Personalize Your Space with amaran’s First-Ever LED Strip Light
The amaran SM5c Smart Pixel Strip Light Now Available
The amaran SM5c is the newest addition to amaran’s ever-growing library of lights for content creators and indie filmmakers. For over 7 years, Aputure and amaran have been the staple key lights for content creators of all levels, and have continuously grown with the ever-expanding needs of budding artists and creators — with the goal of providing creators with all the tools they need to create.
As the world of content creation continues to grow, amaran has continued to expand, which resulted in the SM5c — a smart pixel LED strip light designed to carry content creators through their daily life and create a colorful environment that inspires creativity.
amaran’s first-ever Bluetooth and Wi-Fi enabled smart LED strip light is officially available for purchase and shipping. Featuring voice-controlled capabilities by connecting to Amazon Alexa or Google Home, 300 RGB smart pixel LEDs, 100 lighting zones over a 5 meter length, and an intelligent design, the SM5c has a place in any creators’ setup.
Designed for Creators
The amaran SM5c is uniquely created for a new subset of users and use cases, and is unlike any existing Aputure or amaran product on the market, bringing a world full of expansive possibilities for creators to personalize their space.
Rather than designing for sound stages, harsh climates, and the rigors of on-set filmmaking, amaran sought to take accent lighting to another level when conceptualizing this light — designing the amaran SM5c for the bedroom, the living room, and the home studio.
The amaran SM5c was designed for everyone — ranging from content creators to everyday lighting enthusiasts — to bring their creations to the next level across a multitude of creative applications.
Tech and lifestyle creators or beauty gurus creating short-form content on TikTok or YouTube can use the amaran SM5c to instantly elevate their setup and quickly capture their audience’s attention with a pop of color.
Streamers and E-Sports players can create a more immersive gaming experience with the amaran SM5c — especially when streaming on Twitch. The LED strip light can be used as a bias light or to enhance their background without having to take their hand off their keyboard.
Using a new feature built into the amaran SM5c — the Music Sync functionality — musicians and DJs can interact with their lights on a whole new level by creating an audio-visual spectacle with various colors and effects to bring their music to life.
For other fashion, cosplay, or DIY creators, the amaran SM5c can be customized to match their creations for the ultimate on-screen setup, whether that is by adding a pop of color, adjusting various lighting effects, or simply building background separation.
Whether the RGB strip light is installed along creators’ ceilings and walls, or tucked away as a colorful accent light behind furniture, cabinets and shelves, the amaran SM5c allows all genres of creators to unleash their creativity and personalize their space.
Smart Speaker Control
As its name suggests, the SM5c is an intelligent light fixture, featuring Wifi-connectivity — a first for amaran. As amaran’s premier Wifi-enabled light, the SM5c can be easily controlled with smart speakers such as Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, allowing creators to personalize their colors and effects wirelessly with their voice.
amaran designed the strip light to seamlessly integrate with existing IoT enabled devices to be controlled via voice, like other smart lights, in creators’ home studios.
By using simple voice commands, creators can turn the SM5c on and off, adjust the brightness, and change the color temperature of the SM5c anywhere between 3,200K to 6,500K and any color in the rainbow to fit their environment — all without having to touch the external controller or open the Sidus Link mobile app. More advanced controls, such as adjusting and setting System FX and Pixel FX, can be controlled directly on the external controller, or accessed via the Sidus Link app on the App Store or Google Play.
Creators can add their amaran SM5c strip light and link it to their preferred smart speaker by downloading the Tuya Smart app on the App Store or Google Play. For a more in-depth guide on controlling the strip light with smart speakers, amaran has created short video guides on how to connect the amaran SM5c to Google Assistant, and how to connect to Amazon Alexa.
Pixel Control
Beyond voice-control and smart speakers, one of the most distinctive features of the amaran SM5c is its 100 pixels or lighting zones that can instantly light up a space with saturated colors and effects. Designed for creators to unlock the full creative potential of the strip light, the SM5c is the first amaran fixture to feature multiple pixels, and is the first Sidus Mesh-enabled light with access to the Pixel Control function. It is also one of the only higher-end LED strip lights on the market that grant creators the ability to control this many multiple lighting zones.
With Pixel Control, creators can manipulate the SM5c’s 100 lighting zones in 5 or 25 independent groups via the Sidus Link app. Creators can independently control each zone, adjust one zone at a time, or adjust all the zones at once. By simply tapping on the selected zone, users can adjust and change the color temperature, HSI, or apply customizable effects to the zones to suit their style. Each effect can be adjusted using Continue Time, Intervals, and Frequency settings, and can cycle through color zones in numerical order or randomly.
