#6 The Truth about Joovv Red Light Therapy.

Let's run the numbers...

We wrote a Twitter thread going over some of the numbers on our devices as well as Joovv’s which is representative of all the panels since they’re practically all the same other than price and branding. While of course we expected to find not so great results for Joovv, we were caught off-guard mid-thread by our own numbers not being quite what we would have liked. There’s a lesson in there. Physics bends for no one.

First, Some Updates:

As you’ve probably noticed, we haven’t sent out a new issue of this newsletter for a while. This one is only a sort of intermission newsletter. It does not have the depth of content I’d like and it’s missing the anchor content of research summaries (probably have ~2,000 studies in my inbox piling up).

Also, if you don’t follow our Facebook or Instagram, you might not know we started selling the near-infrared IronForge and Nightshade glasses a few weeks ago.

Both of those have small batches that are nearly finishing production, though the IronForges still need to have the cover-plate re-designed before final assembly. Those in particular are limited in number so order sooner if you want to ensure you aren’t waiting another 2 months or more. I’m probably going to be waiting on my Black Series given popularity :/

I’ve recently started working on a new aerospace/advanced-materials/manufacturing startup, and last week launched CopperCoater, a copper-loaded spray paint to help combat COVID19 (copper kills coronaviruses and almost every other pathogen upon contact).

This limits the time I can spend on Chroma so if you’re interested in working with us, please respond to this newsletter or email me at michael@getchroma.co (might not have something immediately available, but have some projects under development that may allow us to hire suddenly).

Finally, when I started this newsletter, I mentioned I would include essays that are a bit more abstract to explain the meta-context behind the failures in health institutions. Their failure to achieve health in society is now more obvious than ever. That sort of content will be written in my other newsletter instead: http://astigmatic.substack.com/

Chroma 🔥 @getchroma

1/ Ok, let's run the numbers on the IronForge, but first, going to do a quick reference on Joovv for context. Joovv Solo is a fake 300 watts, which results in a real 140 watts at the wall (confirmed via DM from them and just basic math).

getchroma.coIRONFORGEHigh power density, pure near infrared machines.

Chroma 🔥 @getchroma

2/ Joovv solo is 36"x8.75" = 315 in^2 = 2032 cm^2. From the 140 watts, we lose 10% to the power supply so now we're down to 126 watts = 126,000 milliwatts. Put those numbers together and you're at 62 mW/cm^2 -- except, that's just the power going IN to the LEDs.

Chroma 🔥 @getchroma

3/ LEDs aren't 100% efficient. The radiant efficiency is about 50%, which means the irradiance is 31 mW/cm^2 if you're right up against the surface. That gives us a fraud-ratio of >3x given that Joovv lies and claims >100 mW/cm^2.

Chroma 🔥 @getchroma

4/ Sidenote: did you get tricked by Joovv and buy from them? -- try a credit card chargeback, but then keep the panel from Joovv as unordered merchandise, which the FTC legally allows you to do ;)

Chroma 🔥 @getchroma

5/ But what if you want the deeper tissue effects of near-infrared more than just red? Well the 300-->140 is mostly due to near-IR LED errors in power ratings, which makes a good estimate of near-IR a third of the total. i.e. out of our 31 mW/cm^2, only 10 are near-infrared.

Chroma 🔥 @getchroma

6/ Let's say you stand back from the panel. Now with light going off to the side you are at 1-3 mW/cm^2. Problem: sunlight is 1000 watts/m^2 = 100mW/cm^2 Looking at the solar spectrum, 800 to 850 nm looks to be about 5% --> 5mW/cm^2 i.e. more than you get from Joovv.

Chroma 🔥 @getchroma

7/ So what does the sun get you anyway? That's a good reference to think about rather than just studies. First, note that you can probably add in 850 to 900 nm too, and no reason to discount the rest of the light. Let's say 15% "red light therapy" equivalent light.

