Close-up of the Kivorla laser mask held in one hand showing the eye shield and diode array

456 LEDs vs 236 Chips: Why LED Count Is the Wrong Number to Shop By

220 LEDs. 360 LEDs. 456 LED chips. 680 LEDs. Scroll through the best-selling red light masks on any marketplace and the titles read like a bidding war, with the number climbing as the price often falls. That pairing should make you suspicious.

An LED count is easy to print and easy to inflate. It tells you nothing about how much light reaches your skin, at which wavelength, or whether the diodes themselves are any good. So it helps to know what the count measures, and where to look instead.

What LED count measures

Light sources. Nothing more. A cheap 5 mm LED counts as one, and so does a laser diode. A diode running at 20 percent of its rated output counts the same as one running flat out. A mask with 456 tiny LEDs can put less light on your face than a mask with 150 larger ones, because each of the small LEDs is doing a fraction of the work.

A packaging trick comes on top of that. Many masks give one figure for LEDs and a second, larger figure for chips, since a single LED package can hold two or three chips of different colours. The 456 in the title is often that chip count, and a third of the chips might be a colour you never switch on.

The three numbers that matter

Wavelength, irradiance, and the type of light source. Each one tells you something the LED count cannot.

Wavelength comes first, and it should be listed in nanometres. The research on collagen and fine lines sits at roughly 630 to 670 nm and 800 to 1100 nm, and the acne research at 400 to 470 nm. A mask described as red and near-infrared with no figures attached is hiding something, and usually what it is hiding is that the near-infrared is not really there. The Kivorla mask lists 460, 665, 850 and 1064 nm, each with a tolerance of plus or minus 3 nm, along with how many chips sit on each wavelength: 72, 72, 72 and 20.

Irradiance at the skin, in mW/cm², is the number LED count is pretending to be. It tells you how much light energy lands on a square centimetre of skin each second, and it decides how long a session needs to run. Most mask makers do not publish it. Ours ranges from 50 to 103 mW/cm² depending on the mode and brightness level. If the mask you are considering leaves it out, email and ask. Silence is an answer of a kind.

The third is whether the source is an LED or a laser. An LED spreads its light over a wide angle and across a wide band of wavelengths. A laser diode, and specifically the vertical-cavity type used in the Kivorla mask, emits a narrow beam at a precise wavelength. That precision is what lets the mask promise 1064 nm rather than somewhere in the region of 1000, and it is also why 20 laser diodes at 1064 nm can sit without embarrassment next to a competitor's 200 LEDs. They are doing a different job, at a depth ordinary LEDs do not reach well.

Woman reading a book on a sofa while wearing the cordless Kivorla laser mask

Coverage, not count

Even light across the whole face is what you are after, and it comes from how the diodes are laid out and how close the mask sits to your skin. A rigid mask carrying 400 LEDs that hovers a centimetre off your cheeks loses a large share of its light to that gap. A flexible silicone mask that follows the contours puts more of a smaller number where it counts.

This is the reason the Kivorla mask has a food-grade liquid silicone inner shell. It flexes to the face, keeps every diode at a consistent distance from the skin, and stays where you put it while you read, which is what you bought a cordless mask for in the first place.

A quick way to compare two masks

Run down this list before the LED count enters your head.

  • Does it list wavelengths in nanometres? If not, stop there.
  • Does it list irradiance in mW/cm²? If not, ask. If they cannot tell you, stop there.
  • Does it include near-infrared, and at which wavelength? 850 nm is the common one. 1064 nm is rarer and reaches deeper.
  • Is there a timer, and a stated maximum daily use? A device that will happily run for an hour has not thought about dose.
  • How long does the battery last, and does it work while charging? Ours runs for about 40 minutes per charge and will not run while plugged in, a safety choice.

Once you have those answers, the LED count can come into it, and by then you will find it does not move your decision either way.

Kivorla devices are general wellness devices, not medical devices. Individual results vary. Read the precautions supplied with your device before first use.

Back to blog