The Aparo Meteor 30 and 60 RGB Tube Lights Are Pretty Wild

by Patrick Hall October 8, 2023 0 Comments Sponsored

With so many amazing new RGB LED lights on the market, it's easy to see why so many content creators are utilizing these in both their photography and videography projects. Today, I look at the Meteor 30 and 60 Pixel Tube Light by Aparo and show you how I plan to use it in my own studio.

High-powered flash strobes have always been a huge part of my photography kit mainly because of the insane amount of power they offer when shooting outside or when needing to freeze motion. However, as more and more budget-friendly LED lights have become more powerful and more colorful, I've found myself relying on these RGBWW lights more and more in both my photography and videography work. The advantage of having every color imaginable in a single light without the need of large colored gels is something I couldn't have fathomed 10 years ago. Today, I look at my very first tube shaped full-colored "pixel tube" led lights, the Meteor 30 and Meteor 60L, and show you some of the advantages a light like this might offer in your own studio.

"What is an RGBWW pixel tube LED light," you might ask? Unlike many common LED light bulbs and video panels of the past that only illuminate a single color, these new panels and tube lights are able to produce any color you can imagine. They contain RGB LED diodes, which can illuminate any combination of red, green, and blue light, which make them extremely useful for party lights, mood lighting, and replicating common situations, where you might see colored lighting, like near a neon sign, under a traffic light, or at a concert. If you are looking for natural white lighting, the two sets of "WW" LEDS allow you to produce cool outdoor white light as well as warm indoor light. Having the full range of LED diodes in a single light means you can custom tailor the light you need to anything imaginable and perfectly fine-tune it quickly and easily.

The Meteor 30 and Meteor 60 are the newest RGBWW lights offered by the lighting company Aparo. Most of the lights currently used in the Fstoppers studio are produced by Aparo's parent company Falcon Eyes, so it's nice knowing what we can expect from this new California-based company. As you'll see in the video above, the Meteor series of tube lights offer a lot of distinct advantages over some of the more traditional square and circular LED lights I'm used to using. Below, I'll outline a few of the specs that make these lights worth checking out if you are interested in purchasing one for your own photo and video productions.

Power and Color Accuracy

The Meteor 30 and 60 lights are 12 inches and 60 inches respectively and have power outputs of 10 W and 20 W. While this power isn't enough to light a subject outdoors on a sunny day, I've found it to be more than enough to use inside my studio for lighting interviews, product shots, and as accent lights in the background or around my subject for more dynamic lighting setups. These lights also have a CRI value of 96, which means the white LEDs are capable of producing a wide spectrum of light, which is crucial when accurately lighting skin and colorful products. While it's really hard to compare the power output of every brand of light because of differences in output measurements, I've put a chart below of the LUX and Footcandles at different color temperatures.

Color and Effects

Perhaps the biggest reason for owning one of these pixel lights is the variety of colors and effects you can produce. As mentioned above, these lights can replicate any RGB color you can imagine as well as a full range of white light from 2,000 K to 20,000 K. However, what's really cool about the Meteor series of lights is that you can run over 20 different "special effects" patterns that can add dynamic movement to your lighting. Some of these effects include candlelight, television, police and ambulance, matrix, flash and lightning, and full RGB rotation.

What I really love is each of these effects can not only be dimmed and tweaked in power and speed, but you can also offset the color on most of them so you can use the effect with any color you might need. One of my favorite effects it the heartbeat effect that slowly pulses the light red. I recently did a review on the Microfogger 5, and my Meteor lights were super helpful in creating some beautiful shots of the fogger in action. You can see a behind-the-scenes shot of that shoot above.

Battery and Extended Use

All of the Meteor lights come with a built-in battery so you can easily use these out on location without AC power or you can plug them into the charger and use them inside for extended interviews and video productions. The Meteor 30 and 60 come with 23 Wh and 46 Wh, respectively, and I've found them to both last about 90-120 minutes at full power. This is extremely good for a light of this brightness, and if you wind up using them at 50-75% power, you can get quite a bit of illumination out of them before needing to recharge.

