Anti-Blue Light Glasses (men’s and women’s available), for looking at pretty much any screen. (These are sold without magnification.)

In a perfect world, none of us would look at screens in bed. Bring back books, we say! Revive the magazine! But it happens. So make sure you’re protected against blue light – and that pages are properly illuminated. It bears repeating: ‘By taking care of your eyes, you take care of so much more…’

£125 – buy here

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