You will come across brands advertising very high wattage ratings with the implication that their panels are extremely powerful. However, this is a trick because:

1. What they are doing is using the maximum power rating of the bulbs not the actual power being run through the unit e.g. 300 5W bulbs and calling it 1500W (300 x 5 = 1500)
2. But no light would ever draw this much power - if it did you would have a huge safety issue because the whole thing would overheat!
3. In reality only a fraction of each bulb's potential output power is ever used (this maximises efficiency and is also why 5W bulbs offer no benefit over 3W bulbs and are a waste of money)
4. The number which matters is the irradiance, a measurement of brightness

Note: inputs wattages can provide a rough guide on irradiance, but are not the most accurate because more efficient designs like the Hero300 can produce higher irradiances with lower power consumption. But if, for example, you see a panel with half the input power it almost certainly would also produce less irradiance.

This is why we use the number of LEDs to signify the model name, hence we sell the Hero300 and not the Hero1500!

No red light therapy panel pushes its LEDs to their maximum capacity because to do so would overheat the unit causing enormous safety issues.

This means 5W bulbs offer no benefit over 3W bulbs; their capacity would never be used anyway so output power and irradiance is watt's (pun intended) actually important. 5W bulbs and 3W bulbs will produce the same irradiance.

To make matters worse, 5W bulbs are actually less efficient than 5W bulbs because an LED's "wall-plug (i.e., power conversion) efficiency is inversely proportional to its output power”. They produce less light per unit of power as the total power increases, which is accentuated by larger LED sizes. This means to get the same amount of irradiance from 5w bulbs as 3W bulbs, you would need to expend more electricity.

We talked with our suppliers who confirmed that the Hero300 panel would produce the same irradiance while drawing:

• 455W with 5W bulbs
• 390W with 3W bulbs

That's 65W of wasted electricity if we went for 5W bulbs instead of 3W bulbs - bad for the environment and for your energy bill!

But most red light therapy panel companies don't care - they think you won't understand this and will naively think the higher rated bulbs mean a superior product when in fact the opposite is true

Running 5W bulbs makes no sense; there is zero advantage in terms of irradiance and they will cost you more to purchase and run.

So which bulbs do we use in the Hero300?

3W bulbs, of course!

A lot of the pulsing hype derives from a 2010 study showing the positive effects of pulsing light, however this was done with lasers not LEDs. Lasers operate fundamentally differently to LEDs and produce far more heat which can even burn patients, with the authors saying “because there are “quench periods” (pulse OFF times) following the pulse ON times, pulsed lasers can generate less tissue heating. This increased power can cause tissue heating at the surface layers and in this instance pulsed light could be very useful". Therefore the benefit of pulsed light refers to laser safety safety because you could treat a patient with "potentially much higher peak power densities than those that could be safely used in CW [continuous wave i.e. non-pulsed light]". But this is irrelevant to LEDs because they do not produce nearly the same heat as lasers and studies indicate that red light therapy is safe³. There's simply no need to have an "OFF time" with modern LED red light therapy panels like the Hero300.

Further, were you to use pulsing in your red light therapy sessions, you would be unnecessarily halving the amount of light received in any given treatment period because half the time the lights would be off. This means you would need to treat yourself for twice as long to get the same total exposure time, wasting time and electricity.

Finally, if you look through the photobiomodulation literature you will see most studies on red light therapy used continuous wave light.

This is why we opted to omit pulsing from the Hero300, passing on the savings to you. Pulsing is simply not necessary and, in our view, is even counterproductive.

As an aside, pulsing light can also entrain the brain into alpha, delta and theta states visually, similarly to how binaural beats can do so through the auditory system. However this does not require any particular wavelength of light nor much power, you could even just use your phone screen for neural entrainment (certainly not worth upping the cost of the Hero300!). And in case you're curious, here are some free pure binaural beats for auditory entrainment (we find this a relaxing alternative to visual entrainment, just put it on headphones in the background at super low volume so you forget it's even playing).

The most common wavelengths which are included in almost all red light therapy panels (including ours) are:

• 660nm (red)
• 850nm (near-infrared)

This combination works well because the red light treats the skin while the near-infrared penetrates deeper and treats underlying tissue and muscles. To cite a 2019 paper, combining multiple-wavelength sources "can present a therapeutic advantage by providing concurrent energy delivery to biological tissues at different depths.”

