Leave a Review Luminair
1 Star for making it a subscription
The apps already $100. Now you’re going to charge up to double that every year? For that plus the cost of the iPad I could just buy a legit board. Why should I invest in a subscription when I can pay one price and have just as much reliable control?uhhhhwill
Cloud is broken
This has been an awesome program— 5 stars. Then the program offloaded my shows to the cloud and won’t download them. I use this on an iPad and an iPhone. I can’t build a show on each device. It’s too much work. It did this right before my last show and I was literally building an emergency set 10 minutes before the show.
Until this is fixed, I cannot recommend it. The features are awesome. But if you can’t save a show, those features are useless. We need a toggle that prevents the app from ever deleting a local copy of the show. Please fix.Show lessPLR Pilot
No fixture updates. Not worth it
Find alternative a--Lightitupall
Never had an issue
My application for using this app is for Mobile DJIng. I’ve never had an issue outside user error(lol).
Quick and easy to use. You can patch in any fixture, even Chinese off brands.Watts219
Does some things well, but has some defects, lacks features, and poor support
I was using a basic/beginner console before switching to Luminair. The benefits of Luminair’s ability to remember DMX values and change them on-the-fly seemed really appealing to me over the console I was previously using. I really like how easy it was to connect to my ENTTEC ODE MK2 node from Luminair via Art-net and SACN. However, I do want to point out some *critical* limitations:
Fade/Snap Start/Snap End Defect:
One of the bigger features I needed that I was not getting from my hardware console was the ability to fade from one scene to another. Luminair does support this. However, there are some fixture channels that should NOT follow this fade setting for a scene that gradually crossfades from the current scene to the next scene. Luminair does support the ability to set a particular channel as “fade”, “snap start” or “snap end”, meaning for a scene that gradually fades from the current values to the next scene, a channel that is set to “fade” will respect the scene’s crossfade abilities, a channel that is set to “snap start” will immediately transition to the next scene’s values even though the scene as a whole will still gradually transition over time, and a channel that is set to “snap end” will transition to the next scene’s values immediately after the scene “transition” time has expired. This is particularly useful for fixtures that have “mode” or “enumerated” channels, such as strobe speeds, rotation, gobos, color wheel, macros, etc. and are not “scalar” values (i.e. intensity channels). However, the “snap start” and “snap end” settings are completely disregarded, resulting in a VERY undesirable and ugly transition from one scene to the next, proving this feature almost useless unless you transition from one scene to the next where these “mode” channels are the same value. Very disappointed in this defect.
Lack of support from the developer:
The developer’s “help” page says (and I quote): “ Need help? Bug report? User experience is important to us and we are continuously working to improve our products. If you need assistance after reading through the knowledge-base, please don’t hesitate to open a support ticket.”. I was excited to see this; if a product has a couple bugs but is eager and quick to fix the issues, I am totally open to helping the developers fix bugs that have slipped by. However, the reality of their “user experience [being] important to [them]” could not be further from the truth. The developers were moderately helpful in the beginning, saying they were able to reproduce my issues in their testing (does this mean they never tested my issues before releasing the app in the first place...?), and that the next update of the app would have my issue fixed. I’m still waiting for a fix 7 months later. Either fix the issue with an app update, take the “user experience is important to us and we are continuously working to improve our products” statement off your website, or give my money back. The statement on the website is false advertising.
“Merge” scenes do not allow FX:
One of the biggest reasons I switched to an interface like Luminair was the ability to program “sub”-scenes and layer them together in a “Merge” scene. This allows me to define certain colors, intensities, XY positions, etc. on scenes, then “Merge” them together so that 1) creating new looks is very easy and straightforward, and most importantly, 2) tweaking one parameter of the sub scene affects all “Merge” scenes with that sub scene (HUGE benefits over a basic/beginner hardware console). However, “Merge” scenes do not allow sub scenes with FX... So basically, I can either create a ton of separate, isolated scenes that have FX and are super painful to maintain/update, or I can have scenes that are easy to maintain/update with merge scenes but do not have FX (a big selling point of the app, simply wiped away by using merge scenes). I understand the app documentation mentions this is a limitation of the hardware the app runs on, and that may be true and if so, I can agree to that “hardware” limitation. However, it’s difficult for me to believe that a few simple FX within a merge scene would render the app useless such that the developer decided to not allow FX in merge scenes altogether. At the very least, it would be desirable to allow even just a few FX in merge scenes (3? 5? 10? Only certain types of FX?) rather than just cut them out of merge scenes entirely. Or even allow FX in merge scenes completely and provide a warning statement saying placing channels with FX in merge scenes may lead to undesired results and allow the user to accept all responsibility of their actions. I know why the developer placed this limitation in the app (I myself am a software engineer), but c’mon, we’re going to limit FX in merge scenes entirely? I feel like we can do better...
