Beam: Turn any Light Socket Into a Smart Projector
An exciting new product aims to turn any standard light socket into a Bluetooth connected Smart projector, intended to assist in all your day to day activities.
Imagine watching Netflix from your paired phone on your bedroom ceiling, projecting a recipe onto a cabinet in your kitchen while cooking, or viewing digital photos on a coffee table. Enter Beam, a smart projector that uses any light socket, or its own power cable, to project a digital image on any surface and run essentially any app available via connected Bluetooth or wireless device.
But more than a simple projector, the Beam app features a unique “if – then” feature which allows for specific information to be displayed at specific times, and in specific situations. For instance, a connected Beam projector installed in a bathroom fixture can be programmed to display a calendar on the wall containing your daily agenda pulled from a cloud based calendar, at the same time every day.
Maybe the Beam smart projector connected in your living room will display the traffic report and weather for you based on time of day, or perhaps you desire the same YouTube video to play when you get home every day; with the Beam you make the rules.
Although you can use the on board buttons to control the Beam smart projector, you may also connect all sorts of devices to your Beam, a wireless keyboard, game controllers, Bluetooth speakers, or smart watches, and increase the functionality and accessibility of the device.
Imagine screens positioned throughout your home or office displaying all manner of information, and you’d be close to the world envisioned by the designers of Beam. They wanted to make sure that you can leave the Beam smart projector screwed into a light socket without affecting your existing lighting layout, so they have included an LED lighting source that turns the Beam into a standard lightbulb, rather than just a digital projector.
The Beam smart projector uses the Android operating system, has a 1.3 GHZ dual core processor, 8 GB of onboard memory, and Bluetooth 4.0. The projector itself checks in at 100 lumens, and is rated for 20’000 projection hours. The entire unit looks like a modern lamp, cleverly concealing the technology within, and the device is able to project up to a 120 inch wide-screen, and even has a couple of small on-board 2-watt speakers.
While in standby mode, which means the unit isn’t projecting an image, it only consumes about 6 watts, and 10 when the project is on, about half that of a conventional TV. Once you have seated the unit into a lamp socket, the projector itself can then be oriented and adjusted by 180 degrees. If you chose to lay the Beam smart projector on its side, using an available cable, the outer case has a flat side to keep the projector from rolling about.
The device is cooled using a low RPM ultra-silent fan which makes very little noise during operation, and they have several plug designs available to fit the various styles of lamp plugs around the world. BeamLabs Inc has finalized a working prototype and are currently seeking funding on KickStarter to ramp up production, while scaling back costs by purchasing and constructing the units in bulk
