Review on Aputure 000K 10 Adjustable Stepless Dimming by Justin Woolley

I've been looking forward to sending them out since Ted announced this over a year ago. We often shoot with practical elements in the frame and they seem (on paper) to be the perfect solution. I was glad to receive them but unfortunately I had some issues with them and had to have them replaced. Aputure's support was great and they agreed to replace it. I had trouble connecting it to the Sidus Link app, had trouble activating it and often got unexpected results. (for example, once when one of them turned on, it blinked, something like Morse code, constantly, for about 10 minutes) Sometimes they work perfectly, sometimes they are unpredictable. So many settings and modes that it's very confusing to keep up. You have to memorize a whole bunch of key codes to press and memorize the resulting flashes and colors to know what mode the lights are in. And the Sidus app doesn't immediately tell you what mode they're in. A simple status LED on the side would have made this much easier. If it's one of 20 lights you own, it's difficult to remember all of the unique settings and modes unless you use them every day. Aside from what I believe to be quality control issues on the first batch pulled off the assembly line, they appear to be well constructed. and otherwise generally on par with Aputure standards. I've used them on location a few times and luckily they worked on these shoots. They are not bright. We filmed the interview on a large shaded porch during the day and placed one in a handy lamp. You couldn't see what it was at all. They are definitely designed for indoor use in low light. For Halloween I wanted to use them to create a "failed bulb" effect on my porch but they didn't work at all. I think it might be because my porch light is hooked up to Lutron Caseta dimmers, but I'm not sure. I put bulbs in the headlights and no matter what "mode" I tried to use, I couldn't get them to turn on at all. Even when I turned off the power on the porch and tried them on full battery mode. So I think there are some issues, but overall I'm optimistic. Some of my problems can be solved with improvements to the Sidus app. In particular, I'd like to see some sort of indicator next to the display that shows if it's charging, the battery level, and what mode it's in. Other issues will hopefully be firmware related or first light off issues. I will be anxious to get my replacement units to see if they are any better.