Today I received the bias lighting kit I ordered at Amazon a few days ago.

Since I learnt about bias lighting myself just recently in Jeff Atwood’s book Effective Programming: More Than Writing Code I am assuming that not everyone knows about it and give a short explanation:

While many programmers like to work in dark environments to reduce reflection and glare on their monitors, this puts a lot of strain on our eyes. Bias lighting, coming to our rescue here, is basically just a way of providing indirect ambient light in the viewing area. By sticking a strip of super-bright LEDs to the back of your monitor this effect can be achieved. Another positive side effect is that because of the additional indirect lighting you will be able to reduce the brightness of your screen, which again saves your eyes. I noticed the difference immediately.

To summarize: Bias lighting is the ideal way to go if you prefer programming in the dark but still care about your eyesight in the long term ;-)

So again: here is the bias lighting kit I am using. It’s the ANTEC halo 6 LED bias lighting Kit USB, which, as you have probably already guessed, has the additional advantage of being USB powered. Also the price of 12,05€ is absolutely reasonable.

This is the box it came in.

That’s the actual lighting strip with the USB power cable attached. It even has a tiny power switch, notice?

And that’s bias lighting in action. Hardly impressive on a picture but a big improvement of my life and work quality.

Go and try it out yourself – totally worth it.