22. June 2010 by Brent.

When you look at yourself in the mirror each morning, which of these three things do you say?
-Holy cow I’m getting old?
-I wish I had enough money to get my eyelids done?
-I just look better and better every day?

I’m fortunate that my eye’s are deteriorating at the same rate my skin is, so maybe I can’t see the difference. Or my brain adjusts what my eye’s see in direct proportion to how much time I have in the morning to get ready.

Over the years of business we’ve had people return our light therapy product and say it didn’t work for skin improvement. We’ve had many discussions on why that is. Did they get a faulty device. We’ve tested some of the devices that came back and they work the same as the others. We diagnose how they are using the system. The amount of time they used, how close to the skin, what else are they doing, creams, are they damaging it faster than helping it, blah blah blah.

If we remove the set of people that just like to buy things and return them (some come back unopened), then….

I really think I have the answer.

We did a 10 week clinical test, while all of the people had positive results, many of them said they didn’t see big results. It was kind of discouraging until we looked at the evidence. The pictures taken before they started and after. We could see big improvement. Real visual improvement.

But they didn’t see it each week, and never responded that way.

So what’s the difference?

We see ourselves every day. How can we possible see an improvement, if it takes 8-10 weeks to see it? We can’t look at the original, then the end result side by side. Well how come others seem like they can? Well can they? Are they just those kind of people that are positive to the point of irritation?

It took 20 years for the wrinkles to show up, but somehow we expect we will see them go in days.

What can we do? Well, here are some things you can do.

1. Set your expectations realistically. Choosing a healthy natural improvement method means your body has to work for the improvement. That takes time. You’re not surgically cutting away skin, burning it with chemicals, or injecting stuff into the muscle. Light will kick start your body, but your body still needs time to work.

2. Don’t look at yourself with a magnifying glass every day. Most diets tell you not to weigh each day, because it’s depressing. You go up and down every day, as your body fights against what your trying to do. Most people see skin texture improvements fairly quickly, but the deeper issues are going to take time.

3. Don’t let your brain tell you this can’t work. Don’t let people, or your preconceived notions thinking this is just simple light, talk you out of your improvements. There is science and now a lot of history behind the technology. It works. Sometimes we over think things.

4. All skin types are different and skin damage is different. Yours might take different amounts of time depending on what you want fixed.

5. Be realistic in what’s possible. I’ll never look like Fabio. Not sure if I could handle all that hair. No device on the planet will fix some things with me. I must accept the things that I can change, and overlook the things I can’t.

6. Consider having someone take high quality pictures of your face, both sides and straight on. Then compare real information. Take pictures on first couple weeks on ending couple weeks just to be sure. Things like outside temperature, skin temperature, water retention, time of day, stress, fatigue, light levels, just to name a few, all play factors in skin comparisons.

Anyways, it is working. Always keep in mind, your helping your body.

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21. May 2010 by Brent.

Live or Memorex?

Are you old enough that you remember that slogan? Remember the guy singing, and his voice shattered a crystal wine glass?

Why is this on a Light therapy blog?

Well, I recently travelled around the country (evey day in a different city), interviewing DPL users. When a company does a promo piece do they use Actors or real users, can you tell? I wish our entire company staff could have talked with these people. It was one of the most uplifting, encouraging things I’ve done. We spent the money to go get real users of our system who bought it and used it. We didn’t tell these people what to say. We didn’t pay them or in fact give them anything. It was an expensive process, but an important one.

Why is it important to have real vs. scripted?

You can’t write stuff that matches real life. You hear about the Darwin awards, and the crazy stories that supposedly really happen to real people. You just can’t script that out. We just asked simple questions.

Well I could never script out what these people said (well, I might be able to, but I might be struck down for doing it). Things like “DPL therapy gives people their lifes back” from a Doctor in Nebraska, to “Thank God for the Light”, a sweet 90+ year old women told me.

I went through 5 states in one day, and it was worth all the stress and time to hear what the people said.