The industry trick here is brands claiming that these particular wavelengths are chosen because they are the most researched; while there are studies on 660nm and 850nm, to say they are the most researched simply isn't true.

If you look through the literature you will observe a range of wavelengths being researched, with the 600-700nm (red) and 800-900nm (near-infrared) ranges yielding most of the promising results and the 700-800nm range being relatively ineffective/inert.

The real reasons 660nm and 850nm are so commonly used is:

1. They are some of the most mass-produced LED wavelengths which keeps costs down
2. They sit around the middle of the two most effective treatment ranges (600-700nm and 800-900nm)

Using these wavelengths in red light therapy panels strikes a balance between commercial viability and delivering a research-based product.

According to Joovv's scientific advisory board member Dr. Cleber Ferraresi "there is no supporting clinical evidence to using multiple wavelengths on the same spectrum" because they "are so close to each other that they will have the same therapeutic effect on the human body as just one of these". He may, however, be biased because Joovv's panels only use 660nm and 850nm LEDs.

To hedge our bets, we added a few additional well-studied wavelengths to the Hero300 with the intention of increasing your coverage while keeping our panels affordable:

630nm: 30 LEDs
660nm: 120 LEDs
810nm: 15 LEDs
830nm: 15 LEDs
850nm:120 LEDs

If you look at our competitors, you will see few have 5 wavelengths and those which do are more expensive.

We do not see solar meter measurements as an industry trick because they are used so consistently that they fulfills their function of allowing people to compare brands.

That being said, beware of brands with extremely high irradiance measurements because this probably means they were taken immediately in front of the panel (where you body never should be because you would be exposed to maximum EMF!) and not at safe usage distances like ours are.

The most important thing to remember is to compare panel irradiance measurements at the same distances.

When we show people our panels in person, they are always shocked at how bright they are.

With a power consumption of only 390W (lowered by the use of 3W bulbs), the Hero300 has a solar panel measured irradiance of:

• 209mw/cm2 at 3"
• 172mw/cm2 at 6"
• 141mw/cm2 at 12"
• 125mw/cm2 at 18"
• 103mw/cm2 at 24"

Some brands make a big deal about single or dual chip LEDs, but we believe whether you choose a single chip/lens or a dual chip/lens panel is unimportant.

This is because most panels with dual lens LEDs have about half the LEDs, so the total amount of lenses/outputs is the same. It simply doesn't matter whether you have 300 3W single lens LEDs, or 150 6W dual lens LEDs i.e. 300 total 3W lenses within the 150 6W dual lens LEDs. The end result is the same (and what matters more is the power driving those LEDs and the resulting irradiance!).

That being said, there is one exception: Some brands will try to trick you with dual LEDs by omitting information about the bulb wattages or true output power. The reason this is sneaky is that if you have, for example, 300 3W dual lens LEDs (600 total chips) with 390W of power, you would still get the same net effect as 300 3W single lens LEDs despite having double chips in the former because those chips are split between the same (390W) power source and the bulbs are effectively only 1.5W each (3W lenses divided by 2 chips).

Many of the studies on red light therapy were done using skin-contact devices. This has led some people to criticise the use of panels, saying that skin-contact is better backed by the literature.

While we have nothing against skin-contact devices (and plan to add some to our catalog in the future), we do believe panels are a better choice for many applications because:

1. Skin-contact devices can only cover a relatively small area of the body at once, requiring much more time to get equivalent exposure
2. Skin-contact devices cannot reach crevices or fit around all the contours of your body
3. Panels, on the other hand, reach every crevice because the light source is further away and illuminates freely
4. You cannot avoid EMF exposure with skin-contact devices (though the EMF produced is relatively low because of how weak the devices are) while well good quality panels like the Hero300 can be used at their recommended usage distances with 0 EMF
   

One of the biggest criticisms of red light therapy panels is that large amounts of light reflects off your body. This is, however, compensated for by the much stronger power and irradiances of panels. Skin-contact devices are usually only around 10W, and that is fine because the light doesn't need to be strong when it's directly on the skin. But it also means panels, with almost 50 times the power, are designed to compensate for this extra distance.

