Lumen is a new dating app that targets people who are over 50. It is a platform where the over 50s can meet “genuine like-minded singles” for quality conversation and connection.
Let’s face it, singles who are over 50 do not need any bullshitting. This is because they’ll mostly be persons who have formerly found love and lost it (separated, divorced, or widowed); but even if never married, in the golden age of 50 and beyond, people deserve all the love and happiness that a loving relationship can bring.
Yes, Lumen is legit. It is not a scam dating site because you will be provided with any services you paid for without a problem. And they will never steal your money or credit card details.
The big question is whether Lumen actually connects over 50s singles and foster quality conversations. Why should someone choose Lumen over the other online dating platforms for mature dating? In the first place, is Lumen legit? This review will examine Lumen in order to provide the information that will help you answer these questions and more.
Lumen is a new player in the dating spheres; it was launched in the third quarter of 2008. Though the dating service itself is new, it is powered by persons with a ton of experience in online dating. Its founders are Andrey Andreev, Antoine Argouges, and Charly Lester.
Argouges was a former product developer for dating apps, Lester is an expert in the dating industry. While Andreev is the founder of Badoo, that with over 350 million users globally is easily one of the biggest dating apps. And when it comes to targeting a particular audience, Andreev also knows a thing or two, because he is also the founder of Bumble which is female-focused and Chappy which is specifically for same-sex relationships.
Speaking on what inspires Lumen, its founders say that though there are “mature dating” sites in the market, they are largely “dull and boring” and do not appropriately address the concerns of the over 50s; but that the generic dating apps are even worse because of evidently being ceased by the younger generations. Thus, there was a need for a dating app specifically designed for the over 50s. Apps are definitely more exciting to use than websites, and limiting access means there is no chance of the service being ceased by a more energetic group. Lumen came out like that – a dating app, specifically designed for the over 50s.
Background – Overview
Lumen is strictly a “Seniors dating service”. It clearly advertises as “the dating App for over 50s”. Thus, to register, create a profile and use Lumen, you must be 50 years or older. However, we got thinking: if 50 is the minimum cut off point, what is the maximum cut off point? Centurions?
Though that information is not stated anywhere in the website or app, we found that when searching the membership base of Lumen, you can only search for singles between the ages of 50 – 65. Thus, it’s safe to say that persons over 65 years of age will not be accepted.
Also, whether you are a male or female user of Lumen, you can search for men, women, or both; which means that Lumen is LGBT friendly. Lastly, Lumen founders say the app is “specifically designed for over 50s to meet genuine like-minded singles”.
Who is it for – Overview
Lumen is legitimate. It is not a scam. You should ask the “legitimacy” question of an online platform. This is because with many scammers parading cyberspace, if you use anything but a legit platform you will be ripped off, or worse. There is no doubt that Lumen is legit.
Our first test of legitimacy is usually legality; and Lumen ticks that box. Lumen is owned and operated by Lumen App Ltd., which is a duly registered Company in England with company number 11481021, and with registered office at The Broadgate Tower, Third Floor, 20 Primrose Street, London EC2A 2RS. In the least, this means that Lumen is 100% legal; and we know from experience that legal service providers are more likely to be legit.
Another test of legitimacy is visibility or industry recognition, and Lumen also ticks that box. Lumen has been featured by A-list publishers and industry followers such as Marie Claire, BuzzFeed, Daily Mail, the Telegraph, BBC, Evening Standard, Forbes, Woman & Home, Metro, and more. Suffice it to say that a scam dating service cannot gain the recognition of such high profile industry watchers and followers.
The ultimate test of legitimacy is “fitness for purpose”. Let’s face it, it wouldn’t mean much that a dating service provider is legal or widely recognized if it does not serve its primary purpose – which is to help its target audience find love. Thus, a dating site’s “fitness for purpose” can be measured by its success in connecting its target audience. Dating Sites publish success stories to prove their legitimacy in this regards. Lumen does not have any success story published in its site. It should be remembered that the site is very young, and does not serve a generic audience. In our digging, we were able to find a few stories of good friendly relationship struck from Lumen. While marriage stories have not surfaced, that the platform has connected persons for good friendships shows that it is “fit for purpose”.
That said; that Lumen is 100% legal, recognized by reputable industry followers, and has successfully connected some singles give confidence that it is legit.
