Warning: Some LED therapy panels have flashing duty cycles. If a LED panel doesn’t have its LED stay on continuously, it often will have a 50% on and 50% off cycle. This means that it will take double the time to get the therapy at that rate. This helps prevent the diodes from burning out and overheating. It costs much more to add cooling fans and a metal cover.
Commercial lasers will most likely be continuous and the very inexpensive LED panels are usually the ones advertised and marketed to naive residential consumers.
The higher the wattage the more joules of energy the cells can absorb (Best way is to see which has the highest joules per centimeter squared). Lightwave has the highest ratio. 120mw/cm2.
Note: some brands can say their panel can deliver 120mw/cm2 and it costs a few hundred dollars while another brand costs around 10,000 dollars and claim the same 120mw/cm2.
If one brand has really high wattage diodes, just say 200mw diodes and there are very few diodes, it can deliver the same 120mw to that same area but most of the energy is being reflected and this is the type of panel where there are very few diodes and lots of spaces between.
What I call a therapeutic 120mw/cm2 is not having diodes that you can’t put so close to the face as it gets too hot and not a “120mw” average for that coverage area. They are measuring it by the size of the panel and getting 120mw but if they didn’t it would be 200mw/cm2 and those that are informed would know to stay away from that LED panel. So many people are getting mislead. It is hard for a practitioner to make an informed decision when one company is selling theirs for 1500 and another for 15,000 and they are both making the same claims.
It’s based on the size of the panel and factors that are not real word tests. It’s kind of like the hair helmet laser companies saying they have a 500mw hair helmet. It’s like having 250 diodes that are 2mw per
diode and saying they have 500mw of power while the competitor has 50 diodes that are 10mw diodes and have much more power and still can claim 500mw.
Treatment Times 20 min, 30 to 40 min 45 to an hour… Getting higher fluence to gain LED strength is different than having fewer diodes but really high wattage diodes. The LED devices that I’ve found that have the shortests time are strength levels that are not so powerful that they reflect, don’t have a plastic lense. Silicone is good. Most are made with glass that are not the plastic ones. The stronger deep red LEDs (630nm vs 660nm). Most people get better results with the not so deep wavelength rather than the deeper red. The panels that have only one wavelenght, not a panel mixed with blues and reds and infrareds will have a more compact array of a single color LED. The room will have to have 3 seperate panels and will take more time to change them out. Poly LED is known for this and at the shows nearly every competitor used that against them that I talked to. I think its a good and bad thing depending on if someone wants a one panel fits all and is on a budget.
LED Strength type Levels: Which is the right strength? That is the question I get. High output vs Low output vs Superluminous (superluminescent diodes) LEDs. Omnilux LED panels and Lightwave LED panels according to their specs have the highest strength diodes but what I know is more important is the wavelength. Some brands have really high wattage but do not have the wavelength that the FDA studies were done on. It is much cheaper to get really high quality diodes for LED light therapy and more expensive to get just the right wavelength that the FDA studies were done on that were approved.
Having a higher diode strength doesn’t really mean it will penetrate deeper into the body. It can scatter more. A 11mw/cm2 coverage with just the right wavelength for the person’s needs might be better than a 120mw/cm2 diode that is not the right wavelength, like their are so many LED therapy panels that have so many blue wavelengths.