Shape and Size

As mentioned above, these lights are tubes that have a narrow but long form factor. This means that unlike square or small circular light sources, these lights always produce a rather soft light that can illuminate larger areas because of its long shape. While I only have the 12" and 24" models, Aparo does make 4' and 8' versions of this light, which can light up a huge area or even be used as large set lights if left in front of the camera. For travel, the Meteor 30 seems like the perfect size-to-illumination ratio, but if you are checking a bag or have a larger roller case, the Meteor 60 will give you a softer light because of the additional length.

There is a cool lighting hack you can do to make this light less soft as well. If you pick the "Neon Step" pixel effect, you can slow the movement down to 0 and create a small hotspot on the light, which will replicate a much smaller light and give you more control over your highlights and shadows. You can also desaturate the color and tweak the white balance to find the perfect color you need as well. Playing around with it more, I was able to also mirror the movement, freeze it, and create a two-light setup by using only the outermost pixels on the stick. This can be really useful if you want to create the classic "butterfly" above and below lighting setup with just a single light. I'm sure there are tons of other little tricks you can discover by playing around with the pixel effects in these lights.

Bluetooth and Wireless App

These Meteor lights are the first battery-operated lights I've owned that can be controlled wirelessly through Bluetooth. Being able to wireless adjust my AC-powered lights has been a huge benefit for me, especially when producing video content where the light is either difficult to reach or if I'm filming myself and I need to monitor the light from an articulating screen and can't easily change the light without moving my position. In order to wirelessly control these pixel lights, you need to download the Desal Lite+ app to your phone, and from there, you can see and adjust each light individually or even in groups. The Desal Lite+ app isn't without its flaws. Sometimes, the on/off buttons get reversed, and it can be hard to tap certain icons precisely every time, but overall, I've found it much quicker to use the app with my phone than adjusting the lights manually through the built-in LCD screen.

Price and Value

Obviously, all of these cool features and this interesting form factor are only exciting if the price of each light offers value. As someone who has bought lights for $20 and lights for $3,000, I've discovered that the most expensive lights don't always mean they get used the most. In fact, in many cases, the cheaper lights actually find way more use in my studio simply because they are usually easier to set up and I'm not as worried about packing them up and protecting them at all times.

Compared to other lights I've bought in the past, the Aparo Meteor lights are priced somewhere in the middle of "buy these immediately because they cost nothing" and "welp, I guess I'll never own one of those lights in my lifetime!" The 12" Meteor 30 at the moment is on sale for around $139, and the larger 24" Meteor 60 is available for $299. The 60 is more than twice the cost despite being twice the size, but it does come with a more powerful charger, a nice hard shell carrying case, and offers some more advanced controls through the DMX mini XLR input.

Conclusion

In the past when I first saw these light saber shaped lights, I thought they were sort of a gimmick. Most of my friends were using them for light painting and creating long exposures with the light predominantly featured in the photo itself. However, after now playing around with mine for over a month in the studio, this has quickly become my go-to light for quick and easy photo and video setups. It's incredibly nice having a simple light that can mount directly to a light stand and tabletop tripod, requires zero wires or plugs, and because of its shape, gives me soft natural lighting that can illuminate 3/4th of your body at once. For YouTube and video work, I also find myself using the Desal Lite+ app all the time to quickly change and dial in the light when I'm in front of the camera. As you see in the video above, I've also found a full-time use for the Meteor 60 being used as a low fill light right below my main camera, which really can only be done with a narrow light in this form factor.

Overall, I find these two lights to be super useful and I'm using them much more than I ever would have thought. I do wish there was a way to run them off AC power and cut them off remotely with a switch, but since they run on battery power, even when you kill the power to the plug, the lights will remain on until turned off by switch or through the app. Other than that minor annoyance, I am really happy with the Meteor lights and have considered picking up a few more for larger on location video productions.

If you want to get one of these lights for yourself, click on the specific link below based on your location.