The tiny Instagram projector | Hacker News Reader

The tiny Instagram projector

getprojecteo.com

70 pointskumar30358 comments

The really cool thing about how digital technology has changed the world is that by the time you buy this dumb plastic toy and just 9 of those little wheels, you could buy this pico-projector and project all of the pictures you'll ever take.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B001L4L7AQ/ref=mp_s_a_1_8?qid=...

Non-mobile link:

http://www.amazon.com/Optoma-EP-PK-101-Pico-Pocket-Projector...

Optoma EP-PK-101 Pico Pocket Projector ($114.99)

Much better. Thanks. On my phone, on the road.

Hopefully not driving

Or a mere £191 if you're in the UK.

Wait, what?

Thanks. I never understand why websites don't do this automatically - especially big ones like Amazon and YouTube.

When visiting a URL and they detect that you are on mobile, they send you over to the mobile URL. Why not do the opposite when they detect you aren't?

In fact, why have a separate URL at all? They should be able to serve up the same content from the same URL for web or mobile or whatever device.

Except it's three times more expensive.

And anyway, I really don't think guys at Projecteo are aiming at those in the market for a portable projector. Yeah it is a borderline toy I guess, but that doesn't mean it's 'dumb'. Seems cool as a quick little gift for someone, it has that charm/novelty factor that everyday people will like.

No need to dismiss it solely because it's technically inferior to a serious $130+ device, they're both aimed at totally different people.

I wouldn't generally use the word "dumb", but I think the argument the two of you should really be having will be answered by the market (I hope they've done research). I would never buy one, but how many people will?

And is this a serious attempt at another revenue stream or a way of adding customers to their user base?

I see your point. I guess I don't really see anyone buying many extra photo disks beyond the one or two required to make this into a funny gift for someone.

I've been trying to put my finger on exactly what this brings to mind. I think I have it. This is "singing fish" level technology.

I totally agree, I just thought calling it dumb was a bit harsh. It's maybe a little bit steep considering the novelty factor, and I would never buy this for myself, but I imagined it making quite a good gift for someone I really didn't know what to buy for a birthday/event.

by the time you buy this dumb plastic toy and just 9 of those little wheels

Wheels are $9 each. $81 + $26 = $107 for 81 photos (9 wheels, 9 photos each) vs. a projector that can connect to anything with composite output.

I think if you are planning on buying this in order to display 81 photos then clearly it is the wrong product to choose. That's the point. I'm guessing the typical person that this will appeal to will buy a wheel or two at the most, use it a few times/show their friends, then once the novelty wears off it gets shoved in a drawer.

I can only see myself every buying one pico-projector for myself.

I can see myself buying several of these - both projectors and discs - as presents and gifts.

I bet these folk will get a way bigger profit margin on my purchases than the projector peeps will too.

The really cool thing about this tiny film projector is, once you've bought it and a couple wheels, you have an excellent, thoughtful gift. Buying someone a pico projector and suggesting they use it to display those special Thailand pictures just doesn't have the same meaning.

You are dismissing the emotional factor; I think this is a fantastic gift. It is most certainly easier to send someone a free "e-card", so why are good old "dumb" paper greeting cards still in vogue?

If you're going to get a pico projector, do yourself a favor and grab one of the MPros from 3M; I reviewed a few when these were in vogue and the Optomas (edit: actually, not those but the laser-based Microvision PicoP ones) had a shimmery effect due to their projection method. The MPros cost a bit more and are a bit chunkier, but still fit in your laptop bag easily and produce a better image IMHO:

http://www.amazon.com/3M-Pocket-Projector-MPro160/dp/B00452V...

Some people work hard to reduce waste and pollution in society.

Others choose to do this.

ahaha. Kinda true.

Lol, true, true. Everyone who buys one of these things will end up sending them to a landfill soon enough.

One of the phrases that changed my world view was "waste in transit".

