Just saw this awesome light for GoPro
Check out this cool light to use with your GoPro for the late night rail jams!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lightandmotion/sidekick-a-gopro-companion-light
1 post? Looks like shameless self promotion but once clicked on, it’s really not a bad product. And for $10… But it’s kickstarter so you never know if it’ll ever go ahead.
Edit: it’s $10 for access to the first run of lights. $135 for an actual light.
That’s way too much for an accessory in my opinion.
I understand the need for promotion, and that this is a good forum for it, but I don’t understand why people think it is better to ‘pretend’ its a random - hey look what I found post - instead of introducing themselves, hey guys, this is my product, I’m pumped, thought you might be interested…
^^ this!
^ Well, we really don’t know if it’s a shill or not. One way to find out..
And yes I have to agree, good product, bad delivery on this forum if it is indeed a shill.
“Hey gaiz I don’t give 2 $#@%s about you but buy this and it helps the company I work for.”
I hope they understand that the snowsports industry does not work like that at all.
To bring the conversation back to the actual product:
I know a little about LED lighting through work-
Cree LED Chips are good quality so thats a tick in my book.
But the promotional photographs of before and after don’t look great. the light is perhaps too powerful, or too white. A warmer white would be better - Professional photographers use high quality lighting - go pro is providing professional quality photography to the general public and therefore any add on should aim to do the same.
This really ends up being an LED torch strapped to a go pro -
Take this product to the next level - adjustable lighting (for shooting night under water, shooting night above water, shooting low light snow days etc)
just my 2c
I understand the need for promotion, and that this is a good forum for it, but I don’t understand why people think it is better to ‘pretend’ its a random - hey look what I found post - instead of introducing themselves, hey guys, this is my product, I’m pumped, thought you might be interested…
I agree 100% with this. Honesty goes a long way. Boardworld is so welcoming to new brands, Kickstarters, etc.
That said, the product looks really good. I’m interested. Hopefully the OP comes back on here and keeps us posted on the progress. Best of luck with it, guys! 
To bring the conversation back to the actual product:
I know a little about LED lighting through work-
Cree LED Chips are good quality so thats a tick in my book.
But the promotional photographs of before and after don’t look great. the light is perhaps too powerful, or too white. A warmer white would be better - Professional photographers use high quality lighting - go pro is providing professional quality photography to the general public and therefore any add on should aim to do the same.
This really ends up being an LED torch strapped to a go pro -
Take this product to the next level - adjustable lighting (for shooting night under water, shooting night above water, shooting low light snow days etc)
just my 2c
Gotta agree with you there, otherwise it’s just like “white” with dark outlays if the light is a little “warmer” (with some “yellow” in it, the edges where it goes into the shadow wouldn’t be so pronounced?
At least that’s how I translate it in my head.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be as bright as possible, but be able to capture/show the overall nuances. Otherwise may as well bring a floodlight along. =)
I am the Brand Director at Light & Motion, the company behind the Sidekick GoPro light on Kickstarter. I was tracking the media coverage and found this forum - can’t figure out if anybody from our company posted the ‘random’ link. I really don’t think so..but I also can’t figure out why somebody else would create an account just to create that one post. My apologies for that if it was us.
Anyways - stoked to see the positive response. It will be pretty rad to see what the GoPro community does with a lighting system - there are lots of epic adventures that happen at night or in low light conditions where a light would make a big difference.
Here’s more of an official advertisement to give you a sense for the light:
email me at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) if you have any questions.
and to respond to some of the comments more directly.
The light output is adjustable with various modes - the before/after photos were very amateur and done on short notice. We haven’t had many prototypes available to use in the marketing department. We expect that when it is on the market the GoPro community will create some epic images.
There are other products similar to the Sidekick, like the Lume Cube - but the beauty of this product is that it will seamlessly accompany your GoPro wherever you mount it, be it a selfie stick, on your board, etc.
We’ve actually been making high end dive lights and bike lights for over twenty years - and manage to keep the manufacturing in California. It’s a good company with good people here… hopefully you didn’t get the wrong impression about us.
Much better than the original post. Thanks mate. Will have a bit more of a look into it.
Any reason for the $100 USD price tag? I can probably get multiple lights to sit separate for that price…
The cost will actually be even higher when it goes retail. The reason is in part because we manufacture it in Marina, CA - but really it’s more about the quality standards. Getting a good lithium-ion battery is not cheap and this makes it pretty expensive, same with the premium LEDs - we get the circuit boards stuffed in San Jose rather than China or Taiwan which may add a bit to the cost. But basically, doing this domestically gives us the flexibility to iterate quickly and push the limits of the technology rather than relying on a huge import from overseas to sell through before we can update the products. LED firmware is also surprisingly sophisticated, there are dozens of pages of code to manage the operations in the light and manage the output, charging, etc. I don’t know if you’ve had any experience with a generic camera battery or iphone cable - but there are always cheaper options, but they won’t necessarily last or ever be reliable.
Good to hear from you and good to hear the responses to the feedback.
understandable about the price tag and the reasons behind it - hopefully the price will come down after a few iterations? keeping in mind you can get a low spec gorpo for $300 these days adding another third of the price for a light is pretty high - but then again a good go pole goes for almost 60… and its just a glorified selfie stick (i have one…haha)
Good point. We have been able to get some of our bike lights down in cost after a few iterations…and with more efficient LEDs that come out every year we can reduce cost. The battery is the limiting factor..with most electronics - and someday lithium-ion technology will get improved. But, I think you’re right…we should be able to bring the cost down eventually.