Lumen is safe. A legit service that will not rip you off is not enough in this world of phishers. To use an online dating service, you’ll have to submit personal information and credit card details; there are lots of criminal elements out there intent on getting their hands on this information. Thus the ideal online dating service should be safe in protecting the information that users share with it.
Lumen does well in this regards. In its privacy policy, Lumen says it has implemented appropriate security measures to ensure that, when using its services, users’ data is secure. Though the details of these measures are not given, we’ll suspect that it includes technical protocols that first encrypts data and then relays it through a private channel when users’ devices are communicating with the servers of Lumen. We can also take confidence from the fact that Lumen has not suffered a data breach. It’s safe to say that Lumen is safe in protecting its members’ personal and transaction data.
In dating platforms, another perspective of safety is the service being free of fakes and scammers. This is a no-brainer, as you won’t want to have “members” who will prey on others. As highlighted in this review, Lumen checks this box better than almost every other online dating service out there. With its phone verification, multiple photo requirement, photo verification, auto location generation, et al, Lumen weeds down fakes/ scammers to near zero.
Lumen says that the platform is changing the way over the 50s date, and you can see that right from the signing up process.
After downloading the Lumen app; you’ll have to create an account. The first piece of information you’ll need to supply is your telephone number. However, you don’t need to worry, as that information will not be displayed to members. Interestingly, the phone number supplied will be verified; a number code will be sent to the number, which you’ll have to supply before you can move to the next step. Following that, a page opens asking for your first name; the next page asks for your sex, and then another that asks for your date of birth. Then you’ll have to state your occupation; and if retired, what you did before.
After that, you’ll state what you are looking for in a partner. Then you’ll have to give a brief description of yourself. What we love about lumen is that in this field, the app simplifies everything by directing the user so that he/ she does not go squabbling on about superficials and missing the mark. How does it do this? Just below the “Tell us a bit about yourself” prompt, they add: “What are your interests and hobbies? How do your friends describe you?” With that, you know what about yourself you should write. Thus, the app helps the user to focus the self-description on his/ her interests. However, if you choose not to write anything, there is a “skip” button, which takes you to the next page.
That is where you’ll have to add photos. Lumen makes it compulsory to add photos to your profile. So you cannot see photo-less profiles in Lumen. Also, every user must upload at least three photos. After the uploads, there’s a photo verification page, where you’ll have to take a selfie. If your face in the selfie isn’t clear enough, or the photo does not match the three photos you uploaded, or there is more than one person in the selfie, you’ll fail the photo verification stage, and you cannot proceed with account creation.
After your photos are verified, the next page is to get your location. However, unlike other dating services in the market that require a user to supply his/ her location, with the Lumen app, your location is generated automatically by your phone’s GPS.
After your location detail is obtained, your account is created; then Lumen opens up a small tutorial. You can skip this if you know your way around dating apps. It is not that the workings of the app are difficult to figure out, but it doesn’t hurt to get a heads-up. The short tutorial will briefly show you how to use the app, especially how the four tabs (discover, favourite, message, and profile) of the app works.
Signing Up – Overview
The profile is your most important weapon in the online dating spheres. It is the first “you” that other members see, and it is what these other members use in making up their mind whether they should initiate communication with the real “you”. That said; the dating platform should allow for profiles to communicate everything about the user.
The profiles in Lumen app aces it in this regards. A typical Lumen profile is made up of four distinct parts.
On the whole, the profiles of Lumen will satisfy its users (who are all senior citizens). In the generic dating services, the detailed user information in profiles includes a description of appearance (such as height, eye colour, hair colour, body build, etc). But, all of these criteria are absent from the Lumen profiles. The main user information section in a Lumen profile is the “About me” section; and as mentioned earlier, during registration, Lumen directs you so your description of self focuses on interests, ethics, values, etc. Thus, Lumen profiles focus on users’ interests.
Lumen is appealing not just because profiles give quality insight into its user, but because profiles in Lumen are more likely to be true than profiles in any other dating platform. That is, we doubt if there will be fake profiles and scam profiles in Lumen; and if there are any, they’ll definitely be very few.