You know those dollar stores full of crap toys, plastic bibs and bobs, screwdrivers that will strip after two uses, etc?

All those things are on their way to the landfill, they just happen to briefly pass through someone's house first...

I'd be a lot more inclined to believe it if I saw photos of the images being projected on a wall. Somehow I don't believe that tiny projector will look too good.

I very much doubt that the projector is of high quality or that the projected images would look very good. But if you're an Instagram user you're probably not extraordinarily picky when it comes to viewing high quality, high resolution images anyway. :)

I'd say that Instagram is perfect for its medium. The photos look great on my phone. They even look good on my tablet. But blown up? Perhaps not.

You can kind of see in the third video here:

http://projecteo.tumblr.com/post/49179591369/projecteo-instr...

i picked one of these up as a kickstarter backer and i was also 100% skeptical of the quality, but it's actually quite good and, more than anything, endearing.

the caveat of course is that the size and scale of the projector means you're not going to project from yards away, my best results were about a foot and a half away in a dark room, but at that scale, i was impressed at how well the photos resolved.

I will be reminded of how completely out of touch I am with reality these days if this does well. That said, I somewhat jokingly predicted this trend previously. With the explosive growth of digital information and electronics, I think we'll see a renaissance of analog, mechanical, and otherwise "physical" things.

Perhaps sometimes people don't want everything to be electronic/digital? Example: digital photo frames.

Lomo did pretty well for a while.

Instagram itself shows people want broken analogue style things.

Digital photoframes + instagram style filters might be popular?

We are using this as part of a physical escape-the-room game. Its a great prop, good price, and has a hidden puzzle whose meaning is in the images. Much more interesting than a screen with a slideshow, and enforces order which a bunch of printed photos wouldn't do.

Sure. And, reading my comment again, I can see how it might be seen as a little negative. To be clear, I think this is an excellent idea. I believe the pendulum has probably swung a bit too far in the "everything must be digital" direction and people are starting to crave analog alternatives again. To me, this sounds bizarre, being a child of the 80s and all, but I can see how this trend totally makes sense for most people.

At Hackday Paris in 2011 (48h hackathon), the winners among 49 teams were a group of three, who made listening to music a more haptic experience again. They called it NoiseBox, but they seem to have abandoned it: http://noisebox.herokuapp.com/. It was a cute hack and won, because it combined hardware, software and some magic.

I liked it very much, but then, why not just go straight to vinyl for the experience? See also: UK vinyl sales up 78 per cent in 2013: http://www.nme.com/news/various-artists/69832

This is a lot like a project I have been working on: https://github.com/thomasrynne/swisher which uses cheap RFID readers and a raspberry pi. Does anyone know how this one works?

Re vinyl: It takes longer to choose a song, records can get scratched and take up more space. My intention was to try to make the best interface to play music. Now that the media is digital there are less restrictions on the physical interface but I think tangible items associated with each track/radio station is still good.

Awesome!

I currently use an RPi running xbmc to handle all my media playback.

For videos I have no concern about plonking down on the couch and having to "drive" through the menus to get something playing, since I'm going to sit there and watch it anyway.

For music.... it bugs me greatly. xbmc has a wonderful interface and I have album art set up for my music collection, but since I'm normally putting music on because I'm doing something else (cooking, cleaning, juggling, workout, etc) having to "drive" through menus annoys me so much.

A set up like this is exactly what I need. Thanks!

    That said, I somewhat jokingly predicted this trend previously. With the 
    explosive growth of digital information and electronics, I think we'll see a 
    renaissance of analog, mechanical, and otherwise "physical" things.

I've also mentioned this to people, however, not jokingly but in all seriousness. I think it might have something to do with engaging the senses. The more senses you can uniquely engage, the stronger your connection to something will be. Vinyl records, for example, are doing nothing but exploding. I have all of my music in digital format for listening on the go, at work, etc., but there's something special about pulling a record off the shelf and out of the sleeve, setting it on the turntable and dropping the needle on it. It's more work, but you're rewarded handsomely for that work.

