New Tech: A Smart Projector That Screws In Like A Lightbulb

February 26, 2015 by Dave Haynes

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Pico projectors have been around for a few years now, offering up a way to do projections onto surfaces using something much smaller and lighter than a conventional conference room projector. A Pico projector costs $200 and up and is not much bigger than a smartphone.

Now there’s a Kickstarter campaign out for a little projector, called Beam, that would screw into a light fixture and use its power source, getting content from a built-in Android media player.

So in theory, you could have a network of projection displays firing off existing or new light fixtures in something like a restaurant. The units have WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0.

There are a couple of issues, however. First, the resolution is just 854 by 480 – so more standard than high def. And second, the units kick out all of 100 lumens. So in daylight, the projected visuals would be barely visible. Based on some of the other photos on the Kickstarter page, the middle image looks a little iffy.

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It could be kind of interesting in darkened restaurants and clubs, and more easily deployed than regular pico projectors.

It also doubles as a regular bulb, which is kinda neat.

More details here …

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