Not sure if this is the right place to ask since I’ve only seen one other thread 3 years ago.
I always thought red light therapy was total BS, but after seeing some modern research I’m convinced it could be helpful. However, a lot of the panels out there are really expensive and seem unnecessarily so.
There are companies like MitoRed, Hooga, etc charging $200-$3000 for panels. Generally newer/better ones try to cover a few different frequencies.
Has anyone researched this thoroughly? Found good cheap aliexpress options? I’ve found some cheaper tabletop panels on sale with black friday for $200ish, but to get the multi-frequencies you need to spend a lore more like this panel:
the difference is 850 is invisible and penetrates deeper
660 is visible,
all the wavelengths have benefits, but imo even 660nm by itself has value.
my experience is only w 660nm single LED lights. I use this inexpensive WK03 modded to 660nm on the 100 lumen setting, to soothe sore muscles, moving it over my skin, in direct contact. 660nm is at the top end of the visible range.
There is no sensation of heat from this frequency and intensity, which reassures me that it is thermally safe in direct contact with my body.
I have not researched panels… I imagine they are also effective. I have not leared how to measure red light power levels, and how that guides choosing effective panel distances.
Also have not learned whether some panels are also serving as an IR Heat source.
All your need is red light, so I don’t think the panel form factor actually matters, and a simple flashlight would do. For wider coverage, just slap a piece of paper to diffuse. Panels, on the other hand, don’t have the option of achieving the level of intensity that a flashlight can.
Convoy has plenty of options using the SST20-DR, which is a 660nm emitter. They also sell IR emitters and lights with them. To get a mix of frequencies, it is probable that simply getting 2-3 lights and taping them together makes a cheaper and more powerful option than getting one of those dedicated panels. Certainly way under $100.
While there does exist plenty of evidence for red light therapy, I doubt that this specific distribution has any statistically or practically significant advantage over just, say, 660nm, 850nm, and 630nm, all readily available. I bet simply changing the intensity or duration of exposure makes a bigger difference.
Also, the material/design cost of those panels is way, way less than hundreds of dollars, by 1 or 2 orders of magnitude. The emitters are cheaply available, and so are their drivers, batteries, and optical elements. So I would be suspicious of sellers with such jacked-up prices. In the flashlight world, price-to-value ratio tends to correlate inversely with quality, and more generally, marketers feel no hesitation turning legitimate science into crankery.
