TESTED &
GEEK
APPROVED
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.
Befor e we di ve into the nit t y - gr it t y 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 thebrightness 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 blue-
white. 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 soft-
edged 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. –CG
$130, http://elgato.comElgato Key Light Air
©^
FO
LD
ING
@H
OM
E.O
RG
FOLDING@HOME
A while back, before I left Maximum PC,
I spoke about depression and anxiety.
When I was growing up, I suffered from
hypochondria, a fear of disease, among
other things, and it effectively made me
a shut-in for a year when I was 17 years
old. In fact, it’s been so prominent in my
life that I can trace back panic attacks
stemming from it to when I was six—
perhaps ironically, the first was while I
watched a documentary on the Spanish
flu. Yet the older I’ve got, the more
I’ve begun to realize that this wasn’t
actually a fear for my own wellbeing,
but rather a fear of losing the people I
love in my life.
Last summer, two of my
grandparents, one from each side
of my family, were diagnosed with
cancer within a week of each other.
My grandmother on my father’s side
was given 18 months to live, because
she has late-stage leukemia. She
has chemo to keep it under control,
but it cripples her immune system in
the process, making her high-risk to
COVID-19. Because of that she’s been
advised to self-isolate for up to four
months, potentially longer, with no
contact from my family.
For me, finding a vaccine is more
important than anything right now,
because it means I might actually be
able to see her again. Folding@home is
a disease research project that’s been
set up by Stanford University. It takes
spare computing power to simulate
the process of protein folding and
misfolding. This helps us understand
disease biology, and gives us a better
chance of identifying vaccines and
antiviral medication quicker than
traditional methods. I can tell you now,
every machine I have is working flat out
supporting this effort.
Free, https://foldingathome.orgEDITOR’S
PICK
Zak Storey,
Editormaximumpc.com MAY 2020 MAXIMUMPC 81