Dual-Chip LEDs Sound Better—Until You See the Test Results

Today, we're looking at one of the most confusing claims in red light therapy panels. Single chip versus dual chip LEDs. For years, some companies have marketed dual chip LEDs as an upgrade. The idea sounds obvious. Two LED chips under one lens should mean more light than one chip under one lens. And to be honest, this isn't just being driven from the companies. I myself in my dozens, maybe hundreds of red light therapy reviews I've done over the years, I myself have given praise to what I often refer to as multi-chip LEDs. But have I been misled? I'm affiliated with some of the companies mentioned in this video and I will earn a commission if you buy through my links or discount codes. Products were provided to me free of charge and all opinions are my own. This is not medical advice. Well, a new independent lab report from LightLab Laboratories, commissioned by Platinum Therapy Lights, challenges the assumption that dual chip or multi-chip LEDs are better. So, Platinum LED built two panels that were designed to be almost identical. Same housing, same drivers, same fans, same optics, and drawing pretty much exactly the same 178 W from the wall. The main difference was the LED package. One panel used single chip LEDs, the other used dual chip LEDs. Now, Platinum LED has shared all of these independent lab testing reports. Put the link to the articles down below. And in this video, I'm going to dive through these reports and also look at the science not only on photobiomodulation, but also on light therapy engineering, LED engineering, to determine once and for all are dual chip LEDs better than single chip LEDs? So, the key difference from Platinum LED's experiment was that the single chip LED panel produced 29% more optical power than the dual chip LED panel. And remember, both panels were drawing from the wall the same amount of electricity. So this is a big result, but the key question is, does this settle the debate or is there more to it? And the answer is, it changes the conversation. It clarifies some things, but it also opens up a few more questions. Now, I'm going to unpack all of this and I also have come to my own conclusion that I'm going to share with you at the end of this video and it also it's quite significant because it's going to impacts not only how I review and recommend panels going forward, but also as I plan my 2026 panel comparison, this outcome is going to be factored into that series. Okay, so let's go back a few steps. What exactly is a single chip or dual chip LEDs? So when people were talking about single dual chip LEDs, they usually talking about the number of semiconductor dies or chips inside one LED lens package. A single chip LED has one light emitting di chip under the optic LED lens. A dual chip LED has two emitting dies in the same LED lens package. Triple or quad chip packages have three or four dies. Now, those di chips could be the same wavelength or they can be different wavelengths. For example, you may have one red 660 nanometer di and one near infrared 850 nanometer di. And this is where consumers often get misled. See, a company may say a product has 100 LEDs, but it actually has 25 LED lenses and within each LED lens, there are four quad chip dies. 25 * 4 gives you the 100. Whereas another company may have single chip LEDs and they also say it has 100 LEDs because each LED has a single chip in it. See where it gets a little bit confusing? But whether one is better than the other is what I'm going to answer in this video. Because if you put two chips in one LED package, but keep the amount of electricity you're pulling from the wall the same, each chip may simply be driven at a lower intensity. You may get two different wavelengths in that one LED, but because they put two chips in there, it doesn't mean you're getting twice the power output. The same amount of power is going to the LED, it's just split between two chips. Or if it's three chips in there, it's split three ways. Or four, four ways. So, at the end of 2025, Platinum LED sent two very similar panels to Light Lab International. Now, Platinum LED are one of the biggest red light therapy panel companies in the market, and I am affiliated with them. I've been using their products for many years, and yes, I do recommend them. And also yes, they did fund this report. So, keep all of that in mind. Light Lab International, they are an independent light laboratory. They test a lot of red light therapy products, and I've spoken to the guy who does these tests. He's very thorough, and I do trust their testing. Now, the good thing about this report is the comparison design. The single-chip panel had 150 LEDs, 72 red, 75 infrared, and there were three blue LEDs in there, which they didn't write. Each LED had one single chip. The dual-chip panel had 300 LED chips, 144 red and 156 infrared, with two LED chips in each LED optic. Now, both panels had the same power supply and the same fan supply. The wall input for each panel was very close, 177.5 W for the single-chip panel, and 177 W for the dual-chip panel. Pretty much identical. Now, Light Lab tested these panels using two different protocols. First, they used an integrating sphere, which captures