The reality is light therapy is helping people all over the world, yet 80% of the other people never even heard of it. All people, throughout the world, have it in common. Everyone wants to look good, and no one wants to live with pain.

So when your watching commercials, and you see people describing the product, think is it “live or memorex”? Is it actors, or real users.

Here is a link to see a couple of the people interviewed. We’ll be adding a bunch more shortly.

Testimonials

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23. April 2010 by Brent.

I’ve seen a lot of Light therapy devices, and the biggest question remains. Is the market ready for Light therapy? Not the supermarket. Don’t expect Safeway to have light therapy anytime soon.

The question isn’t, is the consumer ready for it, or is light therapy a viable product. The answer to both is a big astounding “YES”. But is the market ready for it? A reasonable definition for Market is “the group of consumers or organizations that is interested in the product”. Are they interested right now, without any more information? No. Most consumers and organizations have never heard of it. Does the general population understand Light therapy so that they are ready to buy it? They understand iPODs, cellphones, and toasters, but do they understand Light Therapy, let alone DPL® Therapy.

Recently the iPAD became available. Do the people that bought it understand what it does? They may have ideas, but do they really know what kind of tool it is even in 2 months? I heard 200 million were sold the first weekend. Most people are only guessing at how useful it will be. They mostly say, Apple made it and they make really cool things now, and I want one. The market has been built based on awareness of Apple and cool products, and their iPOD/iPHONE technologies.

Should we stop selling Light Therapy devices until the market is ready? Of course not. How will the market be ready without any of the devices for sale.

I believe there are a couple choices in creating a marketplace. First, buy lots of advertising. Make the consumer aware. That is very difficult with Light Therapy as it seems to take 15-30 minutes for someone to understand what it is enough to buy it. More if you want them to believe it’s not a scam. A billboard isn’t going to do it, nor a 2 minute commercial.

The default position that seems to have happened is to build the market using good and knowledgeable distributorship, happy customers, and a healthy dose of door to door salesmanship. That way takes a lot more time. We’ve already seen a lot of companies come and go in this industry, because they fail to build that and sometimes they only pursue advertising, which isn’t enough at this stage. Companies think it’s an easy product to manufacture, just get a bunch of LED’s at your local Radio Shack, and build a system. Then they realize the sales conversion/training that must occur, and end up falling by wasteside with many others.

It’s going to be a long road for success, and only companies with high expertise, inovative marketing techniques and a good training platform to build good knowledge base will make it.

Let me know your thoughts on the subject.

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11. March 2010 by Brent.

Doing product comparisons? I’m just amazed when I read that a device puts out 60 joules per cm/2. What does that mean? Is it possible?

Let’s break it down. Imagine a rap video with this lingo in it. Snap! I need to add a Z to the end of my name.

This gets complicated, but I’ll try to simplify. By the way, not many light therapy device companies have this discussion because the average consumer doesn’t want it. They just want to know it works.

First: 1 square centimeter (cm/2) is how light is measured. 1 cm/2 can fit multiple LED’s (up to 4x Standard 5millimeter LEDS, also called T-1 3/4).

Second: Each LED has power used, vs light output (Radiant power or radiant flux). So for example, using 190milliwatts of power might be normal for 1 LED to consume, but it’s only going to convert 40milliwatts to actual light. We all know a regular light bulb uses a lot more power than it creates light which is why they are so inefficient and everyone wants to use LEDs now to light their homes. Even so LED’s are still only ¼ amount light vs energy used and that’s just the best white ones.

Third: Only Infrared LED’s are measured in Mill watts of light output. Colored lights are measured in MCD (milli candelas) and must be converted using a chart which represents our eye’s capability of seeing light. We see different colors easier than others so like a blue lights MCD can be lower but still put out higher Mill watts of light output.

There are lots of other complicated terms such as Angle of light from LED, Measuring in steradians, the distance from the light, Milliamps driving the LED, blah blah.

I’m trying to make this easy, but I think I’ve already lost myself, let alone anyone else. Come on Brent, get this summarized quickly.

