Our kitchen has one big light, on the ceiling in the center of the room. It is adequate but not bright; you want something a bit more intense when actually cooking. I added a strip of under-counter LEDs months ago, which helped a lot on the preparation side of things, but it’s still pretty dim over on the range itself.

While rummaging around looking for a camera cable this afternoon, I happened to find an Edison-based LED bulb I bought three or four years back. It was one of the very first generation of LED-based home lighting products, and I never used it for anything as its light beam was too narrowly focused: but aha, I thought, this would make an excellent spotlight for the range.

A cheap screw-on base and some not-at-all-up-to-code wiring later, it works perfectly: bright white light pointing straight down at the stove top.

Of course I found out why the main light is so dim: it has two sockets, but only one is populated. Ha. Still, this LED device solves the problem, and only burns 3 watts. It’d take at least 10 or 15 watts in the ceiling fixture to yield the same effect.