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воскресенье, 5 июля 2015 г.

Meet Beam


Meet Beam Beam can turn any flat surface into a big screen. It is a powerful projector equipped with a smart computer, all inside a beautifully designed casing.



You can play games, watch movies or share content from your smartphone or tablet. Beam will assist you in your daily activities, like wake you up in the morning with the latest news and your agenda or show you your social updates when you come home.

Beam is easy to set up and control with the Apple or Android app. You can screw it into any light socket or use the included power cable to place it on any flat surface.

With Beam we created an easy to use internet of things device that can entertain and assist you throughout the day, perfectly integrated in your home. The technology inside Beam is so unique that we decided to patent it. Patent Pending!


What can I do with Beam?


These are just a few examples but there’s a lot more that you can do!

With Beam you can watch TV on your bedroom ceiling, play games using your phone or a Bluetooth controller, project recipes on your kitchen counter, stream content from your network drive, listen to music through its speakers, play projected board-games on your dining table, show a presentation or even use it in a restaurant to show the menu and turn the walls into digital paintings.

Because Beam is running Android, you can use any app available in the Google Play Store. You can of course control Beam with the app on your Apple or Android device.

If this then that
You make the rules, and Beam will follow your rules without question! You can tell Beam to do what you want it to do when something you define happens.



You can choose or even combine the following IF’s and THEN’s in any way you want.



There is no maximum of IF’s you can combine to trigger a THEN.



Join our competition — Let us know in the comments what IF’s and THEN’s you would like to see, we will add the best ideas!




How to use Beam

Just download the Beam-app and you are ready to go. The Beam-app controls every aspect of Beam. You can use it to control Beam and do things like set up your IF’s and THEN’s. Everyone at home will have a personal home screen to easily start their favorite activities.

The Beam-app will be available on iOS and Android. You can also control Beam with the buttons on it or with bluetooth devices.

Let's talk hardware

We created Beam to be as versatile as possible. Everybody will be able to use it how they want, in every room of their house. Beam has the following specifications:
E27 to Bayonet adapter — We will include a free adapter for all our Backers that live in a country where they use Bayonet light fixtures!

Connectivity — You can connect any device to Beam, such as mouse and keyboard, game controllers, WiFi and Bluetooth speakers, smart watches etc.

Instantly — Beam is powered via the light socket and always connected to the internet, it can instantly project anything you want. Besides using the Beam-app, you can also push the button on beam to start projecting or turn on the LED Light.

LED Pico projector — To give you a good feeling of the brightness of the projection in different situations we took some photos with our mobile phone.


LED light — We added LED light to Beam, so you don’t have to worry about your current light layout.

Design

Nowadays technology is pushing itself into every corner of our lives, mostly trying to make things better. But that doesn't mean our house should look like a Borg cube. Instead we took great care to create a designed object that can earn its own space in every room, without being noticed on a first glance. Our team designed a product with a modern minimalistic look. It feels like a modern lamp, but when you look closer you notice there is more to this lamp than you thought.


Next to screwing Beam in your existing light sockets, you can match Beam with any light socket cable you want. Combine Beam with a subtle anthracite cable or go all the way with the included yellow one. It's all up to your imagination and personal taste.
Rewards

Stretch goals
The more Beams we sell, the more awesome the version we ship to you will be! So help us: share, tweet, write a blog post etc, all help is appreciated!



Project Development
For over a year we have been working on Beam, which evolved from a wild idea to the product you see right now.


The idea of Beam is born during a brainstorm session in March of 2014 with the thought ‘what if we could make a projector that you could screw in your light socket’. The next month we evolved this basic idea to a full product concept, by brainstorming, discussions and having meetings with various experts. Soon after, we formed the Beam-team and started working on the first prototype.



When the technical details were defined we had all the information to start designing the look and feel of Beam. The design of the Beam that you see today was completed in November. In the meantime we started the development of the iOS and Android apps and the software on Beam itself.




Timeline


Meet the Beam-team!

Beam is what happens when you put talented and passionate engineers and designers in one room. Our team has many years of experience designing connected devices, award winning user interfaces and innovative concepts.

Thomas de Wolf MSc. and Guust Hilte MSc. are the teams inventors and can create any device they come up with. They've even created an aquarium on wheels that is steered by fish, go figure. Combined they have more than 20 years of product development and engineering experience.


Marten de Jongh, Jeroen van Geel and Sophia Altekamp are the creative side of the team. Over the years they have worked on product and UX design for clients ranging from international airport Schiphol to Rijksmuseum Amsterdam.

Don Molenaar is responsible for keeping the team flowing and to make sure we don’t have too much fun with Beam, but he actually makes sure it’s finished. With his years of experience working for Ubisoft, he is also the one with the sales and marketing knowledge to bring Beam into the retail shelves.

Why we need you
We need you! And no, we're not just saying it. We really need your help. Without your support we can’t start the production of Beam and tie up the last loose ends in development. We have been working hard to create the best product possible and we want to release it to the world ASAP! We have finalized the prototype and now we need your help to get the production volumes up to get the prices down. It’s that simple!


Shout out to the developers!
We created Beam with the vision to be a completely new product category, enabling users and developers to do things they were not able to do before. Because Beam is running Android you can use the existing IDE and tools to develop. Combine that with the fact that Beam is always connected and you have a great platform for development. No need to learn any new skills, but still the possibility to create truly new and innovative apps for a brand new platform.


Although we believe in the uniqueness of Beam, we need your support to bring Beam to an even higher level. Therefore we’ll make sure you have access to its various functions and controls when building apps for Beam itself. We will also make the connection to smartphones into an easy to use protocol so you can build your own control apps for iOS, Android or any other operating system and we’ll even let you specify your own IF’s and THEN’s to make it react to specific devices, commands, notifications or events.


We’ll make all of these tools and manuals for developers available on our website in a later stadium. But don’t wait for that moment! Let us know your awesome ideas on hacking@beamlabsinc.com and we’ll let you know if we can find a way to enable you to make it!



Risks and challenges

When Beam gets ready for production, there most likely will be some minor changes to improve the final product (probably because of your feedback). But just to be clear, these minor changes will be for the benefit of you, “the Backer”!

Sometimes things happen, things that are out of our control: a supplier knocks over our shipment during transport, they go bankrupt or a machine breaks down, etc. This could cause a delay. Because of this we have a second supplier for the most crucial parts of Beam. Just to prevent the delay that could be caused. We want you to have the best quality Beam ASAP!

One thing we will definitely do from the beginning to the end is to keep you posted on all developments, positive or negative, we will let you know!