 Hey it's Alex here from AlexFigures.com. Now if you've been watching my content for a while you may have seen a few of my deep dive reviews on red light therapy panels. I have one beside me right now for instance. Now the first few reviews I did, these videos went for quite some time, 45 minutes or even longer. Part of the reason that took so long was me explaining my testing methods and showing what I was doing and providing all the background and insights, etc. to make sure that you're informed and you know exactly what I was doing and hence how I was getting that data. What I've decided though is I want to keep these videos a little bit shorter and instead I'm going to film this video now and show you my methods and explanations for why I do things and how I do things. So pretty much if you want to watch any of my deep dive reviews and you're curious as to how I'm coming up with the numbers that I'm presenting then this video is for you. All I'm going to do is I'm going to show you with my sprig trometer and my EMF litro smog meter here. I'm going to show you what I'm doing, the measurements I'm taking, the distances and also the rationale behind those measurements. Beside me I do have the Mito Reade Mito Pro 1500. I have this here because I've just been reviewing it and it was while I was reviewing this that I thought hey I should do a separate video. But we'll be using this to demonstrate how I do some of these readings. One of the first tests I do on my reviews is to test the wavelength output from these lights. Obviously we have the marketed, the claimed output such as 660 maybe 630 nanometers to pin it on the panel and then I test the light using my sprig trometer to see if what I'm testing matches up with the claims. So I can show you a quick example with this. I'm going to turn my sprig trometer on and by the way this is a Hope Poe color technology. I'll give you the specs but this test right up, this test from 380 nanometers right up to 1050 nanometers. This cost me a few thousand dollars and it's perfect to test in power radiance, wavelength, flicker and a few other bits and pieces. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to turn this on just on infrared mode and I'm going to get a reading. We can see a breakdown of the light that has been emitted. Up here with the EE we can see the radiance peak in M that's your peak nanometers that shows the highest peak and I can move across here to see different, you can see the numbers move to see different wavelengths and different radiances. When I do this test I actually hook this up to my laptop and I film the laptop screen because it's easier to see than looking at this little screen. What I should also note is I move this around and I get multiple readings all right and I try to find what I think is the best and most balanced reading because on a panel like this we actually have four wavelengths in here so you you you may have you know some six some red light over here and then some near infrared and then a different wavelength of red light and then some more near infrared so of course if I measure right in front of one of these LEDs it will just measure that particular wavelength so that's why I try to pull back and I move around until I get something you know until I get a bit of an average of what I'm seeing on the screen. So that's how I test the wavelength. I do this for the near for red light and then I also do it for the red light. I do them separately just to make it a bit easier for the data on the screen. Next we test power or radiance which is measuring the amount of energy that is coming out at a particular wavelength. For this again I use the spectrometer and what I do is I'm testing at six inches some people want to test at 12 inches some people three inches six inches used to be like the standard distance to stand away from a red light therapy panel nowadays due to the higher on power panels some some companies are saying you can go right out to 12 inches. I've just stuck with six I feel like it's a good number personally I stand even though I know these are more these new generation panels are quite powerful I personally still stand quite close so three to six inches so what I'm doing here is I'm looking for peak power all right and what I'm looking for three readings I take three readings in my reviews I take peak power and red light peak power in near for red light and then peak power combined which is both and what I mean by peak is exactly that I'm looking for the highest number possible so I actually move around the panel make sure I'm six inches apart away so I attach a six inch ruler and I run it along the face of the panel and I have this set to a multiple reading so three times a second it's taking a reading and it's displaying the data on the screen so this means the numbers constantly changing now I'm just looking purely for peak the highest reading possible so all I do is I take note of the reading I say let's say it's 30 microwatts over centimeter squared and then all of a sudden I say 32 so I'll keep 32 on my head and if it drops to 27 I just ignore that until I see something higher than 32 for instance whatever that final reading is is what I report in the review and that's what also goes into my red light therapy buyers guide blog article which is over at Alex figures dot com so again I do that for a red light therapy I do that for now for it and then I do a combined now there's some flaws in this testing because obviously peak power doesn't represent total power right you could technically have or a manufacturer could technically put some really high-powered LEDs in the middle and then weak ones all around to keep cost down and as I'm measuring there on the middle I'll get you know the radiance from