And remember, that extra distance is what allows the light to reach the places skin-contact devices can't.

This isn't really a trick, however the variety of sizes to choose from can be overwhelming. That being said, nobody wants to spend hours moving a smaller panel around to slowly cover each part of their body, which is why we chose ~100cm x 30cm dimensions with 300 LEDs for the Hero300.

For anyone who isn't exceptionally tall, this should allow you to cover your entire lower half or upper half of your body in one session (remember the 30 degree lens angle means you get more than 100cm of height).

Some ways our founder Helmut Uhlmann makes the most of the size is by:

1. Meditating in front of two panels (one in front, one behind) so covering his face and entire torso doesn't take up any extra time because meditation is part of his routine anyway
2. Working at a standing desk in front of two panels (one in front, one behind) so his legs can receive treatment without expending any additional time

You can also purchase the HS2 or HS3 stands are stack two to four panels together, providing ~2m of coverage so you can treat your whole body at once.

As you can see, there are a range of possible configurations but it is much more time and cost efficient to purchase the Hero300 than a smaller panel, which is why we settled for this size.

Large stands need to be expensive because of how complex their design is and how heavy and expensive they are to ship.

But many customers want a simple "boot" style floor stand, and these are often sold for $150 or more!

We view this as an industry trick because it's a way of offsetting the cost of the actual panel onto the accessories you use with it.

We have priced our "boot" style floor stand, the HS1, at $50.

To match other brands, we offer a full refund for any order returned to us within 60 days as long as it is in as-new condition.

But remember:

Red light therapy panels are heavy and expensive to post.

Promoting "risk free" 60 day trials is an industry trick - these are never truly risk free because of the weight and cost of return-shipping your panel.

It's commonly understood that the higher the irradiance, the more effective the red light therapy panel. This is because more brightness = more exposure to the beneficial red and near-infrared wavelengths.

While being able to dim your lights is a nice feature for a lamp, it doesn't make much sense for red light therapy. All you are doing by lowering the brightness is getting less exposure during your sessions - you may as well have bought a cheaper and less powerful panel!

Having fixed (but very high) irradiance on the Hero300 is one of the ways we are able to keep costs down without compromising on the things which matter.

Some brands justify higher prices by providing you smart modes for different treatment types. This involves turning off some of the LEDs and just keeping on the ones which have been shown to provide x benefit for y condition. However it is a pointless "feature":

1. All wavelengths included in any decent red light therapy panel will be beneficial in some way and studies indicate that red light therapy is safe so there's no reason to moderate any particular wavelength³
2. Each LED (or lens in the case of dual lens panels) can only produce one wavelength, so you are not gaining extra power on the other wavelengths by turning some off i.e. your skin won't gain more benefits by turning off the wavelengths associated with improving depression

This means by turning off some wavelengths while keeping others on, all you are doing is lowering the total effectiveness of your red light therapy treatment because you are removing certain wavelengths and their associated benefits.

These involve automating gradual bright increases when using red light therapy in the morning and decreases when using it at night. This is hardly worth paying extra money for however because:

1. Getting sunlight first thing in the morning is optimal for health anyway, so we think you should go outside before jumping in front of your panel!³
2. A human study "demonstrated that red-light illumination positively affected sleep quality and endurance" and boosted melatonin, suggesting using red light therapy at night is highly effective for sleep without the need for any "smart mode" (which probably won't work anymore anyway the moment app support is dropped by the brand)

Some brands justify higher prices by providing you the ability to individually control the amount of each wavelength. This is pointless however, given:

1. All wavelengths included in any decent red light therapy panel will be beneficial and studies indicate that red light therapy is safe so there's no reason to moderate any particular wavelength³
2. Each LED (or lens in the case of dual lens panels) can only produce one wavelength, so you are not gaining extra power on the other wavelengths by turning some off

This means by turning off some wavelengths while keeping others on, all you are doing is lowering the total effectiveness of your red light therapy treatment because you are removing certain wavelengths and their associated benefits.

There's simply no point in having control over individual wavelengths.