Opple Light Master 4 discussion thread (new 2023 model)

I’m sure that most people here greatly appreciate your efforts. Thank you, sir!

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I have LM3, but read and enjoyed your posts about LM4.

Thank you for your participation and best of luck in your future endeavors.

You sir are awesome! Thank you!!!

I know you have restrictions on what you can share. If you ever have an opportunity to wrap things up into a package we could make our own windows and android packages from we would love it. I know that is a jig ask, and not asking for confidential work, just something we could use.

Thank you Steve.

Thank you Steve for your hard work, it is appreciated.

Use the windows app from Steve. That one works well, hugely more reliable than the phone apps.

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We may not be happy with the way opple handled the LM4, but I’m very grateful to you for your work and effort. I enjoy my LM4 now, it works well. It would have been nice if Opple added your changes to the Android/iOS app, but thanks to you it became a useful tool already.

Good luck in your future endeavors. Can you tell us which company you will work at from now on? Is it something lighting related again?

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Thank you for all of your efforts, Steve. Good luck on your future endeavors. Hopefully, at some point in the future, you’ll have more time to invest on the Windows Opple 4 program and continue to improve it

Hi Steve, you were kind, and brave :slightly_smiling_face: :+1: to work with customers on a public forum even after a product failure. Best of luck in future endeavors.

Does the above mean there is absolutely no way that Opple will release another Light Master? If so I think I might just buy another LM4 lol. A half-working product is still better than nothing, especially at such a low price.

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We are on the same exact page my friend.

219b 4500k reads about -0.0100 with my LM3, and about -0.0050 with LM4
519a 4500k reads about 0.0000 with LM3, and about 0.0045 with LM4

Your LM4 numbers are obtained using the latest software, and Windows? Mines are from the latest Android app.

I personally think LM is dumped forever. because the overall economy is sluggish and LM never brought much profit for opple. it previously belonged to Research department and Research department was slashed about 2 years ago(nearly 40 people left opple at that time), I intended to stayed at that time, so I was transferred to Development department and so I inherited LM project, LM3 was developed by a team, and since I came to Development department I started to develop LM4, it’s almost done by a single person, that is me(covering ML/spectra related thing/desktop software and firmware), obviously the motherboard is not designed by me, I am just talking about software/algorithm aspect thing. However nobody (here I mean my superior & management) ever cared about this project, I think the original sin is that LM is not profitable at all or only brings slight profit. I valued LM very much mainly from a technical perspective, it’s outstanding in terms of technology sophistication. even though I was sidelined by my colleagues, I still persisted because looking across whole China I think there is no counterpart/peer project, the sensor is not designed for a professional spectrometer at all. I think it’s intended for Lux/CCT/white balance calculation purpose for gadgets like smartphone Etc. I know this sensor is embedded in some of Huawei smartphones, mainly for sensing the environmental lighting conditions and use AI to beautify the photos taken by users.

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My LM4 readings are from the reverse-engineered app v3.3.1. I tested a few measurements with the Windows app, and the DUV numbers are similar to my previous results. I have not noticed much difference in DUV measurements across different versions.

For my purposes, the 3.3.1 app works better than the desktop version because it seems to better capture my perception of red light in the spectrum. (See here for how I perceive red light in lights). To be specific, R9 measurements tends to be over estimated in the desktop version for the lights I have.

Here are my R9 measurements from LM4 for desktop and android 3.3.1
TS10 6000K, [Windows] 82.1, [v.3.3.1] 58.9
LH351D 5000K, [Windows] 60.5, [v.3.3.1] 30.0
519A 5000K, [Windows] 86.6 , [v.3.3.1] 91.3
E21A 5000K, [Windows] 82.5, [v.3.3.1] 93.0

For me TS10 5000K has far less pronounced red spectrum than either E21A or 519A, but the R9 numbers are about the same in the Windows app, while there are significant gaps seen in the v.3.3.1.

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I have alternative algorithm for CCT/Duv, in the future I’d replace the algorithm employed in current Windows version.

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Wow Steve, what an interesting post, thank you. I understand the situation better now, and admire your effort. You were literally a team of one without any support, and no one seemed to care about the product you were assigned to develop.

Not that it would change anything, but I am just curious about the sensor change: Was LM4’s sensor chosen because it is an improvement over LM3’s sensor? Was it a decision by the team of 40 people who left, and then you were assigned to do the development job of 40 people? Would LM4 be successful if the whole research department didn’t get dissolved? I am not technical by any means, just curious. Thank you for spending time to explain.

Fun discussion. I am actually surprised by the ability of LM4 to read R9. I haven’t had time to check pro reviewers’ numbers, but LM4 SEEMS to follow my expectation and visual observation of each LED, and some R9 numbers that I got from Simon.

My LM4 software version is 3.10.1. Finally got it to work with iPhone 15 Pro, in addition to my old Android phone.

  1. Highest : Nichia 219b 4500k (R9=92), Nichia E21a 4500k (92), Nichia B35AM 4500k (93)
  2. Next highest: Nichia 519a 4500k (84), GT-FC40 4500k (86)
  3. Lowish: Nichia 219c 5000k (65), GT-FC40 5500k (65)

ams Osram stopped making the sensor used in the LM3 so they had to find a suitable replacement for the LM4.

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The plot thickens! :slightly_smiling_face: I had always thought it was because the LM4 sensor’s was “better.” For example, allowing reading of R9. Thanks Tim.

like what? the source code?
I am still at opple, perhaps still for a while.
It is a pity that LM is to be terminated, I wanted to make it great actually. hopefully I wrote the windows software, even after I leave opple, I can still hone it, but by then I’d have no access to the resources that opple can bring about, like the Leds, integrating sphere Etc, this is a pity.

No, nothing like source code.

Frankly, i dont know the exact structure that would be best. Something like a dll, or an encryped docker container, either way something we could pass values or raw data, and it outputs the values.

Not a program, or an app, or a UI. Just the smallest package that can be used on a variety of platforms (android, ios, linux, etc) that takes an input and spits out the correct and calibrated output.

After that the fine folks here could work on an app, making UIs, etc.

actually long ago I uploaded a dll for windows in Google Drive and shared it, you can check it out. later I’d put it on github. LM is an awesome project, let’s continue to keep it alive, you proposal is a good advice. for Android/iOS platforms, they can run JavaScript code, but my code is C/C++, so there is a troublesome conversion process which I can’t handle right now.

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