total radiant flux from the device in all directions. Pretty much it's counting all of the light photons or energy that is delivered from the panel. So, this answers how much light is each panel producing. Second, they used a 49-point application distance grid at 12 in. This was using a spectral irradiance meter. Now, this is pretty much what I do when I review my panels. I use a handheld spectral radiometer and I do a 9-point test across a grid on a panel. The lab they use involved accurate devices and they're doing 49 points instead of the nine. Now, this particular test is answering how much light is making it to a specific distance from the panel. So, the difference matters. The first using the sphere tested total light emitting from the panel, all the light whatsoever. And the second one looked at how much light in a particular area from a particular distance from the panel. They're related, but not identical. So, the results I'm going to put up on screen. So, the wall power, like I said, was essentially the same. The total radiant flux, this is the amount of energy delivered from 350 all the way up to 1050, it was 69 W for the single chip panel and 53 W for the dual chip panel. Therefore, the single chip panel was putting out 29% more energy. Radiant efficiency, which shows how much of the electricity from the wall was converted to light, was much higher in the single chip panel. When we look at irradiance, these are measured in mW over cm squared, the single chip had a reading of 63 mW over cm squared. This was at 12 in, whereas the dual chip was 48.6, 29% higher in the single chip panel. There's also numbers for the red and the near for irradiance split, but as you can see the results speaks for themselves. The single chip panel was putting out more power, quite significantly, about 30% more power despite drawing exactly the same amount of power from the wall. So, in this specific test, the single chip panel clearly won. It simply delivered more therapeutic red and near infrared light energy. So, what does this all matter for treatment? Well, and that is because red light therapy is not about how many LEDs are installed or how many chips are installed. It's about how much useful red light therapy reaches the target tissue. The main treatment variables in a red light therapy device are wavelength, irradiance, treatment time, dose, distance, beam angle, treatment area, and then the tissue you're trying to treat. The photobiomodulation literature is very clear that dose is not trivial. Photobiomodulation often follows a biphasic dose response. With too little energy may have little to no effect, an appropriate dose may help, and too much may become less effective or even inhibitory. In a recent 2025 paper, even made a broader point that LED therapy studies often report wavelengths, fluences, and effective dose inconsistently. Better dose quantification is needed. So, if one panel is putting out 35 mW of red light and another is putting out 27 mW of red light, the treatment time difference is real. For example, if you wanted to treat the body with 20 J/cm², a decent amount of energy, the single chip panel would take 9 and 1/2 minutes. The dual chip panel from this report would take 12 and 1/2 minutes. Or looking at it another way, in a 10-minute session using these panels, the single chip panel would deliver about 21 J of red light, while the dual chip panel would deliver about 16 joules. That does not automatically mean the single chip treatment is better biologically in every situation because more is not always better. That's well known. But it does mean the single chip panel delivers the target dose faster. Again, whether this is better or not in terms of speed of dosing or optimal power output is a topic for another day. Well, actually, it's a topic we have covered a lot over at Light Therapy Insiders. Head over there, check out all the dosing articles, and if you're still confused, use the chat tool there because you can literally interact with all the content my team and I have have published on our site. And uh it's not only going to help answer the questions, but provide protocols and products that will suit your goals and budget. And also jump on the email list while you're there. We put out some amazing content that doesn't make the YouTube channel. Okay, so Platinum's article on their reports argues their dual chip LEDs underperform because of an optics problem. The idea is that a lens or optic is designed around a focal point. So, with a single chip centered under the optic, the LED optic, the light is directed forward more cleanly. With two LED chip emitters side by side, neither chip sits perfectly at the optical center, so each beam may become slightly off-axis or a little less efficient in terms of light focusing. Platinum LED specifically argues that this can reduce useful light at the treatment plane. This explanation is plausible for the 12-in application distance results, but there is an important nuance here. The integrating sphere captures light in all directions, so if the dual chip panel has lower total energy in the integrating sphere, which is true, which is what we saw, that cannot be explained by beam direction or inefficient focal distances that suggest something