As the amaran SM5c has the most available pixels of any Aputure and amaran fixtures to date, it also features the most built-in Pixel FX. The SM5c can smoothly transition between 100 pixels to create 21 different Pixel FX, including new additions like Festival, Marquee, Star, Aurora, and Stream. In addition to its unique Pixel FX, like other Sidus-enabled full-color lights, such as the MC or B7c, the SM5c is also programmed with 9 built-in System FX, including Fireworks, Fire, TV, and Party Lights. These pre-built effects and presets are where the SM5c truly shines and allow creators to easily transform their room without manual controls.
The Sidus Link app is what makes all of this possible, and as the only Sidus-enabled LED strip light, the SM5c is uniquely able to integrate creators’ Sidus Link workflows, and can be adjusted in the same scene as their key lights, whether that’s a 100d and a Light Dome SE, or an amaran P60x.
In addition to Pixel Control, Pixel FX, and System FX, SidusPro® FX unlocks nearly unlimited lighting potential. This includes capturing real-world lighting patterns with Picker FX, creating effects sequences with other lighting fixtures using Magic Program, programming unique lighting effects via Manual FX, or creating Music FX by uploading audio clips.
For a more in-depth guide on how to use Sidus Link to unlock the full feature set of the SM5c, check out this video or the Sidus Link tutorial playlist.
Design
Given that the aesthetic design of the light is equally as important as the lighting designs users create, Aputure designed the SM5c with an all-white design — including everything from the LED strip, control box, power supply, to even the packaging. The SM5c is intended to seamlessly blend into creators’ homes and match their white walls and minimalist aesthetic with a discrete design that can be hidden in plain sight.
To enhance that blending factor, the SM5c’s 300 RGB LEDs are covered by a layer of diffusion spanning the entire 5 meter strip. Whether users are looking at the strip light directly on the walls of their bedroom or having them light up their background, the SM5c produces a softer and more pleasant glow over the entire space.
The SM5c’s external controller was also designed to be as simple and intuitive as possible, allowing creators to focus on using voice control for simple tasks, and Sidus Link for advanced functions. The small remote features only 3 buttons and a single control knob that allows creators to easily change the appearance of your light.
With the press of a button, users can connect to Wifi for voice control, Bluetooth for advanced controls via Sidus Link, activate the Music Sync feature, or toggle between CCT, HSI, and FX. Using the control knob, users can select a color temperature from cool to warm, adjust the intensity of the light, tweak the color, or switch between the built-in lighting effects to match their desired look.
Music Sync
The most unique aspect of the external controller is its internal microphone that can natively activate music sync. With Music Sync, the SM5c’s 100 lighting zones will sync with and react to any live audio in real-time, for seamless, aesthetic, and smooth audio visualization at the press of a button.
By simply playing any audio track or singing into the mic, the SM5c acts as a real-time audio visualizer with pixelated effects straight from the controller without any additional programming. Check out this video for a more in-depth walkthrough of the SM5c’s music effects capabilities to bring any music to life.
Ready to Go Out of the Box
The amaran SM5c is designed as a simple plug-and-play setup, with the strip light ready to be installed for users’ creations straight out of the box. Each amaran SM5c comes with five distinct items — including the strip light itself, an AC Power Supply that simply plugs into a regular household outlet, and an external controller to easily change the appearance of the light.
To make installation onto any surface as easy as possible, the amaran SM5c also comes with a roll of double-sided tape for additional reinforcement, and a cleaning kit to clean dirty surfaces before securing the strip light in place.
For creators who need to cover more ground for lighting even larger spaces, an amaran SM5c Extension is available for purchase to double the length of the strip light, taking your strip light from 5 meters or 16 feet to an impressive 10 meter or 33 foot length.
Conclusion
The SM5c is the latest light to join the amaran family as the brand continues to enhance the creative possibilities of content creators and indie filmmakers through its ever-growing ecosystem of lights.
With all the features packed into this smart pixel light, the SM5c is versatile in its many creative applications. The SM5c is intended to live within any space for creators to personalize and inspire creativity in their other creations. Whether it’s a budding creator starting their first YouTube channel, a lighting enthusiast wanting to cover their entire room, or an livestreamer wanting to integrate the strip light with their Sidus Link workflow, Aputure is excited to finally bring something like this to market to open up new creative worlds for all types of users.
Pricing and Availability
Below are the prices in USD. Please refer to your authorized regional Aputure dealer for prices in other currencies.
The amaran SM5c is available for purchase through Aputure’s online store and your local dealer. Visit here to learn more about the new fixture.
