Building on its success with its RGB LED lights (famously used in Star Wars: Rogue One), Digital Sputnik will reveal the Voyager series at NAB this year. The new lights aim to provide an even more flexible, portable and affordable lighting toolset for the masses than the revolutionary DS series. The Voyagers complement the DS series by being tubular soft lights, with removable diffusers.

Digital Sputnik CEO Kaur Kallas told No Film School, "Our approach to lighting remains the same with the Voyager line. It is designed to be our most affordable fixture, and we have added all the features that we would want from a softlight—that we would like to use ourselves—into the Voyager."

The Voyager LED series will be offered in 2ft and a 4ft versions.  The lights can be controlled individually through their smartphone "LightGrading" app that automatically maps all the lights in a setup. Through the app, a user is easily able to modify all settings in the lights individually, with pixel-level control, including: on/off, intensity, temperature, hue and saturation.  One person can literally paint a scene without moving or touching a light or gel. 

The lights can also be controlled by a board using wireless DMX. Notably, both the LightGrading and DS Control DMX applications allow you to control Arri SkyPanels and Kino Flo Selects as well.

2ft-and-4ft-voyagerVoyager 2ft and 4ft ModelsCredit: Courtesy of Digital Sputnik

The visual user interface of the lights makes installations of multiple lights easy to control for people who don't have lighting board expertise. As Kallas described, "The biggest inhibitor for the widespread adoption of RGB pixel controllable lights is the user interface. Today we need to manually address each fixture/LED and then we have a programmable lighting board for the control." He said that Digital Sputnik aims to change this with the Voyager line, by having the software and hardware automate the addressing of fixtures, allowing them to be controlled visually.

Kallas added, "This way, the operator does not have to learn to program sophisticated lighting controller boards to create animations. Lighting boards will still have their use for very sophisticated and complex animations, but for 90% of the applications, our user interface will be sufficient. For the other 10%, users can use the lighting controller board."

These lights are meant to be mobile and tough, with a slim form-factor for tight spaces, a built-in battery and waterproof construction—that's waterproof as in can be used while fully submerged.

Voyager_appLightGrading™ Smartphone AppCredit: Courtesy of Digital Sputnik

Part of Digital Sputnik's mission is to build an affordable set of "tools for a new generation of filmmakers."  To that end, pricing on the units is aggressive: the 2ft Voyager will retail at $390 and the 4ft at $590, making these units within the reach of everyone.

Tech specs

Voyager 2ft
Dimensions: 696x70x50mm (24″x2.8″x2″)
Resolution: 32 pixels
Weight: 1.1kg (2.43lbs)
Power draw: 20W
Battery: 45Wh
Price: $390

Voyager 4ft
1392x70x50mm (48″x2.8″x2″)
Resolution: 64 pixels
Weight: 2.2kg (4.86lbs)
Power draw: 40W
Battery: 90Wh
Price: $590

Are you as excited as we are to get your hands on these lights?  Let us know in the comments if you are interested in adding these to your lighting kit.

No Film School's complete coverage of NAB 2017 is brought to you by My RØDE Reel, Vimeo 360, and Blackmagic Design.

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