Ryobi 18V One+ LED Workbench Light

If you’ve been hiding under a rock somewhere, you might not have noticed the plethora of new LED lighting options. Even if you are hiding under a rock, new solutions like the Ryobi 18V One+ LED Workbench Light are probably going to reach you anyway.

Like the Folding Panel Light and LED Light Cannon from Ridgid, you’ll find these at the Home Depot. Ryobi’s latest offering comes in with a $49 price tag and has a design for your workbench that makes a lot of sense. So let’s dig in and take a closer look at what Ryobi has to offer.

Physical Design

The Ryobi 18V One+ LED Workbench Light stands just over 15 inches tall when folded and about 24-1/2 when fully extended. The battery locks in place at the base, so it’ll be a bit taller with either a compact or extended capacity battery installed.

The base housing features a design that may look a little odd, but actually provides a pretty good hand hold to carry the Ryobi 18V One+ LED Workbench Light around.

Light Up My Life

Two separate banks of LED lights are capable of putting out 950 lumens. By clicking the power button multiple times, you can cycle through full, left side, or right side illumination. But the real fun happens when you start moving the 270-degree arm around to see the different positions you can cast light.

With more options than I care to think about for light angle, two stand out in particular. Rotating the arm 90 degrees will point one of the banks at the ceiling. This may not seem like it’s very important but it gives you the ability to bounce light off the ceiling and give you some soft area lighting.

Swinging the arm all the way around 270 degrees puts all the light in one area. Because that light is coming from a set angled at 90 degrees, it really eliminates a lot of shadows. This is great when you’re working on small projects or pieces of projects, but I found that one of his greatest benefits comes for fly tying.

Just Hanging Out

Hanging options are almost everywhere you look. Starting at the top, a spring-loaded hook is hiding at the pivot point. Moving down to the base, you’ll find a keyhole hanging point. That pushes out and rotates around to reveal another hanging hook.

Finally, a third hanging solution is hidden behind the rotating LED. This reveals another keyhole that also pushes out and rotates with a hook. There’s a pass through hole that you can use to hang on an existing hook or your pegboard. It settles into place at both 90 degrees and 180 degrees from its starting location.

The Bottom Line

The Ryobi 18V One+ LED Workbench Light is really versatile thanks to the 270-degree swinging arm and wide variety of ways to hang it. 950 lumens is plenty of light to work with even if you don’t have any other lights on or available. If you turned your garage or shed into a shop, this is one of the most useful lights you’re going to be able to bring in to direct light where you need it, when you need it.

Two improvements I’d like to see include a hanging hook wide enough to accommodate a 2x rafter along with a couple of light intensities to work with when I don’t need the entire output of one or both banks. For $49 however, the Ryobi 18V One+ LED Workbench Light is an outstanding addition to your Ryobi collection, especially for the DIYers and maintenance crews already on Ryobi’s One+ 18V platform.