Elgato Key Light Air
ARE YOU A STREAMER? Perhaps you are, perhaps you’re not, but you need a new lamp, and want to convince your house guests that you’re the kind of person who knows what “Twitch partnership” means. If that sounds like you, beware: Elgato is coming for your wallet.
Before we dive into the nitty-gritty of the Elgato Key Light Air, a little background for those unfamiliar with the filming process. LED ring lights for webcams and conventional softbox lighting are both used by online video performers, but they have drawbacks. For streamers and YouTubers, buying a setup of two or three standing softbox lights isn’t necessarily expensive, but they guzzle electricity, take up a lot of space, and cause noticeable temperature build-up, particularly if you’re committing to extended livestreams lasting hours.
Modern LED lighting can be effective, without the heat issue, but doesn’t throw out as much light due to affordable design leading to fewer or cheaper individual LEDs. Looking toward the higher-quality, professional LED products sees a seriously sharp hike in price. The original Key Light cost close to $200, prohibitively expensive for many streamers getting their channels off the ground. Elgato has clearly heard the cries of Twitch’s proletariat, as the new Key Light Air is far cheaper, but still firmly places itself in the “professional” arena.
At $130, the Air is slightly smaller than its predecessor, with a flat, square head that connects to a telescopic pole mount and weighted base. Unboxing and assembling the product took less than five minutes, no tools required, and setup using the Android app was equally swift. The Key Light Air comes with wireless tech that lets it hook into your home Wi-Fi network, so you can control it using either the app or the free desktop software. It’s also compatible with Elgato’s own Stream Deck control peripherals.
The control suite on offer is fairly bare-bones, enabling you to tweak the brightness up to an impressive 1,400 lumens, and also adjust the warmness of the light itself, from a soothing orange tone through to a stronger bluewhite. It wasn’t hard to find a configuration that illuminated our room well while also remaining gentle on the eyes. The app and desktop tool can also be used to turn the lights on and off remotely, and multiple Key Lights can be hooked into the same network for simultaneous control.
Anyone producing video content at home or in a small studio is likely to appreciate the simple, compact design. The footprint of the Key Light Air is just eight inches by eight inches, with a softedged quadrilateral plane of white plastic and concealed mesh that is lit via a ring of powerful LEDs around its edges. In this sense, it acts similarly to a softbox, ensuring that you aren’t exposed to harsh direct light when you’re trying to clean up grunts in
Halo:Reach live on stream. This setup means that the Air doesn’t get anywhere close to as hot as most softbox lights. What might once have been the choking, sweltering atmosphere of a home studio can be replaced by a cool but warmly-lit space for recording; we left the Key Light Air at maximum brightness for hours, and while the rear of the unit itself did get quite warm, it certainly wasn’t radiating heat to the rest of the room.
Ideally, if you want to get the best out the Key Light Air, you’ll want two of them for a more even light distribution. That still adds up to $260, although we’re confident in saying that it’s better value than buying even one regular Key Light. For beginners, a single Key Light Air should do the trick. Bask in the glorious diffused light of your LEDs, while the softbox peasants sweat behind their keyboards.
$130, http://elgato.com