Lit but at what cost.
Good lighting for your stream setup can be the difference between being able to present a clear friendly face to your audience, or to looking like you're telling ghost stories during nuclear winter. Thanks to the rise of content creation, you can get all sorts of lighting solutions at many different price points for making all sorts of videos. With streaming, gamer brands are truly in the mix and we are starting to see some purpose built options for our niche.
The Logitech Litra Beam LX is one light designed to not only light your face, but also provide RGB backlighting and bonus control options. It's a smooth and quality experience but there's nothing revolutionary here to justify the price.
Setting up the Logitech Litra Beam LX is nice and easy. The light strip screws into the stand with a standard 1/4-20 UNC mount connection. There's a screw on the long and short ends of the light so you've the choice between having it sit horizontally or vertically when mounted to the stand. There's also a little bit of cable management aid regardless of the direction, and the stand is nice with solid pull into place action, though has a somewhat bulky foot.
You'll need a free power outlet for the light and then connect to your PC through Logitech's G Hub app via either USB-C or Bluetooth. This was also nice and simple as the light was immediately recognised by the app, and from there I could use the software to change the lights settings from my PC as opposed to using the pretty hard to find (especially with a key light shining into your face) physical buttons the Litra Beam XL.
Those physical buttons are excellent in a pinch, however. There's the choice between cool or warm light and a slider for brightness. You can tune it to your preferences and it's handy to be able to do it subtly in app while streaming.
Once set up, it really is an attractive key light. The light is soft and even and there's no flicker regardless of brightness. I found that having the brightness set to about 70% was enough to illuminate myself quite well, giving room either way for different scenarios. The light is also smooth enough for taking shots of makeup, which is what ring lighting was originally designed for so the evenness is impressive from a bar light.
The packaging boasts Logitech's Truesoft lighting technology to give this effect, alongside passing safety checks for long term use. Some of that is hard to quantify, but the video results aren't that noticeably different from much cheaper solutions such as baking paper defused lightbulbs and budget ring lights I have used in the past.
The other tab in the G Hub software is for the back RGB light panel which you can set to pulse and vibe away to a whole lot of colourful presets or make your own. There's an audio responsive mode for visualisers and also a screen mirroring mode if you want to create that immersive splash back effect. The lights are bright, quite customisable, and look pretty cool. But also feel super unnecessary. They don't affect your stream at all, which is good in the sense that your bright RGB party doesn't affect your soft camera lighting you've just set up, but kinda makes you wonder what the point is.
✅ You don't care about price and want a key light with some extra features: There's no real downsides to this light outside of price so if you close your eyes when you buy it then it's probably fine.
✅ You just gotta have them RGBEEEs: We all know that person who just wants everything to light up their life and it is a pretty piece of kit when it's shining.
❌ You want value for money: You can get far cheaper key light setups that will likely look just as good. Even from Logitech itself.
❌ You already have all your RGB needs met and just want a key light: If you're no fan of coloured lights or already have that covered, you'll miss nothing by forgoing this feature.
That is what I keep coming back to when using this light. I have no qualms in using it, it's an enjoyable tidy solution with a few handy extras. As much as I love RGB lighting I can't see myself bothering to really use the Litra Beam XL back side. I have better solutions for that, and I've noticed that when streaming using the front key light I won't even notice the backlighting effects thanks to everything else going on.
When considerably cheaper key light options provide indistinguishable results, while only losing a handful of nice-to-have features, Logitech's Litra Beam XL becomes a harder sell at $150/£150/$250 AUD. Especially when the non RGB Litra Beam is a full $50 cheaper.
Logitech's Litra Beam XL is a breeze to use. It's easy to set-up and does a great job of providing ample illumination while looking good on your desk. It has a powerful soft front light for your face, different configuration options, easy app use, and you get that RGB back light if you really want it. It's also carbon neutral, which is very cool to see. If you're after a key light with those features and the price doesn't seem high to you then you'll have a great time.
However, if you're strapped for cash and just want to look good on stream you can likely save yourself some considerable dollars elsewhere.