those strong LEDs and that doesn't indicate that the whole panel was like that another thing is you could have a LED's angling in on each other so I get a concentrated hot spot for instance where as I'm moving around I get a massive peak but then if I go an inch to the side of that it drops off dramatically that's the problem with peak because all I'm doing is taking the highest reading that I see and it's why it's not perfect but people do like to know what the peak is and this is why I have included it but I also include some other tests which help to overcome the issues that the peak test has and I'll get to them soon now if I am seeing some big peaks and troughs as I'm moving around I will relay that in a review because I think that is important to know I also later on do a hotspot test which will show visually show some of those massive peaks and troughs or concentrations and again that all goes into my review and I share that feedback with the viewer to make them you know so they can get make an informed decision and spend their money wisely so again I'm doing that for the infrared infrared and combine and I just change the setting modes so obviously when I'm testing the infrared I just have the infrared running and then flick it over to a red light next up I do an average combined or radians figure how I do this is I actually measure nine points on a panel and then I take the average reading now it's not super precise but what I'm trying to do is take six readings around the edge of the panel so I'll take I'll come in about an inch diagonally from the corner and I'll come in about an inch diagonally from that corner so there's two readings one two I'll go down halfway come in about an inch take two readings either side and then do the same at the bottom so that's the six and then I come into the and then I take three readings through the middle just trying to get smack bang in the middle one two three and that creates my nine readings when I'm doing it again I'll just hover around and try and get an average if some reason I see something really high you know like 60 and then all the rest around 38 I'll ignore that 60 and I'll just try and get a stable reading sometimes you do see spikes in the reading as I move or if I come in on an angle so I just try to see it when they're get a solid reading it's not perfect you know there's a bit of variability here maybe a couple of couple points but I'll get a rough sort of average I'll do that record all the readings and then like I said average it average it out so for example when I measured this in my full review earlier I had readings ranging from low 60s to high 80s and the average came out to be 76 which is you know right in the middle of all that range and typically you find around the edges the readings are a little bit lower so they were the you know 65 60 lines and then through the middle you get the higher readings like the 80s you know high 70s and obviously that's because there's a less light coming on the on the edge and there's more in the middle but that does sort of reflect the panel design again it's not perfect I mean I could take 12 readings I could take a hundred readings right and you're just going to get more and more accuracy but it still doesn't give it does give a bit of a generalization and a pretty good overview as to how much power is coming from a panel is there are design variances that can cause some issues with comparing data so for instance a panel like this has quite wide bulbs LED bulbs whereas a panel like the red light rising has quite narrow bulbs and also they also protrude from the panel that rounded but because the red light rising bulbs are a lot smaller the chip inside them is exactly the same right so the chip is what's emitting the power just the bulb it does not impact how that how that light is coming out and but because the red light rising have smaller ones and they actually have a larger concentration of LEDs in the panel so you know whereas this particular panel has 300 LEDs the red light rising 1500 advantage 1500 isn't much bigger physically but it has something like 500 LEDs in it but anyway that's how I test my average combined power over nine points and again that's also at six inches and that's for both the red light and the infrared when I'm taking those reading I don't break it down into red light and the infrared I just do an overall now the reason I take the average of those nine points is so I can calculate my the total output power from a panel now what I do for this calculation is I measure the size that the surface area size of the LED so I take I measure from the edge of this LED through to the edge on this side and then take that's the width and then I take the length or the height top to bottom I don't go from the edge of the panel I go from the edge of the LEDs I multiply those two together so I you know 10 centimeters by 20 centimeters for instance multiply them together to get a centimeter squared figure then I multiply that figure with the average power output that then gives me a figure a total figure in milliwatts I then convert this to watts and I have one total wattage figure so for instance this panel had a wattage figure of 136.1 watts what that means is on average based on my calculation this panel with the all these LEDs in this area is emitting 130 what I say 136 watts of red and never read therapeutic light of course we can then use this figure to compare it against other panels which is interesting yes but more importantly you can use this figure to do some really neat value value breakdowns so for instance I can calculate the cost per watt effectively how much bang for your buck you're getting so for this panel for instance it worked out to be $8 all I do is I take the the