With the increasing use of Zoom and other teleconferencing apps for work, more and more people have been investing in better webcams for their PCs. If you’re going to shell out for a better camera, though, might as well go in to ensure you have good lighting, so you can look your best during remote meetings. That’s what the Fuse Amp Light vows to bring to your work from home setup.
Designed specifically for use as a webcam light, the device vows to deliver lighting that’s easy on the eyes, without the blinding hot spots and harsh shadows found in many lighting solutions. Whether you’re doing a video meeting in your makeshift office at home, at a socially-distanced coffee shop down the street, or right in your cubicle at the newly-reopened downtown office, this thing should bring impressive, professional lighting to your webcam footage, so you won’t look like you’re working out of a 10-year old setup.
The Fuse Amp Light is a light bar that measures 7.5 x 2.5 inches (width x height), making it an ideal size for mounting on individual workspaces, as you should be able to easily find room for it somewhere on your desk. Instead of using a backlit form factor like most studio lighting, it uses an edge-lit design that, the outfit claims, creates a single, indirect light source that’s softer than what you will normally find in the market, making it ideal for illuminating those close-up webcam shots with just your big face in the frame.
It has physical buttons for adjusting the color temperature and brightness, so you can tailor the light exactly to your preferences. For temperature, it can go anywhere from 2700K to 6500K, allowing you to go from the sepia-toned illumination of a tungsten bulb to the bright white light of overcast sunlight and everything in between. For brightness, it can be set to one of 10 different levels, including a maximum of 900 lumens, which you can adjust in 10 percent increments.
The Fuse Amp Light has a magnetic ball mount in the back that allows you to easily attach it to the included neck bar, where you can rotate it a full 360 degrees and even tilt it across a 70-degree angle. That neck, by the way, can be secured to either the monitor mount or desk stand, both of which are included with the light. The monitor mount has an adhesive backing that can attach to any part of the monitor’s back, while the stand has a flat and stable base that allows you to just set it down anywhere on your desk.
They also offer an optional threaded mount with a cold shoe adapter that lets you put it on tripods and regular cameras, making it ideal for folks who are using their mirrorless camera or DSLR as a webcam, which has been a popular solution for work-from-home users. Other features include three diffusion layers, 14 hours of battery life, and built-in cable management in the mount for tidying up the USB-C charging cable.
A Kickstarter campaign is currently running for the Fuse Amp Light. You can reserve a unit for pledges starting at $99.