Blind Spot Gear has launched their 6th Kickstarter with the new Crack Light. Crack light is an interesting choice of name (It probably wouldn’t have been my first choice), but I guess the name refers to the light being so thin that it can fit into small spaces.
Profound Beginnings
The Blind Spot Gear Crack Light is actually made by a South Korean company called Profound. We first saw this light along with other products from Profound at NAB 2018.
The Crack lights are rebranded Profound PanFlex lights. Now, you may be asking why would you want to rebrand an existing product? It’s a good question, but here is the answer. Trying to buy Profound lights is difficult. In fact, you can’t even find out prices or purchase them directly from Profound. This is why BlindSpot Gear have jumped onboard, so they can make them available to a much wider audience.
So what exactly is the Crack Light?
The Crack Light is an ultra lightweight (19g), portable, USB powered lighting solution aimed at content creators.
Not only is the light flexible, but its also completely waterproof. At this stage, there is only a 6000K version available. Hopefully, they will also eventually sell the 3200K version .
Key features
- High CRI LED (5W)
- 120 degree beam angle
- Daylight 6000K color temperature
- CRI 95
- 19g
Powering
The Crack Lights can be run from any 5W USB power source. This allows them to be run from a myriad of readily available options, some of which you may already own.
If you use a Lightning or USB-C to USB adapter and plug it directly into a phone.
Photometrics
I have previously tested both the 3200K and 6000K prototype versions of the Profound PanFlex, so I can tell you just how color accurate the Blind Spot Crack Lights are and how much output they produce.
From my
The light output 104lx at a distance of 1 meter. This is a pretty good output for a small, USB powered light. The Kelvin color temperature recorded was 5373K, which was considerably lower than the claimed 6000K.
Again, these measurements were taken from a prototype version of the PanFlex, and are more of a
Above you can see the color rendering scores for the light. The light has an average CRI (R1-R8) of 97.6 and an extended CRI (R1-R15) of 96.97. These are incredibly high scores and the best I have ever recorded from a LED light.
The light also recorded a very high TLCI score of 99.
Mounting
The biggest problem with flexible lights such as the Crack Light is when it comes to mounting. Usually, it involves some sort of DIY solution.
Some of the ways you can mount the Crack Light include using GoPro Mounts, Blue Tack, velcro, or even something as simple as a rubber band.
Short Cable
The problem with a lot of USB powered lights is that the cable is just way too short. This is also the case with the Crack Light. The cable that is attached to the light is only about 12cm long. This is hardly ideal, and if you are mounting the light on a camera, light
Accessories
The nice thing about USB powered devices is that there are a plethora of accessories available. Not only are there plenty of options, but the prices of USB accessories are also relatively cheap.
Blind Spot Gear are hoping to be able to offer a wide range of accessories and mounting solutions that you will be able to buy directly from them by the time the Crack Light starts to ship.
Price
The Crack Lights are now available to back on Kickstarter for £30 (around $40USD). You can also get the light with a dimmer for £57 (around $75 USD).
When are they expected to ship?
The BlindSpot Gear Crack Lights are expected to start shipping in July this year. The company has a good track record with Kickstarter campaigns but as always, Newsshooter cautions you to think seriously before backing any crowd funded product because there are no guarantees.
In saying that, this isn’t a product that needs to be developed and manufactured. It already exists and can be brought to market very quickly.
