For years, I have resisted the idea that I needed a dedicated artificial light source to charge my solarpowered watches (which are all Casio "Tough Solar" watches, by the way). Anyone who has a Citizen "Eco Drive" watch or a Seiko solarpowered watch OR one of these Casios has probably wondered if everyday exposure to normal light conditions would be enough to keep a watch going strong with a healthy battery. And, in the past, I've thought there was absolutely no need to buy a special light just for charging watches. I saw a CoolFire brand light a few years ago for about $40 and I thought that was just an unnecessary expense. So... what changed my mind?

The truth is, I have such a large collection of Tough Solar Casio watches (including GShock, Edifice and Oceanus watches) that it's difficult to give them all a consistent dose of light through normal usage. So I decided to give one of these solarpowered watch chargers a try. Instead of getting a CoolFire (or is it Cool Fire?) device, I found a basically noname product on Amazon, currently available at this link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CB7DMLJW/

So, why did I prefer this option? Price was a factor. It was only about $15 so even if I didn't like it I wouldn't be too disappointed by this choice. However, I decided I like it a lot. I like the fact that it has both a high and a low setting, with the high setting producing more than 40,000 lux and the low setting producing about half that much light. That means the low setting will produce very little heat, and I prefer that. Also, on either setting, this USBpowered device will automatically shut off after 8 hours. I like that, because I can leave it alone at any time (including overnight) and not have to remember when to turn it off. In all of the information I found about the CoolFire device, I didn't see anything about an automatic shutoff.

The CoolFire version at Amazon (This link: https://www.amazon.com/CoolfireCharg... ) is said to use "multiple UVfree LEDs" but I'm also told that LED lights in general produce very little UV light, so I'm inclined to believe that the one I bought is also using UVfree LEDs.