Pocket projectors: PIQO and Philips PicoPix Max

[PowerGod]

What do you think about this ?


This thing seems pretty cool, but I'm not sure to understand how indiegogo works... it claims that "13814% funded on January 27, 2019"...

BUT I only see that in all the perks, only 2 were claimed ?! How is this possible ?

 

[levi]

What do you think about this ?

I can't click on igg links from here; they don't render in any way I can programatically derive the url from, so I had to search for it; that flagged up this as the second hit:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/stop-the-projector-scam-now-backers-read-below#/

It claims it's a rebrand of this: https://item.jd.com/8683050.html , although to be fair I can't find the resolution in that stream of japanese text.

More reading:

https://www.reddit.com/r/shittykickstarters/comments/a9y5jz/weird_behavior_from_piqo_projector_regarding/

Edit: Oh yeah, one of the graphics on that japanese shop says 1080p. I can't find a price yet though.

 

[FBnil]

I can't find the resolution

1024p (it's an image with lots of other properties)
[doublepost=1555954556,1555953749][/doublepost]I'm not really convinced this is a scam. It does not claim 4k. It has 200lumen, which is, well, a cheap flashlight, now a days (which is not much, because that is white, and movies are in colours, so you need to have a dark room to see anything, at no more than 60 cm from the wall/projectionsurface.

Like looking at a pandora on the beach... meh, barely visible. (also, lots of sand gets in). At that price you get a palmtop or tablet, and see the movie on that.
May be fun for a Lego drive-in movie theater...

also: does it have a heatsink? Because without fan, you need a heatsink... or you watch 30 minutes, then wait for it to cool down, then watch the rest?

 

[rygD]

Might be hard to see what is projected if it's in your pocket.

 

[levi]

1024p (it's an image with lots of other properties)

The text says 1280x800, but that might be the HDMI out, I'm not sure.

I'm not really convinced this is a scam. It does not claim 4k. It has 200lumen, which is, well, a cheap flashlight, now a days (which is not much, because that is white, and movies are in colours, so you need to have a dark room to see anything, at no more than 60 cm from the wall/projectionsurface.

also: does it have a heatsink? Because without fan, you need a heatsink... or you watch 30 minutes, then wait for it to cool down, then watch the rest?

As you say, 200lumens can be produced with only a few watts using white LEDs; it's equivalent to the old 25W bulbs or thereabouts and in the LED space, a couple of watts should cover it. I don't know off hand the power requirements of a TI DLP, but can't imagine it's much more than the backlight, and the CPU on that japanese shop at least is a multicore A9 based chip, I think it said, which you generally measure in mW, not Watts. You can dissipate 3-4W in a 2x2x2inch cube relatively easily in my experience; you might need a bit of bent aluminium acting as an internal heatsink, but nothing more.

 

[PowerGod]

In that page there are these images. Could it be an heat sink the piece over the motherboard ?

Spoiler: construction

Also there is a comparative table with other similar devices.

The Philips or SONY ones have so low lumen... are you sure 200 is really low ?

Spoiler: comparison

EDIT:
I had a look at the comment section and for now people are just asking a lot what accessories are included in every package, and seems there is some trouble understanding that...
Anyway the creator is responding to most questions in a believable way.

Also someone asked if they copied some other project, and the response was that others copied their product.

 

[levi]

In that page there are these images. Could it be an heat sink the piece over the motherboard ?

Looks like a good box to put a fan in. Which matches up with the vent holes on the site of the last drawing there. Are they saying somewhere it doesn't have active cooling?

 

[PowerGod]

the only thing I can see that refers to cooling is this image, anyway is really needed a fan with an ARM processor like this ? Isn't it used also for smartphones ?

Spoiler: images

Also, about the lumen, they say this:

Brilliant, cinema-quality colors and deep blacks deliver strong contrasts while staying sharp at up to 240 inches thanks to Piqo’s 200 ANSI lumens of projection power. Whether it’s day or night, you’ll enjoy an HD viewing experience in stunning clarity.

With 200 ANSI lumens, Piqo surpasses all other mini-projectors on the market with superior picture brightness and unbeatable contrast levels and clarity so every seat is the best seat in the house.

 

[levi]

Hah, 200 lumens good enough to view pictures under daylight viewing conditions? As I mentioned above, 200 lumens puts it in the bracket of 25W in terms of old fashioned light bulbs if that's your measuring stick, or about 2W if you speak LED. Full sunlight is apparently around 100000 lumens per square meter, so to have a similar amount of light coming out of this thing you'd need to make it emit an image that's 1/300inch corner to corner to compete with that amount of light, and you'd still only get 1:1 contrast meaning your black levels are terrible for your microscopic image.

