The monitor light bar has quietly become one of the most useful home-office upgrades of the last few years, and BenQ effectively created the category. This BenQ ScreenBar Halo 2 review covers the latest version of its premium model — the one with the wireless control dial and rear ambient light — to answer the only question that matters: at around £170, is it worth the premium over cheaper bars and traditional desk lamps?
We have lived with the Halo 2 at our desk for several weeks, through dark early mornings and bright afternoons, against a single ultrawide monitor. Here is what it is like to actually use, where it excels, where it frustrates, and who should buy it.
BenQ ScreenBar Halo 2 at a glance
| Specification | Detail |
| Type | Monitor light bar with rear ambient light |
| Colour temperature | 2700K–6500K (tunable) |
| Brightness | Up to ~800 lux at 45cm; auto-dimming |
| Controls | Wireless desktop dial |
| Power | USB-A |
| Approx. UK price | £170 |
Design and build
The Halo 2 looks the part. The bar itself is a slim aluminium strip that clips onto the top of your monitor using a clever counterweighted clamp — there are no screws and nothing adhesive, and it grips securely on everything from a slim flat panel to a curved ultrawide. It draws power from a single USB-A cable, so it runs off a monitor port, a hub or a laptop without a separate plug.
The standout design feature is the wireless control dial. Rather than reaching up to fiddle with buttons on the bar (a genuine annoyance on some rivals), you get a satisfying aluminium puck that sits on your desk. Press to toggle the main light, press-and-hold to switch to the rear ambient light, and twist to adjust brightness or colour. It is the kind of small touch that justifies a premium once you live with it.
The headline feature: no glare on your screen
The entire point of a monitor light bar is that it lights your desk without lighting your screen, and the Halo 2 nails this. Its asymmetric optical design throws light forward and down onto your keyboard and desk, with effectively none spilling back onto the display. In weeks of use we never once saw a reflection or wash on the monitor, even with the bar at full brightness.
This is the thing a traditional desk lamp cannot reliably do. Put a lamp beside your screen and you are always managing the angle to avoid reflections; the Halo 2 removes that problem entirely. For anyone who works long hours at a screen, this alone is a meaningful comfort upgrade.
Auto-dimming and light quality
A built-in sensor measures the ambient light in your room, and a tap of the dial sets the bar to a comfortable level automatically. In practice this is genuinely useful: as the room darkens through the afternoon, a single press keeps your desk evenly lit without you guessing at brightness. You can also set it manually if you prefer.
Light quality is excellent. The full 2700K–6500K range means you can run a crisp cool white for focused work and warm it down for the evening. The light is flicker-free and high-CRI, so colours on your desk look natural and your eyes stay comfortable. Coverage across a standard desk is even, with no obvious hot spot.
The rear ambient light
The feature that separates the Halo from the standard ScreenBar is the rear-facing ambient light, which casts a soft glow onto the wall behind your monitor. This is not a gimmick: lifting the brightness of the wall behind your screen reduces the harsh contrast between a bright display and a dark background, which is one of the main causes of eye strain in a dim room.
In use it makes evening work noticeably more comfortable, and it looks pleasant too. It is a subtle effect rather than dramatic mood lighting, but combined with the front task light it means the Halo 2 covers two lighting layers in one product.
Living with it: a few niggles
It is not perfect. The dial runs on a coin-cell battery rather than charging over USB, which feels slightly mean at this price, though the battery lasts a long time. The clamp, while secure, can be a touch fiddly to balance on very thin or very thick monitor edges on first fit. And if your monitor sits behind glass or you use a laptop without an external screen, a light bar simply is not the right tool — a desk lamp will serve you better.
There is also the price. At around £170 it is roughly double the cost of a basic monitor light bar and several times the price of a capable desk lamp. The question is whether the extras — auto-dimming, the wireless dial, the ambient glow, the premium build — justify that gap for you.
BenQ ScreenBar Halo 2 vs the alternatives
| Option | Approx. UK price | Verdict |
| BenQ ScreenBar Halo 2 | £170 | Best experience; auto-dim, dial, ambient light |
| BenQ ScreenBar (standard) | £90 | Same glare-free core light, fewer extras |
| Budget monitor light bar | £30–£45 | Does the basic job; cruder controls and light |
| Quality LED desk lamp | £35–£90 | More positioning flexibility; needs glare management |
If your budget is tight, the standard BenQ ScreenBar delivers the same core glare-free lighting for around half the price, losing the dial, auto-dimming and ambient light. A budget bar from a generic brand will light your desk but with cruder dimming and less even output. And a good desk lamp remains the better buy if you need to light a wide area or work away from a fixed monitor. [Affiliate link to BenQ ScreenBar standard on Amazon UK]
Who should buy the ScreenBar Halo 2?
Buy it if you spend long hours at a single monitor in a small-to-medium room, value a clean desk with no lamp taking up space, and want the most comfortable, fuss-free lighting experience available. The auto-dimming and wireless dial are the kind of conveniences you stop noticing precisely because they just work, and the ambient light is a real eye-comfort benefit for evening sessions.
Skip it if you are on a tight budget (get the standard ScreenBar), if you need to light a wide desk or do colour-critical work (get a quality desk lamp), or if you mainly work on a laptop without an external monitor.
BenQ ScreenBar Halo 2 review: the verdict
The BenQ ScreenBar Halo 2 is the best monitor light bar you can buy, and one of the most genuinely useful home-office upgrades we have tested. It does the core job — lighting your desk with zero screen glare — flawlessly, and the premium touches of auto-dimming, the wireless dial and the rear ambient light add real, daily comfort rather than just specs on a box.
Is it worth the premium? If lighting comfort matters to you and you work at a fixed monitor, yes — it is an easy recommendation and the version we would buy. If you simply want glare-free desk light at the lowest cost, the standard ScreenBar gets you most of the way for less. Either way, a BenQ light bar is the cleanest task-lighting solution for a modern desk. [Affiliate link to BenQ ScreenBar Halo 2 on Amazon UK]
