Improve your mood with the best monitor light bars

If you haven't got dedicated lighting for your desk, a monitor light bar is one of the simplest upgrades you can make.

These are clip-on lamps that sit on top of your screen, throwing light down onto your desk rather than into your eyes, which makes a real difference during long working sessions. Especially once you've also sorted out the rest of your setup with the best monitor for graphic artists and the best office chair for back pain.

To draw up a list of the best monitor light bars for a range of budgets, I've considered brightness, colour accuracy, monitor compatibility, design, controls and features. My top pick overall is the BenQ ScreenBar Halo 2, thanks to its dual front-and-rear lighting and excellent wireless controller.

The best monitor light overall

30-second review: The ScreenBar Halo 2 is the first light bar in BenQ's lineup to include a rear-facing light alongside the usual front bar. The former balances the contrast between a bright screen and a dark room, which helps reduce eye fatigue and headaches over long sessions. Both lights can be run independently or together, depending on what you need.

Pricing: Listed at $199 (though frequently found closer to $180), this sits at the premium end of the market. However, its brightness and coverage area are around double that of rivals such as the Razer Aether, which goes some way to justifying the price.

Features: This monitor light's standout feature is its wireless controller: a puck that adjusts by twisting its entire body, saving you from having to fumble with separate buttons. A built-in display shows the exact brightness and colour temperature for each light. The light itself mounts on monitors from 0.17 to 2.36 inches thick. It curves between 1000R and 1800R, auto-dims based on ambient light, and switches on and off automatically with your monitor. A motion sensor turns it off after five minutes if you're not at your desk, and a small webcam mount is included in the box, which is as a thoughtful touch considering how monitor lights often get in a webcam's way.

Best budget monitor light

30-second review: Quntis has built a loyal following for its ScreenLinear line by offering the same core promise as more expensive bars (glare-free, flicker-free lighting with a high colour rendering index) at a lower price. The base model keeps things simple with top-mounted touch controls and an asymmetric optical design that only lights the desk, not the screen.

Pricing: At $39.95, this is the cheapest light bar on my list, at less than a quarter the price of my number one choice. Despite the affordability though, colour rendering and build quality are good. If you want a remote control and RGB rear lighting, the Pro+ version costs more, but the standard bar covers the essentials.

Features: This monitor light mounts via a weighted clip that sits on top of the monitor. It's built for flatter displays, though, than some rivals, so check your monitor's thickness before buying if you have a chunkier or curved screen. A built-in ambient light sensor auto-dims the light to around 900 lux to suit the room, and colour temperature is adjustable between 3000K and 6500K with a CRI of 95 or above.

Best light bar for dual monitors

30-second review: Unlike the other bars on my list, which clip directly onto a monitor, the EppieBasic mounts to the edge of the desk itself via an adjustable clamp and flexible gooseneck. That makes it a good choice for a dual-monitor or ultrawide setup, because it it isn't tied to the thickness or curve of any one screen. At 31.5 inches wide, this monitor light will comfortably illuminate an entire desk rather than just the area under a single monitor.

Pricing: This monitor light is typically listed around $49.99 on Amazon. So while it's not the absolute cheapest on the market, it's excellent value considering the amount it lights up your desk, compared with smaller, single-monitor bars.

Features: The EppieBasic Ultrawide offers four brightness levels and four colour temperature modes (3000K-6500K depending on the model). You can control these using touch buttons on the lamp body, and there's a memory function that restores your last settings on power-up. A built-in ambient light sensor auto-adjusts the level of brightness to the room, and a flexible gooseneck lets you angle the light down onto a keyboard or drafting surface just as easily as across a pair of monitors. The trade-off for that flexibility is a desk clamp rather than the more compact monitor-mounted clips used elsewhere on my list, so it needs a bit of usable desk edge to attach to.

The best monitor light for iMac

30-second review: BenQ built the iScreenBar for one computer and one computer only: the 24-inch M-series iMac. That specific focus shows in the details: a magnetic mount, custom-fit to the iMac's chassis; an unobstructed camera and mic; and deep macOS integration including app-based lighting presets and a Video Call Mode. If you own a 24-inch M-series iMac, it's arguably the most seamless light bar on this list. If you don't, it won't fit, so don't buy it.

Pricing: At $189, it sits just below the ScreenBar Halo 2, even though it's only a single front light rather than BenQ's dual-light system. Ultimately, though, you're paying for the custom fit and software integration.

Features: A 24GHz mmWave radar sensor detects your presence more precisely than the simpler motion sensors used on other monitor lights, automatically waking the light when you sit down. Brightness and colour temperature can be adjusted directly from BenQ's macOS app rather than a physical controller. Full-spectrum LEDs deliver Rf >96 colour fidelity, which suggests this is pitched squarely at designers and photographers working on colour-accurate iMac displays. The whole unit is CNC-machined aluminium, finished to match the iMac itself rather than looking like an add-on.

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