Celluon Magic Cube Projection Keyboard - First Look

That only will not think up for convenience of travel. There are really some things that for many reasons I can not be pocket. Where to put the keyboard? Not the same as on mobile phones, not the same as on the screen of an iPad or iPhone, but at least a notebook - if it is easy to fight with the thickness of the device, then the length will not go anywhere. Therefore, the human mind came up with a device that creates a keyboard on any surface, and he himself is quite compact and fits in your pocket. Name is such a thing - a projection keyboard.

Such a toy made by Celluon, whose office is located in China, came into my hands. The idea is protected by several patents in the USA, Hong Kong, South Korea and China.

This is what this device looks like. There are three very important organs on the front panel: a laser projector (top window), an optical sensor (in the center), and an infrared generator (at the very bottom). The principle of operation is very simple - the field generator issues it to the surface, the laser projector, when crossing the field, causes the lines to glow according to the stencil in the projector, and the optical sensor reads the touch of certain areas of the field, transforming this touch into a keystroke.


The reverse side has two vital elements - first is the power button. There is nothing unusual, a simple switch, when you turn it on, the keyboard lights up and you can get to work. Do not forget to turn off after you have finished, the battery lasts only for 3 hours, then you have to turn to the second element - the mini-USB connector.

Charging the keyboard, I think you can call it that way, usually with a USB-mini-USB cable. There is no charge level indicator, so you have to use the sensations. Near the nest is a switch that has two positions - HID and SPP. These are two different Bluetooth profiles, each of which is good in its own way.
HID - Human Interface Device - does not require installation of drivers, works great with iOS, Windows, Android, but has limited configurability and allows you to support only one connection.
SPP - Serial Port Profile - works with Blackberry, Palm OS, Windows, but does not work with iOS. Requires driver installation, allows you to use Active Pairing and switch between multiple devices.
I used the keyboard in HID mode and “paired” it with the iPhone and iPad. Both Apple devices grabbed the projection keyboard on the fly. Compatibility issues were noted.
In low light conditions, it only becomes more convenient to work.


What are the thoughts and desires that awakened this thing in me? Well, firstly, the absence of any Russian letters. The stencil contains only the English alphabet, which means we are waiting for devices for the Russian market. By the way, the layout switches to Russian without any problems with the Ctrl + Space combination. Secondly, 160 minutes of the declared work is not enough, for example, the iPad has much more capacious batteries, which means that you will be left without a keyboard at a certain moment. The third point is the price, a really expensive toy is very expensive. In the Russian retail it can be found for 12 000 rubles ... This is more than half the cost of the simplest iPad. Of course, the device is new, of course geeks will not stand for the price. Although it is possible that when a large retailer is lucky such devices in large quantities, the price will drop significantly.