A new portable LED light for content creators has been named a winner in the Consumer Electronics sub-category for Product Design in the recent Australian Good Design Awards.
Designed by Nila Rezaei and Andrew Simpson in Australia for startup tech company, Slite, the new light was born out of a need for portable and professional lighting for the modern content creators.
Slite’s Co-founder and Technology Director, Alex Smith, was shooting in an 160-year-old building without any power. Then the idea struck: “why not power a light from a powerbank!?”
According to Slite, “The world of professional lighting is super intimidating. They’re bulky, cumbersome and expensive, limiting their use and use cases. Slite needed to be portable, powerful and offer professional quality lighting that anyone – regardless of experience – could easily use.”
Slite needed to work with existing traditional mounts/stands, but also offer more intuitive and innovative mounting solutions. In short, a light that would exceed the needs of a professional, whilst being accessible to newcomers.
Slite used cutting-edge heat sync technology to allow for an ultra slim 14mm thin pro file, without compromising the output of the custom-built LEDs.
Working closely with electrical engineers and LED manufacturers, Nila was able to create a sleek design unit – roughly the size of a tablet – that packed a 3400lux at 1m, weighed only 890g and could fit in a laptop sleeve. Stripping away unnecessary buttons made for a user-friendly interface, making the lights easy to use. By integrating magnets into the unit’s front and rear, Slite could also be mounted in new ways.
The developers say Slite is the first professional-quality light to implement USB-C technology, allowing the unit to be powered from an everyday powerbank.
Specifications include:
- Dimensions: 342mm (length) x 208mm (width) x 14mm (thickness)
- Weight: 895g
- Colour Temperature: 3000-6200K (adjust in 50k increments)
- Light Accuracy: 96+ CRI, 99+ TLCI
- LUX: Initial testing with the Seikonic C-800 light metre shows a 4700k reading of 2900lux at 1m
- Beam Angle: 120°
- Cooling: Silent passive cooling
- Power Output: 55w
- Power Supply: 65w USB-C Wall Charger
- Operating Temperatures: -20°C – +40°C
- Battery Type: The Slite does not have an internal battery. Requires minimum 60W USB-C PD (power delivery) powerbank
- IP Rating: IP20
- Mounting: 2 x ¼ inch female threaded connection (1 landscape, 1 portrait). Slite’s back is also magnetic; allowing users to mount it to metallic surfaces or the magnetic mount plate (¼ inch female threaded connection).
The Slite can be controlled via an app, which features:
- A range of 800 feet / 240 metres (with direct line of sight) or 130 feet / 40 metres indoors
- State-of-the-art Bluetooth 5.0, which provides exceptional range and zero latency, so you can make real-time adjustments to your setup
- Ability to group and control multiple Slites
- Option to save your favorite settings as a ‘scene’ or ‘preset’, so you can come back to it!
- Select from colour wheel, or input specific HEX codes to match any colour you want
- Use your camera’s ‘live view’ – or an image from your gallery – to reproduce a colour using our ‘colour picker’
- Control brightness and saturation from 0%-100%, at 1% increments
- Save your custom colours and white balances for future use
- Match other lights with green/magenta shift
- Experiment with special effects, namely: police car, disco, fire, candle, strobe, paparazzi, faulty globe, TV, lightning, fireworks and neon sign.
Dr Brandon Gien, CEO of Good Design Australia and Chair of the Awards says, “An innovative product which responds to a clear need. What impressed the judges is how the design solution gave rise to new and emergent use cases. A refreshing and relevant product for the modern content creator in an image driven world. Well done.”
Visit https://www.slite.co/