wattage figure I've calculated and I take the price you're paying and the price I take is always the discounted price so most of these panels you can get for a discount using discount code Alex ALEX so I always take that discounted price because hey like you can get the discount so we may as well assume that's the price you're going to pay right from there you get a dollar per watt so for instance this panel worked out to be $8.02 per watt so effectively you're spending $8.02 to get one watt of red in there for a light this figure is then useful to compare it against other panels especially other panels of similar size so you can see alright well which one is the best value but it's also interesting to compare it against panels that are different sizes because maybe you're looking at a panel that's half the size of this right and it might have a figure of say $20 per watt and then you realize well you spend a few hundred dollars extra not only are you getting a bigger panel but the dollar per wattage figure comes right down like eight in this example in which case you're going to be more inclined to you know spend that money and get better value also in the power and performance around I use this power meter now all this does is connects into the power point I connect this like so and then this into the power point and what this will do is show the wattage draw the amount of energy that the panel is using now I will test this in three modes with both red and red running with just the red light and just the near infrared light and then I'll put all those figures in the review and of course in my buyers guide over at alexfigures.com I don't do anything with those numbers it's just more for the data geeks out there who you know don't have access to all these panels and they want to crunch some numbers you could look into it and and see how much energy is coming out from the radiance point of view and break it down and based on the what what is draw and it would show you know how efficient these lights are but it's still not 100% accurate because you've got power going to the control panel you've got fat power going to the fans you've got power maybe going to you know the circuits and other bits and pieces in it but still I include it just because it's a simple test to do and some people are interested in this. Next I do a hotspot test now I actually do show this in the video because it's it's a visual test the only way to gauge it is by visually seeing it and this is where I simply turn the panel around have it six inches from the from a blank wall such as the wall behind me we turn it on and you see the concentration of red light all going well you'll see a smooth blend of red light some panels you'll see hotspots or what they call the polka dot effect and this is where you get concentrations of light and this could be due to the beam angle it can be due to how the LEDs are spread out can also be due to what wavelengths are used in a panel so for instance if this panel just had 660 nanometers and that was it you'd expect a nice red glow right if it was poorly designed or use some inferior technology or just I don't know maybe the LEDs are spaced out what you may see is hotspots where like all that energy is concentrated on one area and then drops off and then another area and what that means is when you're standing by the panel you're getting concentration red light spots you know like on your shoulder but not on your chest and they may be in your sternum but not on the other for instance so ideally you want a nice blend so I do this test in the reviews and I just show you show you the results on screen and I'll give my interpretation as I see it based on the panel of course if you can the panel that has like five or even more wavelengths in it it's going to be hard to get a nice blend because if you have five different wavelengths each LED is emitting a different wavelength so over here you may have you know orange a light and then you may have a red light and then you may have near infrared light and then another near infrared light and then you're back to red you that's that's that's a three or four inch space between the two red light LEDs and it's going to be very hard for a designer or engineer to get an even out an even spread of red light all the way across so you see a nice blend so that's the downside with getting a multi-wave panel especially that has you know quite a few wavelengths in it I have tested device panels such as this where it only had four wavelengths and I did see quite a nice blend and the panels you know once you get around that five wavelength especially if there's not an even spread between power you know maybe only 10% of power is going to a certain wavelength and 40% is going to another you will typically see those drop-offs. Next up we look at EMF now for EMF testing I use my cornet electro smoke meter I've used this meter for a few years now and I've actually had it compared to a geo vital EMF engineer and he had like $10,000 gizmos and gadgets and my readings were pretty much bang on with his and this is only a couple hundred dollars I'll put a link to where you can get one below. Now this meter tests three different types of EMF it tests magnetic electric and microwave the sensors for each type of frequency are on different sides of the meter so what I try and do is I typically tested six inches or maybe three inches and I always specify in the in the review what distance I'm testing from and then I'll position use my ruler and just like I do with this spectrometer move around and get my reading based on where the sensor is so I'm always six inches from it when I turn this meter on you'll see on the side there you've got an orange light blinking away there it's green and does