A few years ago, new, innovative pico projectors, influenced by one of the TI development kits, started appearing in Kickstarter projects and other various DIY endeavours. Those projects fizzled out, most likely due to the cost of the projectors, but we got a few laughs out of it: that wearable smartphone that projected a screen onto your wrist used the same technology.
But there’s a need for a small projector, a pico projector, or in this case a femto projector. It’s the Nebra Anybeam, and it’s a small projector that uses lasers, and it comes in the form of a Raspberry Pi hat. We would like to congratulate the team for shipping the ideal use case of their product first.
The key features of this pico projector address the shortcomings of existing projectors that can fit in your pocket. This uses a laser, and there’s no bulb, and the power consumption can be as low as 3 Watts. Power is provided over a micro USB cable. The resolution of this projector is 720p, which is sufficient for a quick setup for watching a movie, but the brightness is listed as equivalent to 150 ANSI lumens, about the same as small projectors from a few years ago.
But of course the big selling point isn’t the brightness or resolution, it’s all about the smallness of the projector itself. There is a developer’s kit, a Pi Hat, a fit-in-your-pocket version with an enclosure, and a ‘monster ball’ version of the Anybeam.
They don’t specify what the distance is for that lumen output. Double the distance, quarter the output too. I’m also trying to figure out how 30 ANSI lumens is equivalent to 150 ANSI lumens when using a laser vs a bulb…
It doesn’t work quite like that. Lumen output is lumen output, regardless of distance. But yeah, the larger area you spread those lumens over, the lower the brightness of any given spot.
I’m aware it doesn’t work like that. I’m quoting their literature on the Kickstarter page.
Hey this is just another groupbuy innovation… AnyBeam HD301M1-H2 is the consumer version and the “prototype” is just a reference design / devkit called Ultimems HD301A2-H2. Looks like Ultimems is module OEM and AnyBeam is the marketing intermediary.
Both are in production from what I can see, but as extra salt to wound, the devkit version is readily available in my country for roughly $199(throws cookie error once, just reload) http://akizukidenshi.com/catalog/g/gK-13766/
Remember, Kickstarter isn’t a store, you’re providing investment funding in return for rewards.
Looks like they’re funding the production of the pi HAT and “monster ball” versions using the existing products. At least that means there’s a fairly high chance of this product shipping if it gets funded.
Yep. Not revolutionary in either the technology or the price.
Maybe won’t be a scam then…
Well out of the two major kickstarter models, “impossible vaporware” or “repackaged tchotchke from Chinese OEMs” I’d be a lot happier pledging to the latter as you can be reasonably sure that *something* will actually ship.
Reported this to Kickstarter, since it violates their rules: “You cannot resell products”.
Doesn’t violate rules as there is new stuff. Only violates if nothing new. You are allowed to resell stuff on Kickstarter if there is a new or updated element. Many people do it
Seeing too many warning bells. This is going to get funded but not by me. The concept is great and I hope the reality is the same (if not better!).
Good luck.
What bells, if you don’t mind me asking? I’m more just curious about what to look out for, not trying to contradict you.
For one thing, their Kickstarter video is massively plagiarised from the original Chinese AnyBeam YouTube video. It’s basically a shot-for-shot ripoff.
Plagiarised implies they aren’t working together (which they state in the campaign that they are)…
Also, go watch any video about a projector. They all are very similar
I disagree. It’s a product based on existing modules and technology, so there’s actually a fairly high chance of this one shipping. Laser projectors have been around for years (I have one on my desk) and this is making modest and plausible claims about the performance of the technology.
Would love to see these and IR bolometers both halve in price soon. But as far as that wrist projector smartphone thing–afaik that used only the technologies of Photoshop and After Effects. There was no working prototype for that concept, and likely no credible plans for how it would work. That thing was pretty pipe-dreamy.
Hope the projector pans out and becomes more commonplace. I got to play with lots of prototype smartphones at an old job, and there were a few with extremely impressive laser projectors, but the best ones didn’t make it to market yet. Probably will roll out and get far better and cheaper in the coming years. Wonder if they’ll have any uses in XR–is direct retinal projection (at extremely low wattages, obvs) a real thing or just something from science fiction?
Yes, it’s a real thing. The difficulty is getting the photons to enter your eye from a wide enough FOV to be competitive with other NEDs already on the market.
Problem with microbolometers is the inherent expense of complicated, delicate and low yield processes. Moreover it has to have a hard vacuum contained inside the FPA shroud. They’re slowly refining the process and it won’t be long before the chinese OEMs have non ITAR cores in glorious 30+ HZ easily available.
Wow first time I have seen inside a pico projector, Interesting how big the driver circuit is compared to the actual optical elements as well as apparently being the primary heat source not the laser diode… or at least that is how it appears.
What’s with all the “ugh, warning bells going off”, “just another fake kickstarter” bs? That TI development kit the article was talking about was a Beagle Bone cape for their low-end projector development kits years ago (and still available) and it looks like the specs are believably improved. Typical march of progress. (https://www.electronicdesign.com/embedded-revolution/building-embedded-dlp-projector-99-and-beaglebone) This doesn’t look like the usual kickstarter scam fare. Judging from their actual kickstarter page, it looks they’re not just repackaging an existing dev kit and are building their product around it. You know, like many other successful products do…
I found this from the following Taobao link. FYI.
https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z0k.7628869.0.0.72581b38BkEtF6&id=567261898957&_u=t2dmg8j26111
sorry, missing the link in the previous post.
They say in the campaign they are working with Ultimems but have made changes to bring it to a Western market and CE and FCC test…
Could someone please tell me how the focus free feature is possible with Laser light source while it’s not with regular LED light? Thanks
Short, imprecise answer: with regular light sources, light rays travel out from the source in all directions, so the farther away from the light source you are, the more spread apart any two rays are. To counter the spread of the rays for use in things like projectors, a lens is used which causes them to change from travelling away from each other to travelling toward each other, meeting at a particular point in space which can be chosen arbitrarily by changing the distance between the source and the lens; i.e. focusing the image. With a laser, the rays are all travelling in the same direction, so any two rays will be the same distance apart no matter how far you are from the source. For the purposes of projecting a video, the width of the laser beam is enough resolution, so a lens isn’t needed; thus ‘focus-free’. (For things like laser engravers, a focusing lens is used to bring all of the energy contained in the beam to the smallest point possible.)
Hope that helps!
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