LumaDent’s Neutral vs. SurgiTel’s True Color Neutral

ErgoPractice News – April 2020

SurgiTel Answers Clinicians’ Questions

LumaDent’s Claims about Their LED Headlights

LumaDent recently began advertising their neutral LED headlights as eye-safe LED headlights. Some of our clinicians have asked us about these lights. They ask: Is LumaDent’s neutral LED headlights safe to eyes like SurgiTel’s true color-neutral LED headlights?

To answer this question, we compared LumaDent’s neutral LED headlights with SurgiTel’s true color-neutral LED headlights which offer the best color accuracy and the safest to eyes according to CR Foundation’s investigations (See: Reference Check Sidebar).

Reviewing LumaDent’s website, I found several claims about their lights:

1. “LumaDent™ does not skimp on quality – we won the 2018 DentalTown Townie Choice Award for Best LED Headlight.”

Comment: It is true that LumaDent got the 2018 DentalTown Townie Choice Award, but DentalTown did not evaluate the quality or safety of the products. DentalTown Choice Awards are based on the number of users who indicated LumaDent as the manufacturer of their LED headlights. The DentalTown Choice Award does not guarantee the quality or safety of the LumaDent LED headlight.

2. “We are proud to say that our award-winning HL360™ LED Headlight has tested as high as 90 CRI. This is notably higher than your average LED lights and ensures accurate colors across the entire spectrum of visible light.”

Comment: LumaDent did not disclose how they tested their HL360 headlights or what they used as a reference for their CRI rating. Our comparison shows that the CRI of HL360 LED headlights is significantly below the CRI claimed. I can easily say that this claim is purposefully misleading. You can make your own judgment by examining comparison photos shown in Figure 1.

This is similar to Orascoptic LEDs which made similar claims and used similarly misrepresentative claims in their marketing. See Figure 2.

3. “LumaDent™ LED headlights are 100% blue light safe.”

Comment: Since the LumaDent’s beam-forming optics technology does not use a true color achromatic beam technology, the CCT (correlated color temperature) of LumaDent LED headlights is not the same as the CCT of the LED chips used. The CCT of beams of LumaDent LED headlights may be estimated to be higher than 8,000K based on the color of beams shown in Figure 1. The blue light hazard with LumaDent LED headlights can be at least 125% more than the blue light hazard with the SurgiTel neutral LED headlights (4,000K) (See: Reference Check Sidebar). The LumaDent LED headlight may damage your eyes if used for an extended period.

Comparing beam patterns of LumaDent’s LED headlights with beam patterns of the SurgiTel’s true color-neutral LED headlight you can easily see claims made by LumaDent cannot be true.

Using the LumaDent’s LED headlights may be compared to watching a curing light. It is your choice to continue to use strong blue-tinted LED headlights, but you should consider taking steps to prevent potential AMD (age-related macular degeneration) which is the main cause of vision loss among over 10 million old people in US. Blue light is believed to be the main cause of AMD.

If you or a colleague would like a free evaluation of the safety of your LED light, you may contact your local SurgiTel sales reps or you may contact me directly at jchang@surgitel.com.

Summary:

We compared LumaDent’s Neutral LED headlight with SurgiTel’s neutral LED headlight to answer questions raised by some of the clinicians and found:

The beam of LumaDent’s neutral LED headlights has a strong blue spectral component.
The beam patterns of LumaDent’s neutral (5,500K LED chips) are similar to beam patterns of Orascoptic’s TruColor (5,700K LED chips used).
The blue light content of LumaDent’s neutral LED headlights is estimated to be at least 125% more than with the SurgiTel’s true color-neutral LED headlights.