Webcams have become one of the most important tech accessories of the 2020s because of the widespread prevalence of remote work, but when you're joining a team call, it's easy to overlook the impact good lighting can have on your video quality. We've spent the past few weeks testing the Lume Cube Edge LED Desk Light, and noticed an immediate improvement in how we looked on screen.
The difference in video quality was similar to our experience upgrading from a webcam built into our laptop to a dedicated camera. Video conferencing from a dimly lit room will cause your webcam to activate its digital auto-brightness setting to compensate, which can introduce fuzziness to your picture, or make you look washed out. Lume Cube's desk light solves this problem.
The circular lamp is attached to a long, articulating arm that terminates in a clamp you can securely attach to a table. In our tests, the Lume Cube Edge's clamp held firm, and the arm never wobbled significantly while we raised and lowered it behind our display. We were equally impressed by the Lume Cube Edge's lamp, which offered a wide range of tilting options. Based on our experience, you shouldn't run into any problems using the Lume Cube Edge Desk Light in a cramped space or attached to a standing desk. This level of mobility can also come in handy if you regularly adjust the height of your monitor.
If you're curious about just how much of a difference lighting can make, check out our side-by-side comparison below.
As you can see, the light thrown by the Lume Cube Edge improved the image quality substantially. The difference you see at home will depend on the lighting conditions in your room and the webcam you use, but everyone should see some level of improvement. In fact, we recommend getting the Lume Cube desk light before upgrading your webcam because you may not see a huge bump in video quality if you're broadcasting from a dark room.
We were able to get the perfect lighting conditions for our room by tweaking the lamp's brightness and color temperature settings, which can be controlled by pushing buttons on the Lume Cube Edge's arm. You can adjust the lamp's brightness between 10 and 100 percent, and its color temperature between 2300K (Kelvin) and 5600K. This level of granularity should keep you from looking too bright or underexposed. We generally preferred lower Kelvin settings because it made the Lume Cube's light easier on our eyes. Keep in mind that very low color temperatures create an amber hue, which may create a yellowish tint that your participants can see.
Some of the home office lighting solutions we've tested have been fussy to set up or manage, but that hasn't been the case with the Lume Cube Edge. We clamped it onto our desk, plugged into an outlet, and placed in the perfect position within 10 minutes. The most time-consuming part of the setup process was deciding the right place to clamp the arm, although its flexibility makes it less of an issue than we originally thought.
Most of us aren't fortunate enough to work from a room with natural light, and we may need to take video calls once the sun goes down. The Lume Cube Edge LED Desk Light can help you look your best, and it should be considered essential for any home office setup.
To make additional improvements to your home office, consider the best standing desks.
This post was created by a non-news editorial team at Recurrent Media, Futurism’s owner. Futurism may receive a portion of sales on products linked within this post.
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