Agreed. I sure do miss the pictures, artwork, liner notes and hidden track bonuses that came with my CD purchases.

It's interesting the throwback trend to the old slide projectors.

A friend of mine has an app for iPad and AppleTV that mimics the old slide projectors called "The Carousel" (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/carousel-slide-projector-for...). Basically, it uses the iPad like an old slide projector (complete with the chunk chunk sounds, visuals, and controls), and then "projects" the slides to AppleTV (which is then made to look like a projector screen). And I believe it also streams the pictures from Instagram, but I'm not positive.

Screenshot: https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/553590_359166274...

This is a very cool app. Carousels always remind me of this poignant bit from mad men: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suRDUFpsHus

That scene was actually the inspiration for the app (if you notice in the photo I posted, it's actually the first image from the Mad Men presentation).

Why Instagram only? Their blog links to a Kickstarter update that explains that, but it is for Backers only.

Just better marketing really. Obviously there isn't any technical reason why it is

Probably because Instagram has a third party api that allows printing and other services to access photos easily. And as pointed out instgrammers are not "pixel peepers" so a low quality projector image is not going cause complaints.

(I am a pretty happy instagram user at acomjean)

The company, Mint Digital, also prints Instagram to magnets - StickyGram http://mintdigital.com/portfolio

That still does not explain why they chose to offer their services only to Instagram users when accepting a pic directly uploaded to their site(s) is a fairly easy task. They suggest a work around of just creating an Instagram account. But I don't want an Instagram account. OTOH, I don't want their projector either. A magnet I could use... but I can get those lots of places that don't require an Instagram account.

Very cute.

But very 1970s?

I mean copy picture to usb stick, put stick into TV or DVD player?

It is arguable that, with the filters and square photos, instagram is also trying to emulate the past.

I think the traffic that this post is generating is totally throwing off their launch_email campaign stats... The link above is to:

http://www.getprojecteo.com/?utm_source=Projecteo+site+sign+...

I have no doubt that, given the proper marketing, the cute factor will make this a trendy gift for one holiday, either Christmas or Valentine's. But it's definitely one of those neat little things that could get its 15 minutes and, for a bunch of folks, be hidden in a box somewhere as a small reminder of the weird shit we did along the way.

I think I'm getting hipster overload with this idea.

Always good to see a new physical product on the market.

All is well but I decided not to part with $35 for this product - simply because 9 photos are there forever and you can't change that.

If you had a web interface where 10 of your photos could be selected and then projected, now that's what I'd be willing to pay for.

I'm sure it'll be a success though.

That's exactly what they've built, look at 'Create a wheel' - you can get new ones for $8.99

I'm not so sure it'll be a success. The price point of $9 for 9 pictures is very high. It's understandably so considering the effort involved, but as a pure value-for-money trade I feel it's too high. A lot of of their targetmarket will probably try it out but it might soon die out after the novelty wears off.

Love the idea. I bet having a video showing people what it looks like in use would increase conversions by a significant number.

Or it'd send conversions through the floor if it looks like crap (tiny cheap battery-powered LED bulb...)

This is awesome, the companies other projects look cool too [1]. I remember seeing their other project foldable.me on kickstarter, I wonder why they didn't take that route this time?

[1] http://mintdigital.com/portfolio

I would love to have something like this for doing impromptu presentations. But unfortunately I do not hold many presentations under a blanket. Seriously, how usable is this in daylight? Or is this just some 10 sec "ha, that's nice and now what?" gimmick?

I once had half a plan to do make a Kickstarter campaign for a portable vinyl recorder (dictaphone style, except wildly impractical) to troll hipsters. I wonder if this is similar.

How about View-Master format? :-)

Actually, that's not a bad idea. Anaglyphic or polarized 3D would be cool, too.

That's not a tiny Instagram projector, that's just a tiny projector.

This is as much cute as useless.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com