Some of the things that influence our position are the platform’s policy on profile photos and location information. Lumen makes profile photos compulsory; so there cannot be profiles without photos. Let’s face it, anyone who is serious about finding a “special someone” on a dating site should have his/ her photos on display. Thus, photo-less profiles are, most often than not, profiles of scammers or fakes. Thus, making the upload of photos compulsory weeds down the fakes/ scammers. However, Lumen does not stop there, the app requires not just one photo for the profile, but at least three. This further weed down the fakes/ scammers; because only die-hard scammers/ fakes will produce three different photos (with their faces) in different settings.
Interestingly, Lumen doesn’t stop there. The app aces it with its photo verification; where each person registering must take and upload a selfie using the phone’s camera. A member of staff will then compare the uploaded selfie with the three photos uploaded earlier to see if there is a match. The selfie is needed for verification only; it will not be visible to other members, so you do not need to be in photo shoot mode. Even the greatest critic will agree that this photo verification that Lumen does reduces the possibility of fake profiles in the platform to near zero.
We also think Lumen profiles are more likely to be true because of its method of obtaining user location. Since users’ locations are automatically generated, a user cannot be in location “A” and put location “B” as his/ her location in his/ her dating profile. This is another sucker punch to the fakes and scammers who might have wanted to enter Lumen.
Profile Quality
As a member of Lumen, if you log in, you’ll find suggested profiles of singles who are living close to you. This is fine feature, as you’ll readily have profiles to check to see if you’ll find anyone that interests you. However, if you’ll rather find singles yourself, you can use the “Discover” tab to search the Lumen member base.
Like many dating services, Lumen has two search filters – the basic filter and the advanced filter. The basic filter is available for unsubscribed members. It allows you to search for members using sex, age, and distance from you. The advanced filter allows you to search members with any of the following criteria: height, ethnicity, religion, smoking, drinking, eating preferences, and children.
When you find a profile that interests you, you can simply send a message to the user, which also will not be a problem. Interestingly, the Lumen app is designed in a way that encourages quality meaningful conversations. For example, when initiating a conversation, the “icebreaker”, which is the first message you send, must have at least 50 characters. This means that unlike in other platforms where you can open your message box to meet a million Hi’s, in Lumen, you’ll find well-thought conversations.
In the spirit of promoting “quality conversations”, Lumen puts a limit on new conversations per day and puts you on a timer. On limiting new conversations; you can only start a limited amount of conversation a day. According to Lumen, “it’s about making connections that count rather than counting the connections you have”. On putting you on a timer, you have a set time within which messages can be read or replied.
Making a connection – overview
You definitely want a dating service that is easy to use. Lumen also ticks the box in this regards. First, Lumen is an app-only service. They have apps for Android and iOS devices. Thus, you cannot simply use web browsers to access the dating services of Lumen. You’ll have to download its app to your mobile device. However, you don’t have to worry about the apps using too much of your phone’s resources as the apps are lightweight.
The Android App requires Android 4.4 and up and is just 11MB. At the time of writing, in the app store, the Android app had a rating of 3.80 out of 5.00 from over 5,400 reviewers. The iOS app had better ratings; getting 4.00 out of 5.00, but with significantly fewer reviewers (only 838). The iOS was only 13.7 MB, and required iOS 9.0 or later.
Downloading either app is a breeze. With the app on your device, you’ll have to register to have an account. As mentioned earlier, registration is also relatively easy. However, the strict security procedures that you’ll meet during registration (such as the photo verification) may come out as difficult. For example, when testing a Lumen for this review, we grabbed a senior citizen to help create a profile. (However, we always delete our trial profiles, so we don’t leave a “fake” profile in the platform). Everything went smoothly with our registration until we got to the photo verification stage. Our “Papa” took the selfie, but Lumen wouldn’t verify it. After about three trials, it was successful; or so we thought. The app obtained our location, and our Lumen account was created. We went through the brief tutorial, and we immediately could see profiles of singles close to us.
As we were browsing to see more profiles, the app stopped us in our tracks, telling us that our photo verification failed and that we have to take another selfie (which will be used to verify the 3 photos earlier uploaded) before we can continue using the site. Another selfie was swiftly taken and uploaded. To our dismay, the app took us back, directing us to re-upload three photos. Admittedly, the selfie that was taken every time was not very clear. However, the bottom line is that the strict verifications of Lumen may make registration some-what difficult for our senior citizens that the app targets.