deeper and I think that's more to do with chip efficiency, power distribution, thermal build-up, thermal behavior, LED package design, driver matching, or maybe some other odd things going on inside the LED chips. So, from an engineering standpoint, multi-chip LEDs have a potential advantage, but also potential disadvantages. The advantage is that multiple chips can can spread current across more emitting area which can sometimes help with current density. But, the disadvantage is heat. You see, in multi-chip LED packages, all chips share thermal pathways. The amount of heat that is generated from these chips in a confined space does cause performance and efficiency impacts on the light output. Pretty much, you cram more chips into an LED and you're going to see more heat build-up. This impacts LED output and performance. Of course, this is not a problem with LEDs that have a single chip in there. You also have issues around LED efficiency, LED droop, and thermal droop, and a bunch of other issues that I'm not going to get into in this video. So, the deeper lesson is not dual chip is bad. The lesson is more that chip count by itself tells you very little. Yes, you can get more wavelengths in there, but you're probably going to see less power output as a result. All other things being equal when compared to a single-chip LED. So, this report answers several useful questions. First, in these two test panels, more LED chips did not mean more light. Secondly, the single-chip LEDs seem to be more efficient, converting more of the wall power to light compared to the dual-chip panel. Thirdly, the biggest practical difference was in the red light band. The single-chip panel delivered about 1/3 more red light in both total radiant flux and average radiance over the dual chip panel. And finally, this all shows why LED wattage or number of chips or dual chip technology can actually be misleading and quite confusing unless backed by independent optical testing. So, what does the report not answer? And this is where we need to be careful. This test does not prove that every single chip product beats every dual chip product. It compares one single chip design against one dual chip design in one housing, one optic design, one driver system, one set of LED package. The LightLab reports also include a standard limitation. The lab did not select the samples, and the significance of the report is limited to the extent that the sample is representative of production units. Pretty much saying, "Are the devices legit? Did Platinum LED do something dodgy here to try to prove a point?" I don't believe so. I know Platinum LED well, and I know they were genuinely curious about this. Their products use single chip LEDs, and most of the market now has moved to dual or triple or even quad chip LEDs. In my reviews, like I said earlier, I praised panels that had multi-chip LEDs. And I know the team at Platinum LED did start questioning if they were on the right track. They wanted to see for themselves what happens if they compared single versus dual chip while controlling all other variables, which is exactly what they did. So, I do think the testing and the results are valid. And to be honest, the physics behind LEDs also align with the lab report findings. The bigger limitation from this investigation is that it does not answer biological supremacy or superiority is probably a better word. No humans, animals, tissues, or cells were treated in this test. It was an optical and electrical test. It simply looked at whether single or dual chip LEDs emitted more light. And this means more screen time. So, bear with me, I will come back to this. Another limitation is that it also does not answer whether multi-chip LEDs may be useful in masks, wraps, helmets, or skin contact devices. In those devices, wavelength co-location, two wavelengths in the same spot, may be beneficial because the device is very close to the skin. And the beam the light has less distance to spread and thus blend. You see, single-chip LEDs typically do not provide the best light spread or coverage on the body. You may have 660 in one LED, then half an inch gap before you have an 850 LED, then another half inch gap before you have a red LED again. Dual or multi-chip LEDs can fit both red and near-infrared into one LED package. It compresses the wavelengths closer together. Meaning the light spread on the body is a lot more balanced and even. So, does this matter? Well, I know James Carroll from Thor Laser thinks it does. It's why his $100,000 Novothor bed uses a diffuser sheet to ensure the light is being delivered evenly across the body. Now, I'm still investigating this question myself, so stay tuned for a deeper dive video in the near future. Once I'm confident with the answer, I'll be sure to share it in a video like this. Okay, so what are the pros and cons of single versus dual chip LEDs? Single-chip LEDs have several practical advantages. They're simpler, typically cheaper as well. They have one chip by an optic, one thermal source, as we've just discussed, they're putting out more energy at a particular wavelength, and they're a lot more efficient in converting electricity to light. But, single-chip designs also have a possible limitation. If the panel alternates