Foreo’s new LED panel beams you from across the room like a tiny lighthouse, and it wants to wake you up too

The £269 UFO Advanced LED Lighthouse Panel promises glowing skin from two metres away, plus sunrise and sunset modes for the gloomiest time of year. We have questions. We also kind of want one.

Can we all agree that LED skincare has a slight image problem? Not the results. The results can be genuinely lovely. It’s the process. Either you strap on a glowing mask and lie there looking like a lost member of Daft Punk, or you hunch over a panel at nose distance for 15 to 20 minutes, slowly developing the posture of a question mark. Self-care? More like self-contortion.

Foreo has clearly been there too. The Swedish beauty tech brand has just launched the UFO Advanced LED Lighthouse Panel, and its big promise is that it can treat your skin from up to two metres away. Two metres! That’s far enough to sprawl on the sofa and binge an entire episode of something trashy while your face quietly gets a glow-up.

Oh, and it doesn’t stop at your complexion. Foreo has also given it sunrise and sunset lighting modes designed to help with mood and sleep. Considering the clocks have just gone back and it’s now darker than a Scandi crime drama by 4.30pm, the timing is chef’s kiss. Here’s everything we know.

So what actually is it?

It’s a compact, rechargeable panel that sits on a desk or bedside table and fires light at your face or body. The magic is in the lenses. Most LED panels splurge light everywhere, a bit like a torch with commitment issues, so the further away you sit, the weaker it gets. Foreo has borrowed a trick from actual lighthouses and used Fresnel lenses, those ridged lenses invented to throw a beam across miles of stormy sea, to squeeze the light into a tighter, more powerful stream. According to the brand, that means the panel keeps its full oomph at up to two metres.

Is it slightly ridiculous to deploy shipwreck-prevention technology against fine lines? Yes. Do we love it anyway? Also yes.

The Advanced model is a beefed-up version of Foreo’s existing UFO LED Lighthouse Panel, which packs 89 LEDs and three wavelengths: red, blue and amber. This new one goes up to 123 LEDs and five wavelengths, adding two near-infrared options to the party. Foreo quotes an output of up to 200 mW/cm², 99.9% light purity and the ability to reach up to 10mm beneath the skin’s surface.

Meet the five-strong light squad

Each wavelength has its own job, a bit like a skincare boy band where everyone gets a personality.

• Deep near-infrared (1064nm) is the brooding newcomer. Foreo calls it its collagen light and says it goes deepest of all, targeting scarring and more advanced signs of ageing.
• Near-infrared (850nm) is the dependable one, focused on cellular repair and stubborn pigmentation.
• Red (650nm) is the fan favourite, the classic anti-ageing pick for fine lines and wrinkles.
• Amber (570nm) is the calm, soothing one who tells redness and sensitive skin to take a deep breath.
• Blue (420nm) is the no-nonsense enforcer, sent in to deal with breakouts, oiliness and enlarged pores.

The 1064nm wavelength is the one that made us sit up. You tend to see it on fancier professional kit, and Foreo is proudly selling it as salon-grade tech for your living room. Whether it works as well from the sofa as it does in a clinic is exactly the sort of thing we’re itching to test.

The plot twist: it’s not just about your face

Here’s where things get properly interesting. The panel has two lighting modes that are all about your body clock rather than your pores.

Wake-Up Mode fakes a sunrise, slowly shifting from deep red through warm yellow to soft white. Foreo says the changing light helps suppress melatonin and coax you into feeling alert, rather than being yanked out of a dream by your phone screaming at 6.45am. Sleep Mode does the reverse, flooding the room with a warm, sunset-style glow that tells your brain it’s time to stop doomscrolling and go to bed. (We can’t promise it’ll actually stop you doomscrolling. Nobody can.)

We’ve been quietly obsessed with sunrise alarm clocks for years, so cramming one into a gadget that already lives by your bed makes a lot of sense. Anything that makes November feel less like a punishment gets a warm welcome from us.

Quick reality check, though. Foreo pitches the panel as a circadian rhythm regulator and quotes user survey results claiming 100% of people felt their mood was more balanced, while 97% said they slept better and woke up fresher. Those are self-reported figures, not a medical trial, and this isn’t sold as a certified SAD lamp. If the darker months genuinely get you down, have a chat with your GP rather than relying on a pretty lavender gadget.

What does Foreo reckon it can do?

Foreo says third-party clinical testing over 28 days found a 40.9% reduction in wrinkles, a 37.5% reduction in acne and a 40.7% drop in excess oil. It also reports a 34.2% boost in firmness, a 31.7% boost in elasticity and a 15.5% increase in skin thickness. Then there’s the showstopper: a 114.3% increase in skin radiance in just one month. That’s not a glow. That’s practically bioluminescence.

As with any brand-funded study, we’d take these numbers with a healthy pinch of salt. Foreo doesn’t list how many people took part on its product page, and LED results vary wildly from person to person. The boring truth? Turning up consistently matters far more than any single session.

Is it easy to use?

Refreshingly, yes. There’s one universal button. Press it to switch the panel on, then press again to flick through the wavelengths. That’s it. For more control, the Foreo For You app adds preset treatments, custom settings and step-by-step guidance.

Sessions last up to 15 minutes, and Foreo suggests using it three to five times a week. Before your first go, the brand recommends a quick patch test: hold your forearm about 30cm from the panel for three minutes and check for any redness that hangs around.

It’s USB rechargeable and lasts up to 110 minutes on a single charge, which is a massive leap from the roughly 45 minutes the standard model manages. That’s around seven full sessions before it needs plugging in again. Foreo says you can also angle it towards your body, not just your face.

Naturally, there’s a sidekick. The UFO LED Light Serum is a ceramide-based formula with hyaluronic acid, squalane and centella asiatica, designed to go on clean, dry skin before you switch on. Foreo says it boosts each treatment while strengthening your skin barrier. Do you need it? Probably not. Will it end up in your basket anyway? We know you. We know us.

How much, and where can you get it?

The UFO Advanced LED Lighthouse Panel costs £269 and is out now from Foreo’s website, plus Currys, LOOKFANTASTIC and Amazon. At the time of writing, LOOKFANTASTIC already has it down to £215.20, a 20% saving. Barely out of the box and already on offer? Don’t mind if we do.

For context, the original three-wavelength panel sells for around £169. So you’re paying roughly an extra £100 for more LEDs, the two near-infrared wavelengths, more than double the battery life and the sunrise and sunset modes. That still sits comfortably below Foreo’s premium FAQ LED panels.