However, once registration is done and dusted, using the app itself is a breeze. The brief tutorial that follows successful registration does help. But even without it, you’ll easily find your way around the app. There are only four tabs – discover, favourite, message, and profile. The discover tab allows you to find singles using different criteria (depending on whether you have subscribed or not). The favourites tab allow you to see profiles that were added to the list. Favouriting profiles allow you to quickly check them out at another time. The message tab is where you’ll view all the conversation you’ve had with other members; while the profile tab allows you to view and make changes to your profile.
Ease of Use – Overview
Fee-based dating services (where you have to pay to use the service) are generally viewed as having more prospects. This is because almost every data has shown that fakes and scammers are more in free services than in the fee-based services.
Lumen is a fee-based service. The dating platform has one service plan, which is divided into four subscription packs based on billing periods. There is a one-week subscription pack which cost €7.99; there is a 1-month subscription pack which cost €24.99; there is a 3 months pack subscription pack which works out to €16.66 per month, and there is a 6 months subscription pack which works out to €11.66 per month.
Subscribers to the Lumen service plan will have access to the same features no matter the subscription pack that is purchased; the only difference between any two subscribers will be the length of time the service can be used.
However, it can be seen that users will have better savings with the longer terms subscriptions, as these are heavily discounted. For example, using the monthly pack as a base, the 3 months pack gives a 33.33% cost savings, and the 6 months pack gives about 53.34% cost saving. Also, you’ll find that the pricing of Lumen is very competitive. Coming in at €11.66 per month, it is about the same cost as many dating services in the market.
However, it does not mean that you cannot use Lumen free of charge. In fact, Lumen is one of the dating services that you can actually use free of charge because of its very friendly a free plan (more on this in the next section).
While the free plan of Lumen is friendly (as we’ll see shortly), it is still limited, which means that there are some premium features that can only be accessed by upgrading to the paid plan. What if a user will want to test these premium features before committing to them? Limited free plans do not allow this. That is why some service providers allow free trials, which allow users to test the full features of the service so that they [users] can get a glimpse of what they’ll be paying for.
However, Lumen does not have such free trials. The only way to test its premium features is to subscribe. However, you’ll agree that it won’t be funny to subscribe to a service for the long term only to find out it unsatisfactory. Thus, Lumen has a 1-week subscription pack.
Pricing – overview
As mentioned, the free plan of Lumen is one of the friendliest you’ll find in the online dating spheres. This is because it is relatively feature-packed.
In almost all the other fee-based services in the market, free plans will only allow users to create profiles, and search the member base for singles, while messaging is not allowed. That is, you can view the profiles (often with blurred-out photos), but you cannot communicate with them. On the other hand, the free plan of Lumen allows communication. With Lumen’s free plan, not only can you receive suggested profiles and search for singles yourself, but you can send messages to and receive messages from these other singles.
Free users can also use the “favourite” tool so that they can quickly access persons they are interested in at a later time; they can also use a “rewind” feature to look back at profiles that have been skipped past. This means that users can date fully with the free plan.
However, there are limitations. First, when searching for singles, you can only use the basic filter (that is, searching by age, the distance by you). To use the advanced filter and search by other criteria, you’ll need to buy a subscription. Also, when meeting people, you can only have six conversations in a day. Also, as a free user, every other member you message has only 72 hours to respond to your initial message. If 72 hours pass after a message is sent, it will be deleted from the receiver’s inbox. Lastly, when rewinding to take a second look at profiles that you have skipped past, you can only see the last 10 profiles.
With the limitations of the free plan highlighted, you’ll expect the paid plan to give unlimited access. However, in an approach very different from the other fee-based dating services out there, the paid plan of Lumen does not give unlimited access; it only gives some extras to whatever the free plan allowed.
For example, while the paid plan gives access to the advanced search, it does not open all the search filters. With the advanced search, it’s possible to search singles with the following criteria: Height, Ethnicity, Religion, Smoking, Drinking, Eating, Politics and Children. However, as a subscriber of the paid plan, you’ll have to choose two of the possible eight criteria, that you’ll be using for your “advanced” search. Also, the premium plan does not give you unlimited conversations. You’ll only get 6 additional new conversations a day. On the timer; the premium plan only increases the amount of time a user has to respond to a message by 24 hours. That is, messages will disappear from inbox in 96 hours instead of the 72 hours allowed by the free plan.