go out to red this has been programmed and for building biology home healthy home standards so if it's in the green we're in a safe zone if it's in the orange it's risky not ideal if it's in red it's potentially dangerous so the I will share readings both the readings I'm getting on screen but also the color that I'm seeing because most people don't really care too much about what exact number it is they just want to know is it is it dangerous or not right so I'll do that for microwave magnetic and electric really it's a lot of these panels don't have like transmitters such as bluetooth wifi so you get no readings on microwave so sometimes I skip that if I know that's that's the case with the panel the main one we're looking at is electric and magnetic actually the main one is magnetic electric unless it's got really bad wiring isn't usually an issue but the magnetic one can be a problem sometimes however with these newer generation panels I really see readings above the green if I get close to it yeah you do see some spikes there but not not many people we shouldn't be standing right up we don't need to stand right up hard against it and again I just move around a little bit and try to get a reading I I have the panel off and then I turn it on to see if there's a spike and then see where it stabilizes and I hold that for a few seconds and then I'll share the data we also look at sound and I've got a decibel meter here and the same thing I hold that six inches simply turn the panel on and set it on max hold function and it will just record the highest number the highest sound figure and disables and then I share this that's a simple reading to do and some people care about it some people don't personally none of these are outrageous or none that I've tested are outrageously loud that you need earmuffs or anything like that the only thing that can be bothersome is the wine like some of them have a really high pitch noise and it's like kind of ear piercing but if that's the case I'll I'll share it in the reviews okay so one other thing I'll be testing in my reviews is the flicker rate of these relight therapy panels to test that flicker rate I use the same spectrometer here now what I'm doing with flicker or flicker is an interesting subject I do have an article over at AlexFigus.com on flicker so I'll put a link to that below you can go check that out if you want the full you know background and what you need to know about flicker and red light therapy lights but in a nutshell I'm testing I'm taking two metrics with this meter all right I'm testing the flicker frequency which is a figure that comes out and hurts and that means that shows how many times a second the light or the LED is changing in brightness okay so typically we see a random zero as in there's no flicker in the panel which is great or a hundred hertz out of all the panels I've ever tested it's been one of you know one of those figures the second figure that I'm testing is flicker percent now what this does obviously it's a percent anything from zero through a hundred percent what this does is shows the intensity and light drop off each time the light is flicking so let's say the LED has a flicker frequency of a hundred hertz that means a hundred times a second it is pulsing the brightness is changing the flicker percent shows how intense that changes so if it's a hundred percent it means it's totally going on and off on and off and it's doing that a hundred times a second if the flicker percent sorry if the flicker frequency is a hundred as well if the flicker percent is fifty percent then it's only dropping fifty percent of brightness um if it is I don't know like only a few percent then the drop off is very very minuscule so ideally in a red light therapy panel we'll see zero we'll see no flicker at all which will be zero percent in terms of flicker percent and zero hertz because there's no change the the LED is consistent and putting out the same amount of light which is great if we see some flicker in the panel we'll typically see a hundred hertz flicker rate so a hundred times a second it's changing and now the flicker percent is how intense that drop off is so um pretty much all you need to know is if it comes out as zero no flicker then hey great if there is some flicker detected the lower the numbers the better because if there's only a slight drop off in the brightness then the flicker effect on on us on our body is going to be very very minuscule so I think that's it pretty much thing going forward when I do reviews on these panels now um I'm going to skip straight into giving you the data it will save maybe 10 minutes of explanation and a lot of footage um and we'll mean you guys get the data faster and if you have watched this then hey you're going to know how it all works and what I've done it in certain ways if you think I've done something really bad please let me know because I'm I'm all open to um changing and open to ideas if you'd really like to see certain metrics on a certain panel done in a certain way like maybe you want to see the radiance at 12 inches or 24 inches or something like that leave a comment below and if I get some spare time or when I've got all my gear out you know I'll try to do that for you and quickly create a video um otherwise yeah I'm trying to get a bit of a standard system or standard uh framework for my reviews and of course when I do my 2021 comparison I'll be using similar methods uh in those videos if you've enjoyed this give me a thumbs up if you want to see some of these reviews be sure to check out my videos below and be sure to subscribe because I do have a lot of videos coming down the pipeline on these reviews um on really light therapy panels all right guys I'll leave you to it bye