TheLume Cube Edge Light 2.0is a highly flexible desk lamp which can additionally function as a key light for creators and video callers. With a compact design, flexible utility, and a simple user experience, it may be the perfect light for your desk.
Lume Cube Edge Light 2.0
Stuck in the Middle but Happy to Be There
The Lume Cube Edge Light 2.0 is a bright, compact, simple, and flexible desk lamp and key light hybrid. It offers thoughtful design choices, such as easy setup, numerous articulation points on its mount, and a bright and soft yet small light. For more casual content creators and hybrid workers, it may be perfect, but for more serious studios, it is restricted by its lack of precision controls and small light panel.
The Lume Cube Edge Light 2.0 Is Compact and Bright
Many content creators don’t have the space to build out a complex studio setup with large soft light boxes and other space-taking hardware. The Lume Cube Edge Light 2.0 addresses this exact need incredibly well with its compact, thoughtful design.
It offers a highly-articulating arm for the light with 5 pivot points and a light six inches in diameter with 112 LEDs offering 700 lumens of brightness. The arm also contains buttons to control the light and two USB charging ports—one USB-A and one USB-C.
The power port for the light is conveniently low on the arm near the USB ports, rather than near the light itself, which additionally prevents the hassle of running a cable up along the arm of the light.
The light itself is bright and easy to use, and despite its small size, it is not too harsh. Positioning it a bit further away from you can help with reducing harshness and spreading the light better, but its 112 LEDs and edge lighting technology allow it to surpass many similarly sized lights in softness of light.
Normally, a smaller light may not be ideal for creators, as larger, softer lights offer more even illumination on a subject, but this is a sacrifice for its compactness: its main strength alongside flexibility and simplicity.
Flexibility and Simplicity Are its Key Strengths
Functionally, the Edge Light 2.0 is somewhere between a desk lamp and a key light. Its highly flexible design allows it to offer mood or spot lighting for your desk setup, or it can function as a high-quality key light for content creators. The beauty is in the dual-function while saving a ton of space.
Generally, when you want soft lighting, you’d want a light panel or box significantly larger than 6” in diameter. As such, for exclusively studio setups, this light might not be ideal.
However, these sacrifices are what permit it to be so flexible. A smaller light allows for the arm to remain stable with so many articulation points, which allows it to easily switch between a desk light to add illumination to your work or a key light to add brightness to your face on camera.
These articulation points, especially the 270-degree rotation of the head, are incredibly convenient in positioning the light exactly how you want it. Other popular options are much more difficult to position with flexibility, as they are either bulkier, have unflexible mounts, or both.
Similarly, the Edge Light was incredibly simple to set up. With the Edge Light 2.0, simply attach the clamp, plug it in, then turn the light on.
Compared to Elgato’s key lights, which require connecting to Wi-Fi and control via an app from a device connected to the same Wi-Fi network, the Lume has buttons. Press a button to turn it on, and press others to adjust brightness or color temperature—no app or convoluted connection process required, which means fewer points of failure when using it.
Controls Are (Mostly) Convenient
The Lume Cube Edge Light 2.0 only offers controls via buttons on the light itself, which are positioned near the base. The controls are intuitive, but they are imprecise.
First, these are the only way to adjust brightness, meaning that if you place the light in a hard-to-reach spot like behind a monitor, it’s awkward to reach the buttons.
Additionally, tapping the buttons adjusts brightness in 20% increments and color temperature in 1200K increments, which makes smaller adjustments difficult. More precise controls can be found by pressing and holding for “stepless” adjustments, but this remains imprecise for more advanced creators.
This light could benefit greatly from having some sort of additional external control, like a remote or app to program presets for specific brightness levels and color temperatures—Elgato does just this with its key lights, but these generally annoyingly lack physical controls on the lights. However, the Edge Light is far simpler to use and set up.
That said, as a hybrid desk light and key light, the Edge Light 2.0 does both jobs quite well with only minimal sacrifice for creators.
The Edge Light 2.0 Shines for Hybrid Workers
Considering the strengths, quirks, and limitations of the Lume Cube Edge Light 2.0, it really seems ideal for “hybrid” workers—folks who frequently take work meetings from home and also create content. It may be excessive in its specs and its $139.99 price for people who don’t create content, but it seems perfectly positioned to work amazingly in a work-from-home setup.
For full-time workers with part-time content creation on the side, the Edge Light 2.0 will offer more than enough illumination to make you look amazing on camera or webcam, and it will take up very little of your desk space.
Other key lights, such as those by Elgato, may provide larger, softer lighting with more precise controls for creators, but the Lume Cube Edge Light 2.0 offers compactness and simplicity. It won’t be the best pick for your studio setup, but for video callers and content creators with limited space, it may be perfect for you.
Should You Buy the Lume Cube Edge Light 2.0?
Dedicated creators may preferElgato’s Key Light Air, which is larger, twice as bright, more affordable, and offers more control options, especiallyif you have a Stream Deck.
However, hybrid workers and space-conscious creators will love the compactness, flexibility, and simplicity of theLume Cube Edge Light 2.0, which still offers impressive lighting options.
