Beurer daylight therapy lamp and infrared heat lamp review

When we think about things in the house that can help heal us, we often go straight to physical tools: things like bandages and electric massagers. However, the things that heal us don’t necessarily have to come into contact with our skin to do so. Today, I’m exploring the Beurer daylight therapy lamp and infrared heat lamp—two wellness products that work from a distance.

What’s in the box of the Beurer daylight therapy lamp?

Beurer offers many kinds of daylight lamps, but this one is the Beurer TL 30 daylight lamp. It’s lightweight and portable, with dimensions that are smaller than your average tablet or iPad. It measures 23.6 cm by 15.6 cm and is 2.6 cm thick, and comes with a clip-on stand, a felt travel/storage case, and a plug-in with adapter.

With the Beurer Daylight Lamp’s design, I was a little surprised to find that it needs to be plugged in during use. Something about the design (or perhaps its portable travel case) made me think that it would have a rechargeable battery, but it does not! Its plug is thin and flexible, but be aware that you’ll need to plug into an outlet to use this device.

The Beurer Daylight lamp offers:

• A 20 cm x 12 cm LED screen with a light intensity of approximately 10,000 lux
• Flicker-free, UV-free, energy-saving technology
• Compact size
• Single-button operation
• Versatile stand that can be used horizontally and vertically

How does the Beurer daylight lamp (or SAD lamps) work?

Daylight lamps, or SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) lamps, simulate sunlight. They exist so that you can “trick” your brain into thinking that it’s the morning, which can help regulate things like serotonin production, general mood, and your sleep/wake cycle. They’re a common treatment option for people with seasonal depression, but one of their lesser-known uses is in helping people readjust their sleep schedule—even due to jetlag (Healthline).

I was in my late teens when my family first got a SAD lamp, which my sister was testing to see if it would help with her seasonal depression and lethargy. We live in Edmonton, which has absolutely beautiful skies; but, it also has super short winter days. It’s not unusual to wake up in Edmonton in January and arrive at work before the sun finishes rising, and then stay in your office for long enough that the sun has set by the time you make it back home.

Light therapy lamps are often kind of enormous; older and classically-styled models are the size of a briefcase, and frequently come with a metal stand so that their light can enter your eyes at a downward angle (the way the sun would outside). They take up a ton of space, and weren’t always a viable option for people living in small apartments. However, therapy lamp technology was condensed significantly using LEDs to create alarm clock lights, and SAD lamps/therapy lights are now available in small, consumer-friendly designs like this one from Beurer.

What’s in the box of the Beurer infrared heat lamp?

In the box of the Beurer infrared heat lamp (IL 51), you’ll find a surprisingly lightweight heat lamp with a ceramic glass plate. Like the Beurer Daylight Lamp, this device needs to be plugged into an outlet to run.

The Beurer Infrared Heat Lamp is designed to treat muscle pain, and it feels a lot like using a HeatDish space heater—you know, the kind with the open front and the intense, direct heat. Its plastic base and body are adjustable, allowing you to change the direction of your heat treatment from 0 to 50 degrees. This heat lamp has a single power level but includes a timer, which has an automatic off switch to keep you safe and prevent accidental use.

This Beurer heat lamp includes:

How does an infrared lamp work?

I’m not a scientist, and I’ve never pretended to be one. So, to explain infrared radiation, I’ll let NASA explain:

“Infrared waves, or infrared light, are part of the electromagnetic spectrum. People encounter Infrared waves every day; the human eye cannot see it, but humans can detect it as heat.”

While an “infrared lamp” might sound fancy or even risky, the term is actually pretty simple. An infrared lamp uses regular old heat waves to warm an area or room. These wavelengths glow red near their source because infrared lamps emit both visible and invisible wavelengths—and the furthest end of the long light spectrum that most of us can see is the red light spectrum. So, this heat lamp creates warm spots on our skin in order to help soothe and treat sore muscles, and it does so by creating red and infrared light.

One confusion that sometimes comes up with heat lamps is the difference between infrared light and UV radiation. Again, I’m not a scientist, but thankfully, others on the internet are! This article written for the American Museum of Natural History does a great job of showing how UV light is separated from infrared light by the entire spectrum of light that’s visible to humans.

All of this goes to say that this heat lamp is essentially just an incandescent light bulb that’s so enormous and high-powered that it can heat your skin. Like a hot water bottle, an intense electric blanket, or a targeted mini-sauna, this lamp is designed to comfort your aching body. 

My final thoughts on these two Beurer lamps

As someone with full body chronic pain, the Beurer infrared heat lamp felt nice on my tender skin—but its focal point wasn’t broad enough to feel like it really helped me. It was a lot louder than I expected, and the sensation that it delivered felt similar to an intense, radiant heater.

However, Beurer includes a funky-looking eye cover with the product, so I also gave it a try as more of an all-over wellness product. I closed my eyes, put on the eye cover, sat back, and basked in its warm glow for fifteen minutes. It felt great: maybe not something I’d use everyday, but like a summer day at the beach. For fifteen minutes, I was warm, happy, and able to slowly de-stress.

Where Beurer’s heat lamp is soothing, their Beurer daylight therapy lamp is energizing. It’s intensely bright, with white-blue light. I can’t get over how tiny it is for how many lumens it puts out—it definitely feels bright enough to be effective, and is a super stylish option that I’d feel comfortable leaving out in my living room. If you’re interested in exploring a daylight lamp for seasonal affective disorder, or if you live in a darker city where some morning sunshine would help perk you up and get your sleep schedule back on track, it’s worth checking out.

Find the Beurer daylight therapy lamp and infrared heat lamp online at Best Buy.