I knew things were not quite right when I had to throw a towel over a broken Ikea lamp to block out its light. How did I get here? I cover fancy and capable tech for a living, and yet, it took me two years to get rid of a pair of old, broken Ikea lamps in my bedroom. Then I got some floor lamps from Govee that changed everything.

Those Ikea lamps were around for two years after I moved from Orange County to Los Angeles. Soon after that move, my mom’s Parkinson’s disease — a neurodegenerative condition with no cure — progressed quickly, my mental health took a hit, and most of my own to-do list quietly slid to the back burner as she lost mobility and more urgent things took over. So the big, ugly lamps just… stayed.…