between red and near-infrared LEDs, the wavelengths originate from physical positions that tend to be quite spread out. Now, if you're using a panel, let's say 12 in, maybe even 6 in, the light can blend well. But if you're using it close to the skin, the separation can matter. Now, dual chip or multi-chip LEDs have an advantage in theory. They can put multiple wavelengths under the same LED lens. This can improve light spread. This may be useful for masks, wraps, or devices that are used close to the skin. But the downside is that more chips can mean more thermal complexity, more difficult optics, more cost, more things to go wrong, and of course, less power output and less efficiency because the power is divided across more chips. So, what's the conclusion from all of this? For large full body panels that are used at 12 in, even 6 in from a panel, single-chip panels are probably the safer engineering choice, especially when independent output data supports them. Hopefully, a company will send their panel off for testing. For close contact devices, then multi-chip may still make sense, especially if you don't need a lot of power delivered to the target tissue. But again, you really need to see independent testing on these devices, whether it's through one of my reviews or Light Lab's own testing, to know exactly what you're working with. So, what should you buy? Well, I'm going to say this. Do not base on single-chip versus dual-chip alone. I know I have said that in the past. I am softening my stance on that for the reasons we've just discussed. Yes, I still think dual-chip has its benefits. Why not? Has its benefits. But it really does depend on what you're trying to do. I know people hate this, right? Like they're like, "I just give me a clear-cut answer." That's what I'm going to do in my comparison series soon, so hopefully that will help. But hopefully, you can understand why I'm saying this. Depends what you're trying to do. It depends what budget you have, how you plan on using this device. Because if you're going to say lie on a panel, then yeah, dual chip LEDs, multi chip LEDs are probably going to be better. But if you're using a panel 6, 10, 12 in, then hey, a single chip panel with a bit more power coming from it actually be better. Still, if you can, ask the company that you're buying from whether they have independent irradiance data at the actual treatment distance, not just a cheap solar meter reading, whether they have red and near infrared data split separately, whether they have an average irradiance over an area, not just a peak center point number, and whether they can share things such as wall power draw, or what happens to the LEDs over time. As they heat up, does the irradiance drop off? For a panel, the question should not simply be how many chips does it have? The question should be how much red and near infrared light reaches my body at the distance I will actually use it. And also, what are those wavelengths? Because you want to make sure you're getting the right wavelengths. 660 is great. And again, this is where independent testing or reviewers such as myself can help you. The Platinum LED report is fascinating because it shows that dual chip architecture can look better on paper while actually performing worse in measured output. That is the important consumer lesson here. More chips does not necessarily mean more treatment light. So, does this report change everything? Well, it changes one thing. It makes it harder for the companies to claim that dual chip LEDs are automatically superior just because there are more chips. In this light lab comparison, the single chip panel was clearly superior. More energy, higher efficiency, more light photons, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was a cheaper panel to produce as well. But the The scientific answer is still more nuanced. Cells do not care where the photons came from a single chip or dual chip or quad chip LED. They care about wavelengths, the dose, the power level, how long they're exposed to this light, how deep the light is penetrating into the tissue, skin color, and a lot of other factors that are going on. Tissue optics depend on absorption and scattering. Therapeutic light design requires thinking about where the light actually goes in the tissue, how much of that light, and if it is the right wavelength. So, do not buy into the chip count story, and I apologize if I have steered people down this path. I hope this provides a bit of context as to why dual chip multi-chip can still be beneficial, but it shouldn't also be the be-all and end-all in terms of why you choose a panel over another one. For full-body panels, if everything else is equal, I would lean towards a well-tested single-chip design that your independent data to support the readings, and you know you're getting the right wavelengths at a good dose. For masks, wraps, helmets, and devices that you use in close to the skin, multi-chip may actually be better, but again, only if you have the data to back up what's actually being emitted from this device. The winner is not the device with the most chips, it's the device that delivers the right photons at the right wavelength at the right dose to the right area safely and consistently.