 

[PowerGod]

In the end I fell for it, I want to use it in the dark anyway, and are too many years that I'm searching for a "low-cost" projector... so I took the chance, because if it does at least the half of what is promised, it is still pure gold for my use case.
I'll keep you informed.

And yes, I had a read to all the threads around the internet that shouts it is a scam, so I take this as a bet.

EDIT:
This is the most fair campaign-review I have seen for now
https://www.gismoreview.com/piqo-projector/

EDIT:
I also found a similar alternative called "THE NEBULA CAPSULE II" with almost the same price and small factor.
It has specs a little inferior, but it's made from a more trusted house because the first model is already in the market.

 

[levi]

Yeah if this really does have 200 lumens when its competitors have about a quarter of that, it should make it easier to make a room dark enough to use. The only real caveat is that this seller has a history of pulling specs out of thin air, so how bright it'll actually be remains to be seen.

 

[PowerGod]

Yes, I have seen also that at the beginning they told it had HDMI-in but then changed this, then told that the tripod was included and then told it must be bought alone after the campaign, etc...

But well all of this things could be useless to me anyway, I can use even a cardboard to make a tripod, I won't even connect it to the internet, so I don't even mind about the Android version...

There's a thing that I'm not understanding well from a graph anyway, the "screen mirroring" with a PC is shown as an alternative to HDMI... so I'm wondering how it could be connected... (maybe it's an Android-App thing ???) (Ok, it is called Miracast or WiDi and is an hardware functionality that must be present in the PC and is a software functionality that is present in Windows from 8.1)

Spoiler: connections

The only function that I really hope is working right is what they call "keystone angle correction", that makes the image square even if the projector is a little angled.

 

[___]

...
The only function that I really hope is working right is what they call "keystone angle correction", that makes the image square even if the projector is a little angled.

pretty sure that at this size, keystone correction will be done in software only. big professional projectors usually have an optical/mechanical solution for keystone correction, but that doesn't fit in such a small box. so you might be looking at some picture resolution loss there, as the picture needs to be reduced in size, skewed and then scaled up by the software. the shittier the angle, the more you need to correct. not a problem usually, unless you expect to set it up in an unusual way. so just try not to use that feature if possible.

at such low prices, I wouldn't expect great quality from this toy, but it is pretty cool nonetheless. I got myself a cheapo chinese mini projector last year, it was only 50 bucks. The picture is absolute crap, for 50 euro it's totally fine. I can take it to our yard and watch a movie with the neighbours without worrying about the device too much. thats all it needs to do.

 

[PowerGod]

I got myself a cheapo chinese mini projector last year, it was only 50 bucks. The picture is absolute crap, for 50 euro it's totally fine. I can take it to our yard and watch a movie with the neighbours without worrying about the device too much. thats all it needs to do.

Do you know the lumen value of that ? Just as a reference.

I will not put the device in extreme strange angles, I just think about putting it on the bed or surfaces not exactly plain as a table... so I suppose something less than 30°...

By the way, seems like the first batch will be dispatched the next month... but I suppose to be in the third batch, so maybe for 3 or 4 months I'll have to wait (and maybe look at some unboxing reviews, I hope).

The order numbers seems pretty high compared to the numbers I see in the indiegogo page, so I suppose they are taking orders even elsewhere.

 

[___]

hmm they claim something like 1500 lumens but I doubt that is anywhere near the real brightness. As others have said before in this thread, 200 ansi lumen is really dark. You will need at least 2000 ansi lumen to be able to see a movie with ambient daylight in a room. Of course the distance to the screen matters a lot too, but you will use the projector for short distances I guess anyway.

 

[PowerGod]

Oh, I though you had a LED projector too

 

[___]

Oh, I though you had a LED projector too

it is an led projector, which is why i doubt their claim of 1500 lumen brightness. but thats what you get for the price: a toy projector and a lot of chinese marketing "inaccuracies" (or lies if you wanna nitpick ^^)

 

[Hellfleck]

well looky what someone on Reddit found : https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Mini-Cube-Shape-Portable-DLP-Smart_60818779177.html?s=p

and judging by their specs it says 50 Ansi Lumen only also no HDMI port ...

they even offer a customized logo at the correct position

 

[PowerGod]

Yeah, it was already known months ago, so many people asked to the devs, and they answered that it is not their product.

As a note for everyone, PIQO is ONLY available in Indiegogo at the moment. If you see other sites selling this, please let us know. These are definitely knock-off items and infringing our rights

The shipments for the first batch seems started, after some days people should receive something and everything will become clear.

 

[Hellfleck]

wish you luck on that one but the specs on the "knock-off" are actually very reasonable compared to the ones the campaign claims ...

backed the other horse btw, my Capsule II should arrive this week, will let you know if 200 Ansi Lumen is even useable or not (my living room beamer has 2000 which is kinda on the low side these days) - hope it is not just bright when it is stamp sized ...