When most beauty innovations hit the market, they arrive wrapped in glossy marketing, trendy packaging, and a celebrity endorsement. But for Bill Wiedemann, founder of Lumara Systems, the path to innovation didn’t begin on a red carpet—it began with a sense of frustration and an engineer’s determination to uncover the truth.
“My journey into red light therapy began in 2016, not in a laboratory, but through a personal recommendation from two friends who introduced me to the benefits,” Wiedemann recalls. “As an engineer with 36 years of experience in venture capital-backed companies, I approached it with natural skepticism but also curiosity.”
That curiosity quickly turned into outrage. Armed with precision measurement equipment, Wiedemann began testing devices being sold for thousands of dollars, only to find that the industry’s so-called leaders were delivering shockingly little power.
“When I measured the optical power of one of the top three companies and compared it to what I could engineer, my first product delivered more than ten times the optical power. Their device was putting out a mere 2 mW/cm², while proper engineering could achieve 25 mW/cm²,” he said.
From that moment, Wiedemann knew he couldn’t ignore what he’d discovered. “Lumara’s heartbeat is frustration turned into purpose. I was genuinely upset that an entire industry was built on products that simply don’t work. That’s not just a business complaint, it’s a moral imperative that drives everything we do.”
Instead of investing in influencers and celebrity partnerships, Wiedemann poured his resources into engineering, clinical validation, and visible results.
“Our core value is radical honesty about effectiveness,” Wiedemann said. “In an industry where the vast majority of products provide no real benefit, being among the few that actually work isn’t just a competitive advantage—it’s an ethical obligation.”
So what exactly makes Lumara different? For Wiedemann, it all comes down to the fundamentals: coverage, wavelength, and power.
“Most LED face masks on the market provide only 5 percent to 15 percent coverage,” he points out. “Imagine putting sunscreen on with just the tip of a cotton swab in scattered spots. That’s essentially what these devices do with light therapy. VISO delivers 100 percent uniform coverage across the entire face using closely spaced 660 nm LEDs.”
And those results aren’t just visible in the lab. Wiedemann designed a simple but effective proof point he calls the five-day test.
“Users start on a Monday by positioning one side of their face against a pillow while using VISO for 20 minutes, and by Friday, they can literally see the difference between the two sides of their face. The pillow-pressed side shows dramatically better results because the LEDs were in direct contact with the skin, while the other side was a quarter-inch away and didn’t get the same optical power penetration.”
Medical professionals have taken notice, too. “We have one clinic that sells 100 VISO masks each month to their patients. When medical professionals who use our 25 mW/cm² clinical panels choose to offer VISO to their patients for home use, that’s the ultimate validation,” Wiedemann says proudly.
That validation has fueled Lumara’s future ambitions to remain consistent with lower costs, better effectiveness, and more applications.
“The engineering challenges we solved with VISO have opened up possibilities for applications beyond facial treatments,” Widemann said. “We’re exploring how our proprietary LED arrangements and power supply innovations can be applied to other areas where people need effective red light therapy. We’ve proven that you can deliver clinical-grade results in a consumer device, and now we’re working on ways to make it even more accessible.”
As for where the industry is headed, Wiedemann predicts a dramatic shake-up.
“I see a fundamental shift happening from marketing-driven products to evidence-based therapeutic devices,” he said. “The current billion-dollar market built on ineffective devices can’t sustain itself once consumers become educated about what actually works. The companies that survive will be those that can demonstrate real optical power, uniform coverage, and clinical validation.”
And the possibilities go far beyond beauty.
“We have seen results in reversing blindness, eliminating gout, treating peripheral nerve neuropathy, and treating cancer. Devices will become more powerful and also more affordable. Our vision of lower cost, better effectiveness, and more applications will drive industry standards upward,” Wiedemann notes. “The billion-dollar question isn’t whether the market will grow, it’s whether that growth will be built on genuine therapeutic value or continued marketing of ineffective devices. I believe science and engineering will ultimately win.”
In an industry overflowing with false promises, Lumara Systems stands apart for delivering something incredibly rare: the truth.