The only total freedom the paid plan gives is “rewinding” to look back at profiles that you have skipped past. While the free plan only allows you to look back at the last 10 profiles past, as a subscriber, you’ll be able to look back at every profile you have skipped past. As a subscriber, you’ll also be able to see other users who have added you to their “favourite” list.
Free plan versus paid plan – Overview
Customer support is essential to the success of any service provider. No matter how effectively a system is run, there will be customers who will have questions, those who may have suggestions to improve the service, and others who will have issues. Thus, ideal service providers will provide for handling customers’ questions, complaints, et al. Lumen does well in this regards.
The first step to getting help from Lumen is the FAQ page in the Lumen website. The page holds short answers to many of the questions that many customers will have about Lumen and its services; these include its numerous profile verifications, features of the premium plan, and more.
However, if you’ll still need to contact a support agent of Lumen, the online dating service supports an online contact form and the traditional email service. To use the online form, you’ll have to visit the “Contact Us” page of the website; and there are three sections: Report an Issue; Suggest an idea; and General Question. To use the email service, you only have to send a mail to support@lumenapp.com.
However, we all know the problem with email support services; feedback is not instant. The prompt responses that service providers commit to still take hours, sometimes up to 24 hours. And as members grow, experience has shown that customer inquiry/ complaints grow exponentially, and response timeliness suffers. Thus, most times, it’s only just a matter of time before the timeliness of response from a support service degenerate. Therefore, it is disappointing that there is no support for instant feedback support channels such as telephone and live chat.
Customer Support – Overview
One of the main complaints you’ll find about Lumen is that the paid plan seems to also be “limited”. As highlighted, unlike the other fee-based dating services in the market, subscribers of Lumen do not get “unlimited” access to the service.
Since Lumen’s free plan allow users to dating fully; many have even wondered why they should upgrade to the paid plan, especially when all they’ll be getting is just a little extra on what they are getting already as free users.
While limiting the advanced search tool to subscribers beats us. Limiting the number of daily conversations and having a window for replying messages are all to ensure seriousness in the platform. Why start a million conversations a day, when you can start a few and really pursue these few for something to click? Also, is there any person serious enough to take his/ her date-seeking to an online dating platform that should take more than 72 hours to check for and reply messages?
Another complaint that you’ll find about Lumen is that you can only get few matches in the site. Given that Lumen started barely a year ago, it is still building its membership base. Thus, the dating service currently has a relatively small membership base.
As we say in all our reviews of dating services: “the more fishes there are in the pond, the more likely you are to catch a fish”. Thus, with a relatively small membership base, it’s really not surprising that you may be found only a few matches in Lumen. Being that Lumen kicked off in the UK, and only went international later on, you’ll have better luck (at finding matches) if you are resident in the UK. Also, if you live in a major (populated) town, you may also be in luck.
Pros
Cons:
Lumen is a legitimate online dating site with positive feedback. Though Lumen shouts “over 50” dating, it is not by any means the first mature online dating service. However, all mature dating services are websites. Generic dating apps exist, but the youths have virtually ceased these. Thus, Lumen comes out as the first dating app specifically for mature dating. With apps, the dating experience just got spiced for the over 50 audiences.
Lumen is a very friendly dating app. Not only is it relatively easy to get and use, but it also can be used fully free of charge. This is because it’s free plan allows users to search and view profiles (with photos) and to communicate. Though there is a premium plan that you can upgrade to for a richer experience, even that is priced competitively.
Lumen also lives up to all its promise to “encourage quality conversations and connections”. On having genuine connections; Lumen has strict policies that ensure that only genuine users get registered in the platform. This includes auto-generation of location, verification of phone number, compulsory upload of three photos, and upload of a selfie for verification of photos.
On encouraging quality conversations; Lumen has several rules which ensure that its users write well-thought messages, respond quickly to messages and pursue existing relationships instead of starting new ones. These rules include: icebreakers being 50 characters long, limits on new daily conversation, and limited time for responding to messages.
Thus, in Lumen, you are very likely to find genuine people over 50s, who will be very serious about pursuing a relationship.
However, being less than a year in the market, you’ll find that Lumen does not currently have a large membership base to deliver many connections.
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Gave this a five star review so you all can see,
It’s a site full of bullying cliques the main one being meet and greet beware the princesses and their followers.
Better to use another site as when you complain as is the norm Lumen will offer token gestures but the bullying continues not really for isolation and loneliness unless you like being bullied.
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