LED lights have revolutionized lighting. Astera has revolutionized LED lighting. Their lights check all the boxes: RGBW light, lighting effects, battery powered, and the biggie; wireless CRMX control with an app.
They are so useful on set, I can't imagine not having them.
Most people in the business know Astera for their tubes; AX1, Helios, Titans, and Hyperions. I'm surprised by how many people are unaware of Astera's par lights; AX3, AX5, AX7, and AX10. The pars are great lights to have on set, too. I use them all the time. Brilliantly, the pars and the tubes can be controlled by the app and same Astera box (transmitter).
Here are a few best practices when using Astera lights:- Keep them charged. Astera recommends charging them after use. I charge them overnight everytime they are used.
- Reset the lights before each job. Astera recommends doing this. Lights that have not been reset will sometimes become glitchy. I'm guessing it has something to do with the light's memory. If you have a light that is not functioning properly, often a reset will "fix" the problem. Note whenever you reset a light, the existing targets become invalid.
The reset button
- Remove old targets from the app before the next job. Leave universal targets like "all lights" and specific models. These targets always work.
- When using the app, set the lights input selection to "app." Don't leave the lights set to the default automatic input selection. Occasionally, I'll have an unresponsive light set to "auto" input. Changing it to "app" input will correct the problem. It has always been AX1s having this issue for me. I have not noticed it with other Astera lights.
- Set all the lights to the same run-time so they will all be at the same brightness. It is a good starting point. Of course, I often adjust run-times on set, usually to get more brightness out of a particular light.
- Keep automatic updates "Off". Check and perform updates before the job. (Years ago I learned this lesson the hard way when tubes on-set started an update and not working properly!)
- Have fun lighting!
Some tips:
When adjusting settings of lights, it is often convenient to use the "magic wand" to adjust the settings of a group. The feature is somewhat hidden in the app. The manual I had years ago mentioned nothing about the feature.
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| Grouping lights for adjusting settings |
In the app, go to the light page. Touch the icon of the light on the left for each light you wish to adjust. It will turn blue. A "magic wand" icon will appear on the top. Tap this icon and it will take you to a group page for adjustments. It is a cool feature but not easy to figure out.
Remember when setting up Astera lights using the app, first pair your app with the Astera box transmitter. Then pair lights with the app. If I'm bringing my own lights, I'll do this ahead of time.
If there are any special effects I plan on doing, for example moving bands of light, or say police lights, I'll program these the day before and save it to the app.
PS: I love Astera, but they made confusing names for their pars. The AX3 has 1 par element. The AX5 has not 5 but 3 elements. And so on.
PPS: I refer to Astera lights as RGBW lights but they are not truly RGBW lights. They actually have a variety of different colored emitters; red, green, blue, mint, & amber with a sophisticated "light engine" calculating the mix of colors required to achieve the best color. To keep things simple, I'll refer to LED lights that can do white light and colored light as RGB or RGBW lights like everyone else.