So to summarize, One really really good 5mm Infrared LED can put out 15mw of light, if you put 4 together as close as possible you could get 45-60mw (although they would heat up so much they would go bad).

The formula for a Watt is: 1 Watt = 1 Joule per Second
Or
1 Joule = 1 Watt * 1 Second

Taking our 45-60mw * 60 seconds to see how many Joules per minute = 3.6 joules cm/2 per minute at very very best. There is a whole slew of reasons why this is even impossible for a home model, as running LED’s at that high output typically means they will overheat and when an LED overheats, it’s lifespan is decreased, and it’s radiant light actually goes down. It must be cooled via liquid, or enter into the laser arena to get more power than that.

So how can you get 60 joules per cm/2? You can use this device for 20 minutes. You could also mislead the people and say because it is a 4cm x 4cm area it puts out 60 joules, but this is misleading as no one measures it this way. You could say it’s 60 joules by measuring the amount of energy it uses, not the energy it puts out (like using a 60 watt bulb), again very misleading.

There are so many ways to mislead the consumer, so buyer beware. The best way to really know is to try it for yourself.

Did you make it to the end? I feel asleep 3 times writing this.

As always if you find my formulas or discussion problematic, feel free to email me or comment.

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23. February 2010 by Brent.

I was updating our business plan, What a thrill….My least favorite thing, next to hitting my head on a doorway.

Anyways, one of the points of consideration of any business that sells a product is having it in a retail store. Why don’t you see light therapy devices at stores when you go shopping? They could put it between the “I have everything” and “Interesting things no one understands”. You might have seen the pet rock there 20 years ago.

Can a sales person explain it to you in under 5 minutes, so you would spend hundreds of dollars on it? Pretty hard sell.

There was a high tech store that had a light therapy device, I won’t mention the name but it starts with a “B” and has water and rock in the name.  Anyways, I went in, picked up the device with I think 14-16 lights that were pretty, and asked the sales person what does it do and how does it do it.  They told me it is supposed to reduce pain. I said “Really”, How? And they smiled at me and said “I don’t know” but that’s what I’ve been told. We have a return policy if you don’t like it.

Last time I went in, it’s not there anymore. Might be in some, but I haven’t seen it. Only online, or in magazines.

So, will it ever be on the shelf? Yes. There will be a point, just like GPS’s, where the knowledge of the technology is all around, and people know what it is. Then the volume of purchases will increase, and the price will go down. It’s how everything works if it’s a good product. Computers, MP3 players, etc.

How long will it be? Of course, as I do our business plan, I hope it’s soon.
Light therapy is a great thing!

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2. February 2010 by Brent.

We recently went to China to review some of our manufacturing processes. You ever sat on a plane for 12 hours? I’m 7’ tall. This is the first memory of the trip. Airplanes just aren’t designed for people.I imagined that there would be beautiful ornate buildings, and a lot of culture. Well, to my surprise, the area we were in (Shenzhen) which is primarily a manufacturing mecca, was just a lot of concrete.

Have you ever seen how LED’s are made? Little keebler elves?

They start with small chips of material (usually from Japan) on a little plastic sheet. The chips are cut from a wafer, and one 2”      diameter wafer cans thousands of these chips. And they look through a microscope and scrape this chip into the tip of the LED element on a row of 20 at a time. This chip decides what type of light output, quality, and angle the LED will have. They do this manually for thousands of LED’s. Rooms full of people. The can do automated, but the machinery only makes sense for LED’s in the Tens of Millions. Makes my eyes hurt to watch, but then again I’m old.

Next, they put the stamped, 20 LEDs with the chips, into this machine which adds a little gold filament to bridge between the two elements. 

Are you asleep yet?

Epoxy is then poured into moulds, and the 20 LEDs are put into the mould. They use a manual version of it (but there are automated machines).

Lastly the LED’s are run through a sorter that analyzes every LED for various parameters, such as current, forward voltage, Candela output (brightness), etc.

Then it’s shipped to us, and we build light therapy products, or whatever.

