There are times in your life when you wish you could see the stuff you’re working on in natural daylight. Particularly crafters, quilters and hobbyists who want to see their material in living colour, not tinted by the colour of the lamp they’re working under.
Working under an open window is the best way – during the day. But what if the room is dark or it’s dark outside?
Enter the Foldi, a stylish, folding table lamp fitted with 30 bright daylight LEDs.
What difference does it make? Let’s find out.
First the gory technical bits.
The so-called Daylight LEDs give you glare-free full-spectrum light. This enables you to do accurate colour matching by day or night. It is glare-free light and only dazzling when you look straight into the 30 mini-suns! If you can refrain from doing so you’ll find reading or crafting quite comfortable with this sort of natural light.
Unlike the sun, with its nuclear fission, the Foldi is powered by just 3 AA batteries and will last the night: 8 hours. Better yet, plug it in for normal use with the 1.6m USB cable and leave the batteries fresh for going walkabout or as an emergency light.
Looking Good
They reckon the Foldi is pretty stylish in gloss black and silver finish. Personally, the sooner piano black glossy finish disappears from our living rooms the better. I hate that look, it smudges readily, it seems to attract more dust (at least you see it more!) and I can do without all those reflections. The Foldi is a minor eyesore compared to my home entertainment system…
I shouldn’t be so harsh on the Foldi as my wife likes it despite its glossy-ness. ‘Nough said. However, talking about finish: there are some minor “rust” specks in the silvery trimming. See photo. I noticed it straightaway when opening the box. Again, a minor detail.
The Foldi switches on as soon as you open the device. That’s clever but a button would be handy too so that you can leave it in place without folding it back shut for which you need two hands…
I also found the flip-out stand rather precarious but the Foldi is balanced nicely so it doesn’t easily fall over. For travelling around it comes with a protective pouch.
Let There Be Light!
And there was light: Daylight! Almost like the real stuff… The Foldi with its 30 LEDs spreads a nice wide circle of light onto your work piece. This is important as you don’t want any shadows on your material from just the one narrow-beamed light source. My wife testifies to it that the colour is near-natural and easy on the eyes when she does her sewing. I can see why quilters swear by these types of daylight lamps. They are rather essential for selecting and matching the perfect colours in your materials.
In fact, the Daylight Company might see some competition when sewing and embroidery machines will sport their own batch of daylight LEDs in their equipment! Can’t think why they haven’t “cottoned on” already, so to speak… Co-incidentally, the other day at someone’s house we were being demoed a Pfaff sewing/quilting machine that my wife is interested in buying. The lady immediately switched on her natural daylight lamp. It seemed like an earlier model of the Foldi in neutral white.
Conclusion
The Foldi at a fraction under 150 Aussie bucks is not exactly dirt cheap but represents good value if you need daylight on your work table. Can’t argue with that. I’m even willing to “gloss” over the piano-black finish! And you should be able to find the Foldi and other products with Daylight globes at a lighting store pretty close to you. In browsing their website (au.daylightcompany.com) I found there’s a huge range of different daylight solutions and most of them non-glossy! 🙂 We highly recommend Foldi and similar Daylight lamps for crafting and reading.
Specifications
• Supplied with extra long 1.6m/5.25′ USB cable
• Requires 3 x AA batteries, included in box
• Black protection bag included
• Width: 7.5cm (3 inches)
• Height: 23.3cm (9 inches)
• Depth: 3.3cm (1½ inches)
• Weight: 0.5kg (1 lbs)
• Light: 30 Daylight LEDs
