Optoma came to CES to “make 4K [home] projectors more accessible in price points and also in different form factors,” said Jon Grodem, senior director of planning and strategy.
In doing so, the company launched new products that:
- lower Optoma’s opening price on 4K UHD home projectors to $1,499 from $1,999 with a new lamp-based model.
- unveiled its first 4K ultra-short-throw laser projector for the home and targeted its price at $4,999, well under the industrywide opening price of more than $20,000 for such models Grodem said.
- demonstrated a prototype of a standard-throw 4K LED-light-source projector based on new Philips LED technology that brightens LED output from previous LED generations while maintaining LED’s laser-like 20,000-hour light-source life while delivering a broader color spectrum than either laser- or lamp-based projectors, Grodem said.
Here are the details:
Watch: 10 Things You Might Have Missed At CES
$1,499 4K
The $1,499 4K UHD50 uses a lamp light source and a Texas Instruments DLP chip to project a 4K 3,840- by 2,160-pixel image up to about 140 inches. Lumen output is 2,400, down from 3,000 lumens for the $1,999 lamp-based UHD60, launched in mid-2017 as the industry’s first 4K consumer projector below $2,000. When the UHD 50 ships at the end of January, the price of the UHD 60 will drop, probably to $1,799, said Grodem.
Features of the new model include HDR 10, 500,000 contrast ratio, RJ-45 for integration with IP-based home-control systems, Rec.2020/DCPI-3 wide color gamut, and two HDMI 2.0 inputs with HDCP 2.2 support. It will be available at Amazon, BestBuy.com and Fry’s Electronics for an estimated street price of $1,499.
4K UST Laser
The company’s first 4K ultra-short-throw laser projector for the home, due in midyear, is the 4K UHD HDR Laser UST, which the company is targeting to price at $4,999 to bring the industrywide opening price for such models down from more than $20,000, Grodem said. The device projects images up to about 120 to 140 inches but delivers a 100-inch image at a distance of 8 inches from a wall or screen. It features 2,300-lumen output and 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio.
4K LED
Optoma demonstrated a prototype of a standard-throw 4K LED projector based on new Philips LED technology, called high lumen density (HLD), to brighten output to 3,000 lumens, well above previous generations of LED home projectors, Grodem said. LED delivers the benefits of laser’s 20,000-hour light-source life while delivering a broader color spectrum than either laser- or lamp-based projectors, he added. The projector uses TI’s 4K DLP chip to project 4K 3840 by 2160-pixel images. It will be available in September or October. More details weren’t disclosed.
4K with Alexa
Also new is the industry’s first projector controllable by voice through an Alexa-equipped smart speaker, Grodem said. The $1,699 lamp-based 4K UHD51A delivers the same performance as the $1,499 lamp-based 4K UHD 50 but adds Alexa skills and a 4K media player. It ships the end of Q1.
Via skills based on Amazon’s API and custom skills created by Optoma, users can use voice commands to replicate the top 15 commands used on Optoma projector remotes.
Both the UHD 51A and UHD 50 have Android-based operating systems, though not the Android TV OS, for a faster time to market, Grodem said.