A lot goes into the quality and performance of the LED’s as not all LED’s are created equal. They are all different since and quality wafers, epoxies, gold, etc. We tested hundreds of different manufactures and products, to come to the one that hit the output we needed.

There are a lot of lower output Light therapy systems on the market today, that don’t do much but blink pretty colors. I’m sure I’ll catch flack from that, but….

China’s a nice place to visit with some great food, but there’s no place like home. That’s it. No political or astounding cultural statements. Just LED’s.

By the way, why on earth do we use LED’s for light therapy? Maybe a next topic.

Brent

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19. January 2010 by Brent.

Does blinking lights make light therapy work better? Hmm…. Does a strobe light make you dance better because they can’t see 3 quarters of your fancy dancing moves?

I kind of get a kick out of this question.

Whenever a light is blinking, that means it’s off for some amount of time.
That means you’re not getting light therapy for the time it’s off. They usually blink on and off evenly. You’re only getting half the light energy. Kind of like filling your coffee mug with dripping water rather than pouring. Which would you rather do?

I haven’t seen any studies indicating blinking is better than non-blinking.
Only three reasons I can see to blink:

1. Looks pretty and makes you think it really is doing something special.
Put on your leisure suit, get out the old Bee Gee album, and hit your Light therapy blink button. yowza yowza yowza

2. Blinking or pulsing may cause cells to be more stimulated. Like getting slapped. That’ll wake you up. Again, you would have to say that the blinking is more beneficial than twice as much energy, because to reiterate, “THE BLINK MEANS THE LIGHT IS OFF”. No Light = No Light Therapy. Just simulate the blinking by putting your light in behind a fan and save yourself the extra blinking money.

3. Most logical and real reason: LED’s get hot. Heat reduces their lifespan, and reduces the amount of light you actually get. Most electrical engineers make the light blink to cool them. In fact most LED’s are actually blinking, but it’s so fast you can’t see it. If you have a video camera with a variable shutter speed, you can speed the shutter speed up and can usually detect the blinking.

Anyways, I don’t know why but all this talk about blinking is making my eyes tired. Stare deep into the blinking lights. Your getting
sleepy…..sleepy…zzzz

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15. January 2010 by Brent.

I did a blog check for light therapy, and didn’t find much. I found lots of marketing blogs, most on SAD lights, but not a lot of good independent (if there is such a thing) info. So either blogs are out, or light therapy is ripe for a good blog. So we’ll give it a go. It really surprises me since we are seeing light therapy products everywhere now that no one has either jumped on it, or continued it long enough to be “THE” one.

Maybe because I know what Light Therapy is, it jumps out at me, but 6 years ago, I had never heard of it. I remember when I first heard about twitter. Then 2 days later I had heard the word 20 times. Isn’t that how things work. It takes 3 key times to see or hear something before our brains even know that we were introduced. For me it’s like a slap in the face usually saying “your old Brent, catch up with the times. I’m the last to know.

 Everyone of course remembers where they were when they first heard Kennedy was assassinated, or where they were when 911 occurred. No one knows what they were doing when they heard about light therapy. Something I bet everyone remembers is their first botox injection, ouch. I haven’t had one, but probably need one. Doesn’t everyone secretly imagine getting plastic surgery or botox? I might admit something like that if this wasn’t for public consumption.

So back to the point. Hopefully we can start some useful information exchange regarding all things about light therapy. To me it’s not about a product, it’s about people getting the concept. Light what? Light therapy. Oh is that the sun tan booth? Is that something to make me lighter? Is it fact, fiction, or fad?

Well that’s enough blathering for the first one. I’ll post another soon, to really start getting things going. Feel free to tell me to go away. I get that daily. Although I have bad hearing, or listening maybe. Suggestions welcome.

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13. January 2010 by Brent.

Welcome to the new blog of LED Technologies, LLC!  We’re excited to be able to bring you information about our technology and our DPL System.  If you would like to order a system please go to www.ledtechnologies.com.  For questions or comments this is the place.  Thanks for reading!

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