Chroma 🔥 @getchroma

8/ If you're walking around, you aren't in direct light, so let's cut down our 4x value of 20% --> 20 mW/cm^2 to 7.5 mW/cm^2 and assume you get that for 6 hours (sometimes your solar intensity exceeds 1000 W/m^2 so this is reasonably accurate)

Chroma 🔥 @getchroma

9/ So 7.5 mW/cm^2 * 6*60*60 seconds * 1 Joule/1000mJ = 162 J/cm^2 Now for anyone how reads papers on this stuff, you'll notice this is on the higher side, but this is closer to the sort of thing I want for myself. I want at least parity with the sun.

Chroma 🔥 @getchroma

10/ The IronForge is the successor to what I built for myself over a year ago well before I considered selling these just because I ran the numbers and realized panels were not a good solution, especially since I want a targetted response to help heal a pulley in my finger.

Chroma 🔥 @getchroma

11/ I'm going to run the number for the Black series and then you can multiply the amount of time by 2 for white series and by 4 for green series to get energy equivalent numbers. I think we say 100x power density for black series, which is talking just about the near IR.

Chroma 🔥 @getchroma

12/ Including the built in cover panel to allow some beam spread, the emitting surface area is about 100 cm^2. Given we calculated the Joovv to be only 10 mW/cm^2 of near-IR, that would indicate 1W/cm^2 -- oops, I underestimated the multiple. Should be 200x power density...

Chroma 🔥 @getchroma

13/ Since total irradiance is close to 200 W (final numbers might vary slightly). So 2 W/cm^2, that'll heat things up really fast, which is why I move this thing around like a toothbrush for my whole body. This can cause serious thermal damage if left in on spot.

Chroma 🔥 @getchroma

14/ Unlike panels that have heat sinks in them, this thing is basically built out of a solid block of a heat sink 😂 Anyway, human surface area is around 17,000 cm^2. It's actually not all that feasible to match sunlight even with the black series.

Chroma 🔥 @getchroma

15/ With 170 spots on the human body 2 W/cm^2 means you'd need to use this thing for 42.5 minutes just to get 30 J/cm^2, which is what is sometimes considered the optimal spot for the response curve, though I prefer higher based on sunlight.

Chroma 🔥 @getchroma

16/ Didn't realize this was where we'd end up when I started this thread, but the numbers are what they are. You'll be able to use ~4 black series together at some point and we'll build some fixture to make this convenient.

Chroma 🔥 @getchroma

17/ In fact, we might build something that plugs into 2 outlets running off two breakers and then we can get a solid 8 of these. Now the numbers seem a little better. Since we decided to slash prices in perpetuity, that'll get you more power than a $120-140k Novothor

Chroma 🔥 @getchroma

18/ It also costs about a tenth of a Novothor because we actually believe in near-IR light -- only an entity that doesn't believe how well it works would overprice to such extremes, assuming they won't get very far. Getting off-topic...

Chroma 🔥 @getchroma

19/ The nice thing about the Black Series Iron Forge though is that if there is a particular spot where you want to get a heavy dose e.g. 100 J/cm^2, that only takes 50 seconds. So it can do that better than any other device.

Chroma 🔥 @getchroma

20/ Or if you are targetting hypertrophy or endurance, you can focus on the specific muscles you will train that day. Or you can point at your head and the power trounces that of the Vielight -- haven't even bothered checking how many hundreds of times less powerful that is.

Chroma 🔥 @getchroma

21/ Idea that you can target near-IR precisely as they suggest is complete BS. What I want is near-IR flooding every part of my brain, and if you read my newsletter you know that's the approach I take.

chroma.substack.comAletheia 3: Revealing Our Technology and Product Roadmapfrom the Fountain Portal

Chroma 🔥 @getchroma

22/ Btw, to avoid wonky feelings in my head, I usually turn down the power on the halo/cerebro device to around one third max irradiance, which is about a tenth of what the black series IronForge delivers.

Chroma 🔥 @getchroma

23/ P.S. if you're wondering why other near-IR lights have inconvenient form factors, fake numbers, and high prices, look no further than what a greenhouse LED panel looks like. Nearly every near-IR brand just repurposed these panels rather than starting from customer needs. 🤦‍♂️C

If you want to buy a pair of Nightshades and improve your sleeping patterns, or an IronForge for everything near-infrared can do, go check out our website: