I received the Xiaomi Desk Lamp from GearBest for the review.
The Xiaomi Desk Lamp is, as the name suggests, a Desk Lamp. Unlike the other lamp I reviewed from Xiaomi, the Dask Lamp hasn’t many flashing/colored modes. It is made to replace your ordinary desk lamp with a product that have some additional features and an uncommon design.
Beign a Xiaomi product you can’t expect a simple ON-OFF function, you can set both the tint (from 2700 to 6500K) and the output, plus there are some special working modes (more on that later).
The power consumption is 6W and has a 83 CRI value.
The Xiaomi Desk Lamp comes in a big white box, that probably won’t fit in your mailbox.
My package was manhandled as usual by the couriers.
However, the well protected content, arrived safe thanks to the great care in the packaging:
Inside the box: the lamp, the power supply and a manual (in Chinese).
Minimal design, but effective: the part of the lamp containing the LEDs can be moved around the fixed stand with a metallic joint.
A short red flat wire connects the two parts.
The base and the vertical rod are fixed and can’t be moved. They feel solid.
The lamp in the opened position (with the led bar horizontal) has a max length of 45 cm, is 45 cm high and the circular base has a diameter of 15 cm.
On the bottom of the base there is a sticker with model number, data and 4 large anti slip pads.
There is some contrast in the finishes of the parts: some are glossy, others are satin finished with a more matte look. The base is satin finished except a small surface in the base where the knob lays, which is glossy. The knob has a satin finish (the green dot that you can see on the knob, I made it with a marker).
The best way to show these details is a stock photo, since I was not able to capture them.
For not damaging the glossy finishes of the parts, the light will come with some additional plastic and paper protection around them.
Also on the front profile of the led bar there is some contrast.
The maximum opening angle is more or less 135°.
The lamp can be used also when is in the closed position, giving a more diffuse light and working like a courtesy light.
You can see the LEDs are covered by a “frosted” plastic, and are visible only when they are turned on.
If you look very closely, you can see cool and warm white LEDs in an alternated sequence, to provide your desired CW, NW or WW beam.
Just connect the power supply to the lamp and to the socket, and we are ready to shine some light.
As the previously reviewed Xiaomi BedSide lamp, the Desk Lamp can be used as a standalone lamp, or via app (using wifi connection)
When using the lamp without the app, there is only one point of command: a knob on the baseplate that can be pressed and rotated. The knob is easy to rotate, and for each 360° turn there are 16 dents that you feel during the rotation.
The UI is very simple:
Press the knob to turn the lamp on, press it again to turn the lamp off.
When the lamp is on, rotate the knob clockwise to increase the brightness, and counterclockwise to decrease the brightness.
When the lamp is on, keep pressed the knob and turn it clockwise to move the tint toward higher color temperature (AKA Cool White), turn it counterclockwise to move the tint toward lower color temperature (AKA Warm White).
According to Xiaomi, every small turn of the knob will change the output setting by 1% (output) or 1K (temperature), thus they call it a stepless regulation.
If this is true, it means that to change from 2700 to 6500K you will need 3800°, so more than 10x360° complete turns of the knob… If I have not misunderstood it.
On my sample I have to turn the knob about 360° (1 full turn) to go from the warmest tint to the coolest, and around 180° (half turn) from minimum to maximum brightness.
Press twice the knob to activate the focus mode (more on that later).
When using the app Yeelight you can connect your smartphone via wifi (no, I don’t have a Xiaomi wifi router) and for that there is an additional control point on the lamp: a reset button located under the baseplate, that you need to keep pressed for 5 seconds if you have troubles connecting with the lamp. With the app you can access to 4 modes:
Focus mode: you can set a focus duration time and a rest duration time. After the focus time has passed, the lamp will change the color temperature, to inform you that the focus time is ended and you are in the rest phase. After the rest time has passed, the light will change the color temperature. This is useful to rest your eyes after a long time at the computer or on the books.
Concentration mode: 100% brightness and 6500K.
Read mode: 100% brightness and 4000K.
Night time reading mode: Xiaomi doesn’t provide any info on this mode, but it’s a dimmer and warmer version of the read mode.
PC mode: 30% brightness, 2700K. This is useful to reduce the amount of blue light that the computer screen emits, and that can help cause some problems at the eyes and at the circadian cycle.
Plus, you can also add your customized scenes, setting a value of output and color temperature and saving it with a name, so you can recall it for future uses.
There is also a Kids mode, where the temperature can be only set from 2700 to 4000K, to protect the eyes of the children from the blue component of the light.
Brightness and output can be set at any time by scrolling horizontally and vertically.
You can also program a time for turning the light on and off, and turn it on and off with a single click.
With the app you can also update the firmware of the lamp (no update is available at the moment).
From the lowest output to the brightest, there is no flickering or PWM detectable by my eyes.
At the highest output and warmest tint, the led bar is almost at room temperature.
I removed my previous desk lamp, which mounted a Philips 6W LED bulb 2700K, and installed the Xiaomi Desk Lamp. The 2700K setting of the Xiaomi matches at my eye the color temperature of the Philips.
According to my taste, I set the color temperature to the neutral (a bit on the warm) side of the spectrum during the day, and warm during the evening and the night. If I need to study during the night I usually step up a bit the color temperature, but always on the neutral side of the spectrum.
If you are a lover of CW tints, I found the 6500K setting a CW without any bluish or greenish aspects.
I used the Xiaomi Desk Lamp mainly for studying/reading and computer (where I have f.lux installed), and some hours as a courtesy lamp / ambient light for room.
Here some “Beamshots”
Warm, neutral and CW
Here fully opened against a wall
Here instead is closed
As you can see the beam is wide and quite long. It enlights well a whole desk and most of a big table.
There are no artifacts, the beam is very smooth.
I don’t use too much the smartphone app: it works fine but I usually need to adjust only the color temperature and the brightness, changes that I can easily do with the knob. The most frequent use of the app is to turn off the lamp when I’m in another room because I forgot it on 
I have not found any major flaws in this product. I find it to be well built, with a particular design and above all very functional. When I don’t use the light I fold it and it takes much less space on my desk and make it look more clean.
I don’t think the light lacks of output, I think it should be able to go lower in brightness than the minimum 1% available. I would like to see different coloration other than white, something like dark blue and silver.
Thanks to: AntoLed for lending me the camera.
Thanks for reading.
