Lightvert in the UK – a start-up founded by Daniel Siden and a spin out from Haberdashery – has developed a patent pending technology it calls Echo that uses a single line of light, created by a laser (cantilevered from the top or bottom of the reflector) and a reflector up to 200mm wide and up to 200m high, to create an image that appears in a viewer’s eye, exploiting the persistence of vision of the human eye. The image only lasts a short time, which is a static image for branding, but can be captured on mobile devices. The laser scans the reflector and can be limited for safety reasons.
There’s a podcast here to get more detail and a video below to show the concept. The company is developing the technology and has a proof of concept system on its building in the East End of London. It is in discussion to bring out the display with advertising companies in 2017.
In the podcast, Siden said that viewers relate very strongly to the display as, initially they are not sure if they saw something and that can intrigue them. Teasingly, he also said that when you start to integrate with mobile devices there are lots of things you can do.
A disadvantage of the display is that it only works at night, but the company said that its pricing reflects this.
The costs are around £400,000 for complete systems up to 20 or 30m and around double for ‘hyperscale’ sizes.
The company is in the process of raising money for a “C” round that may use crowdfunding platforms.