There were a couple other minor annoyances and defects in the app like a prompt displaying twice for linked channels and the “amber” color not supported in a color wheel, but at least I have workarounds for those or they’re not “major” functionality lost. Regardless, I have an app that only half-works. My opinion is that a $100 app should be much, MUCH better.Show lessKyle_Ross
Litecloth dmx
Can’t get Litecloth to work? How can it be added? Not listed under profilesShare47
Great app, but could use more “smart” features
Love all that Luminair can do! And so glad it includes Hue lights. I’d love if it could include more smart lightning control, for example Lutron Caseta. It works great as house lighting, so if it could be controlled via Luminair then it would be even more useful for affordable/lower budget and amateur event spaces.Show lessBHudson85
Decent Program
The concept is great. As a DJ, I wanted my light tech/ assistant to control the dmx lights with the iPad from the audience perspective.
My background is I have successfully used/programmed simple slide fader DMX controllers since 1998 starting with the Martin 2518. I am knowledgeable, but not necessarily an expert.
My setup is an Apple wireless network connected to an EntTec ODE hardwired to the DMX network. I was able to use EntTec’s diagnostic tool (NMU) to verify the ODE would transmit DMX commands to the lights My major issue was getting Luminair to communicate to ODE.
The other, nearly equally important, issue was setting up fixtures for easy navigation for on-the-fly changes. Luminar is great for scenes and sequences. I watched the instructional videos and they helped, however probably needed more personal guidance. Since my setup is mobile, there is not an easy way to program the scenes before hand without setting up the entire show (2+ hours). Yes, I like to deliver a larger DJ lighting program at private events. A minimum of 4 moving heads, 6 LED PARS on 14 feet of Truss on 13 foot crank up stands.
I have since switched to using a computer software program with a simple visualizer. It allows me to program in the comforts of my own home without setting up the entire show.
I have a close friend who uses the old Luminair version and loves it. I wish I could gift him my Luminair app so someone could get good out of my purchase.
My 2 cents. I hope this has helped you make an informed purchase.Show lessBracken DJS
Little choice for this kind of app
I have been using Luminair for years and it has its limitations - not as much controllability or customization capability as some pc apps, it is only one universe and definitely has some quirks - but it works! I can control my lights relatively well from my iPad and this app saves me having to use wired controller or having to bring my laptop to each show.
However, I was annoyed that I had to pay full price to upgrade to the current version 3 having only purchased version 2 one year earlier and that once I did I could no longer use my iPad.
I then had to purchase a newer model iPad because there was too much response latency caused by the larger bit size.
Add to that the cost of the ArtNet DMX dongle and it hasn’t been a cheap set up BUT the reliability and convenience has been great.Show lessDebzdoodle007
Crashes a lot, poor midi implementation, poor support
I will admit that I am frustrated. But the app crashes about 4 or 5 times an hour. Often when you create a new sequence and forget to change it from looping to linear. It just keeps running with no chance to stop it and then eventually it crashes. I shouldn’t have to but I know how to work around it. Just change it immediately to linear or add ‘fade in’ and hold times to the scenes so you have a chance to stop it.
My biggest pet peeve is that it changes the number of parameters and worse, the midi signal that is supposed to trigger a sequence or a scene at will. I spent 3 weeks creating 150 scenes for a Pink Floyd show and now that I want to trigger them via midi (I bought the add on) there is complete chaos. They know that the app had this problem for over a year and have not addressed it. I makes controlling via midi absolutely useless.
Support is sketchy at best. Been waiting for about a week for a response now.
Documentation is incomplete. There may be features hidden somewhere that would mitigate the issue but not all options are documented.
I don’t care about $100 and then some that I wasted. I do care about 3 weeks of time and doubting myself that I did something wrong. I didn’t. I can only guess that the 4.8 stars are from people who only ply around but for professional work this is not recommended. I will make it work somehow for the show we have planned because it’s too late change the app now. But that will be the last time.Show lessTomXair18
