Sunbox Therapeutic Table Lamp

This helps!

The first lamp did not work. We returned it and got a replacement - and that didn't work! Just awful. We want our money back.

The base is large and takes up a lot of real estate on my desk, but the lamp is light and very easy to move off the desk or even carry from one room to another. The little indentations on the base are a nice touch -- for office supplies, I assume, but they're also the perfect size for my wallet and security badge, keys, loose change, etc. The light can be rotated vertically, but the neck is only flexible a few inches up and down, not side to side.I recently moved to the pacific NW for graduate school. I do not have a diagnosis for SAD or Winter Blues, but I noticed myself getting very down around 3:30 when the light starts fading and having a lot of difficulty getting up in time for work. I decided to try one of the SAD lamps that are ubiquitous here.It's fantastic. I can actually be productive after dusk. I am no longer tempted to hit the snooze button six times even when I know perfectly well that I have had more than enough sleep for one night. For the first time since August, the apartment feels bright enough. Even when the lamp is much further away than the therapeutic 10 inch range, it brightens up the whole room with a quality of light that makes it feel like a clear, beautiful morning.The cat loves it too. She sits in my lap and tilts her head completely back to gaze directly into the light whenever I have it on. (Why she doesn't turn around to face it is a mystery.) If it's similar enough to natural sunlight to fool a cat, that's good enough for me.

I have found this lamp incredibly useful. No more mood drops every winter. Follow the instructions on distance and time. (Check out the Sunbox website for more info on SAD and its lamps, too.) Use it consistently and for at least the minimum time. I have seen a significant difference in the last 3 or 4 years that I've been using it. I typically have started using it in October - BEFORE my mood drops due to lack of sun exposure and have found that to be really effective. The first year, I noticed a difference in the first few weeks of using it even when I didn't buy it until mid-winter and was feeling pretty down, but since starting before mid-winter in subsequent years, I've found a more level mood, less cloudiness in thinking throughout the season - without use of anti-depressants - yeah! I'd recommend this product, though I have not tried others to which I could compare it.

Suited my purpose

I bought this lightbox in 2001 because of the Sunbox name and because it was cheaper than the other Sunboxes. I used it at home and I noticed some difference, but I didn't notice an enormous difference. Then I gave it to my grandmother since she wasn't able to go outside for awhile, and somehow it got passed around the family. By the time that I wanted it back for my windowless office, the neck cover had broken, so they kept the old one and bought me a new one in fall 2009.Previously, the lamp had only been at home, not in an office, so I didn't worry how it looked to others. When the replacement arrived at my office, I realized that the lamp positioned like a desk lamp, as in the picture, would not be useful for treatment (explained below). Later in the fall/winter, I tried another, less expensive lightbox and found that it worked incredibly well, and I used it religiously from when I bought it in December until March and it made such a difference. The other lightbox was the Daylight which I found out about on the non-profit Center for Environmental Therapeutics website.The small lighted area of this desk lamp seems less effective. I know that Sunbox website says that the size of the illuminated area does not matter, but the lamp didn't have dramatic results for me and I wonder whether the treatment area is why. The Daylight has large treatment area, and it gave me lots of energy and good feelings.It's also awkward to use. The new lamp that I got just needs to be turned on, and possibly slid forward to be at the required distance from your eyes, but the new lamp is always positioned at the appropriate angle so that it is effective.By contrast, this lamp has to be at 14" from your eyes and angled so that the light comes from above, so it needs to be quite close to the edge of a desk, leaving little room to do work and I couldn't use a laptop at the same time. When not using the lamp on a desk, though, you want the lamp at a distance because the base takes up so much room so you have room for your laptop, etc., so you have to move it back. Since it looks strange to others to have this lamp pointing outwards, you might also want to angle the neck down so that it looks normal, which eventually wears out the plastic cover for the neck (which broke on my first one.) Alternatively, you could keep the desk lamp positioned like a normal desk lamp and just lower your chair so that the light shines from above, but then you have to sit with your desk at shoulder level or something, and that also looks strange.Summary of disadvantages: small treatment area, uses lots of desk space, ineffective if positioned as a desk lamp, looks odd if positioned as a light treatment lamp, takes time to adjust it from light treatment position to desk lamp position and eventually wears out plastic around the neck, more expensive.

I bought this product 12-13yrs ago, directly from Sunbox, and I love it. It's not only helped me manage SAD in the winter time, it's also a wonderful task light for the office. I store my most-used small items on the base. Three years ago, the light went out, so I bought a replacement bulb. A few months later, it would not turn on...the issue was covered by the warranty. I just had to pay for postage *to* Sunbox, and they shipped it back repaired. free of charge. Cannot ask for better Customer Service, IMHO. I am, however, sad that Sunbox no longer offers this on their website, as I have had friends ask for the referral info. From now on, I will send them here. I wonder about the less than 1 -2 star comments,as they seem questionable...as if it's competitors posting, versus actual customers like myself.