About Interactive Projectors

Placement and therefore projector throw is an important factor.  Ideally interactive projectors should be ultra short throw, as that class of projector is designed not to blind the presenter, be it a teacher or a student.  By mounting on the wall right above, or on a table below the screen/whiteboard surface, only inches from the wall, the user is not blinded by the light.   Next best are very short throw projectors, with their lenses typically 3 to 4 feet out from the wall/screen.  These too, can be mounted directly to the wall, rather than the ceiling, which has the benefit of being a simpler, less expensive installation, always a good thing.   While generally interactive projectors are expensive, there are exceptions.  Consider the Viewsonic in this year’s report (the PJD6544W).  It is a pen based, well below $1000 interactive projector.  One cost saving feature is that it’s standard throw, not ultra short throw, but it is a good example of bringing a good interactive capability to schools at a lower price point.

The interactive capabilities and ease of use are the other major factors.  Today we have interactive projectors that range from the ability to use a single pen, to those supporting multiple pens at once, and we’re just starting to see those projectors that don’t need a pen, that react to finger touch.  (I recently saw in Japan, a projector, the Epson Brightlink 595, which uses finger touch – very fast and precise), and supports up to 8 touches at once.  The demonstration used two pens and six fingers –all working at once, and tracking across the full screen area, rather than each being limited to a specific quadrant or area.  It worked, and worked well.  We had hoped to review a Brightlink 595 but they still weren’t available. We did manage to review a pre-production Brightlink 585 instead. Very similar but pen based, no touch.

More recently tablets are being used as interactive tools.  As you can imagine, it’s a whole different thing to be sitting back drawing on a tablet, and having it appear on the projected image, than standing up there and drawing directly.   Generally, I would think at this point, that the pen is still mightier than the tablet, but an iPad or android tablet adds to an interactive projector’s range of capabilities.