Handheld projector

Handheld projectors involve miniaturized hardware, and software that can project digital images onto a nearby viewing surface.

The system comprises five main parts: the battery, the electronics, the laser or LED light sources, the combiner optic, and in some cases, scanning micromirror devices.

An important design characteristic of a handheld projector is the ability to project a clear image on various viewing surfaces.

[1] Insight Media market research has divided the leading players in this application into various categories:[2] Various manufacturers have produced handheld projectors exhibiting high-resolution, good brightness, and low energy consumption in a slightly larger format than pico since 2008.

However, most handheld LED projectors, as of December 2017, have been widely criticized for having insufficient brightness for everyday use in a normally lit room.

In 2011, Texas Instruments DLP announced improved chipsets that enable brighter images, and LED advances were such that pico projectors using that technology were also increasing in brightness.

In 2014 Texas Instruments DLP's imagers occupied a significant portion of the handheld projector market share.

However, high speckle noise along with thermal instability in the image remains a major challenge, primarily due to the pumped green laser.

[12] Lisa Cowan from UCSD showed a proof of concept of gesture recognition using shadow-occluding of the projector, called ShadowPuppets.