Wolezek Red Light Therapy Bulb Review from Amazon: Incorrect Intensity, High EMF, High Flicker!
Another day, another disappointing red light therapy product review! This 36W Wolezek Red Light Therapy light bulb offers a super affordable way to start with the benefits of red light therapy. But once again we are disappointed by the much lower intensity than advertised, high flicker, and high EMFs from this light - especially since we have already did a thorough review of a different light bulb on our YouTube channel.
At this point it is no surprise that this light bulb false advertises their intensity. It is a systemic issue across nearly all red light panel and bulb manufacturers that they use a cheap solar power meter that falsely inflates the intensity by 2x to 4x! You can find many of the culprits in our groundbreaking blog post!
If you are tired of hearing it from me, listen to Ari Whitten (author of "The Ultimate Guide to Red Light Therapy") discuss this exact issue on a recent podcast!
https://theemfguy.com/014/
In it, Ari specifically calls out that many companies are lying about intensity and the root cause may be the ignorance of manufacturers by using the Solar Power Meters.
Anyway, lets start the review!
Power Consumption
Power consumption is something easy to measure and help us understand the relative power to compare between lamps.
We know the big problem is that most companies only specify the "Rated Wattage" and don't tell you the actual consumed wattage.
Well Wolezek DOES mention the actual power consumption as 20W +/- 5%. Unfortunately when I measure the power consumption with my Kill-A-Watt meter is it MUCH lower than advertised.
Advertised Rated Wattage: 36W
Advertised Consumed Wattage: 20W +/- 5%
My measurement: 16.2 W
It is really confusing and misleading to consumers to go from 36W rated power but only be selling a 16W light bulb! So this is certainly a disappointing start to this review!
Intensity
Intensity is always a hot topic because this describes the optical (light) output from a red light therapy product. Most people have been brainwashed that "more is better" by companies who have been false advertising intensity anyway. And now everyone wants to meet the false "industry standard" of 100mW/cm^2 at 6 inches. Even though no red light panels on the market get anywhere close to that number.
I'm sorry but Wolezek is no different. They claim the following "test results" on their Amazon listing.
141 mW/cm² @ 0inch
123 mW/cm² @ 3inch
98 mW/cm² @ 6inch
So already if a company is pretending to emit something close to 100mW/cm^2 at 6 inches, that should be a HUGE RED FLAG for everyone. Especially for a small low-powered red light bulb like this one.
I really tried to see if I could get a higher number with my cheap solar power meters, but they don't even get close to the Wolezek intensity claims.
I even used a Solarmeter ® Global Solar Power Meter which some self-proclaimed experts will boldly claim is "pretty effin accurate." Which I don't know how "pretty effin accurate" is a verifiable claim, but the tricksters of this industry have learned if they just repeat their lies with more conviction then people will back down and believe them. But no, it's not accurate for red/NIR light therapy purposes as we proved in a previous blog post.
Anyway, lets take a look at the measurements.
3 Inches:
1. Tenmars TM-206: 66.5 mW/cm^2
2. Solarmeter: 59.3 mW/cm^2
3. SANWA: 31.1 mW / 0.636 * 0.80 = 39.1 mW/cm^2
5. LaserBee: 4 mW/ 0.09 cm^2 * 0.88 = 39.1 mW/cm^2
6 Inches:
1. Tenmars TM-206: 22.5 mW/cm^2
2. Solarmeter: 20.1 mW/cm^2
3. SANWA: 11.9 mW / 0.636 * 0.80 = 14 mW/cm^2
5. LaserBee: 1.2 mW/ 0.09 cm^2 * 0.88 = 11 mW/cm^2
So I don't care which measurement device you choose to believe, NONE of them get close to the claims of 123mW/cm^2 or 98mW/cm^2. So I have no idea how they even have the gall to make such terrible claims.
Obviously the solar power meter measurements are incorrect, but they don't get anywhere close to their claims. So they can't even pretend to substantiate their claims like most companies waving around solar power meters. The laser power meters both correlate much closer to each other and to reality!
You can see we found a low-budget DIY laser power meter to use! So even the scammer manufacturers that claim they can't afford accurate measurements can get this for under $100! This is the LaserBee HLPM II from this website.
Could 39mW/cm^2 at 3 inches and 14mW/cm^2 at 6 inches still be effective? Certainly! But customers will need to know the REAL intensity to know how long to get the proper energy dosage, which could be calculated easily with our online tool!
Now you could get more power if you hold the lamp closer to your skin, but we will show the EMFs are tremendously high and you want to stay at least 3 inches away from this light anyway.
EMFs
Now we want to measure EMFs. Wolezek claims to emit <0.4 uT at 0 inches. A pretty bold claim! But we also need to note that uT (microTesla) only describes the Magnetic Field, and we need to measure the Electric Field too.
Well here we see 0.9 uT magnetic field on our Coronet meter. So a bit more than double their claim... which isn't good at all.
For Electric Field we see something much more concerning.
The Electric Field EMF measurement on our Gigahertz ME3030B, which they conveniently don't ever mention in the listing, is up at over 1000 V/m! This is a tremendously high measurement that should be concerning even to people who aren't sensitive to EMF.
Luckily for such a small lamp the EMFs do drop to practically zero at 6 inches away, but then you also get dramatically lower intensity of around 11 to 14 mW/cm^2 depending on which laser power meter you want to believe.
Flicker
Flicker seems to be an underappreciated metric but is an issue because it is a modulation of intensity. So if the light has a high amount of flicker, then your average intensity also drops down. Then if you are aiming these lamps at your eyes and face then there could be some flicker sensitivity issues and health concerns that arise.
We measure the Wolezek lamp at 34% flicker! Which is a significant amount of flicker and should be used with caution around people who may be sensitive to flicker or strobe-like issues. It definitely shouldn't be used as general lighting or night-lighting according to the industry standards.
Conclusion
For an affordable and cheap "starter" red light therapy lamp, these screw-in style bulbs do seem attractive. But categorically we find these lamps can over-exaggerate the intensity (like everyone else in the industry), have high EMF, and high flicker. For me it isn't worth the potential detriments and having to be at least 6 inches away and worry about EMF and flicker.
As always we at GembaRed LLC just want to reveal the truth about these products and help you find what fits your needs. If this light still fits your needs especially because it is affordable, then go for it! But you need to be properly informed about the real specifications of these lights especially just to use them safely and effectively.