Samuel Miller
Member
AWOL says the Aetherion series cleared $10 million on Kickstarter within the first 12 hours of the campaign, off more than 3,900 backers, which they are calling a speed record for hardware projects reaching eight figures. Add the earlier Valerion campaign at $10.92M and they are the first brand in this category with two campaigns over ten million. That is a real number and worth acknowledging before I get grumpy about the rest.
Because here is the thing that keeps nagging me. The pitch line is the first laser UST projector to deliver true 200-inch 4K projection. Every UST I have ever set up will happily throw a 200 inch image, that has never been the hard part. The hard part is what the image looks like at 200 inches in a room that is not a sealed cave, because you are spreading the same light output over roughly four times the area of a 100 inch screen. Whatever the specs turn out to be, the physics does not care about a funding record. And 200 inches of UST screen is itself a serious purchase and a serious wall.
The other thing worth saying out loud to anyone about to back this: $10M in 12 hours is a marketing outcome, not a manufacturing one. Crowdfunding a projector from an established brand is much safer than crowdfunding from a stranger, sure, but you are still paying up front for a delivery date and a firmware roadmap that do not exist yet. Early Valerion backers can probably speak to how that went in practice better than I can.
So, to anyone who put money in during those 12 hours: what convinced you? Was it the 200 inch claim, the RGB laser, the price against a retail UST, or just the brand track record?
Because here is the thing that keeps nagging me. The pitch line is the first laser UST projector to deliver true 200-inch 4K projection. Every UST I have ever set up will happily throw a 200 inch image, that has never been the hard part. The hard part is what the image looks like at 200 inches in a room that is not a sealed cave, because you are spreading the same light output over roughly four times the area of a 100 inch screen. Whatever the specs turn out to be, the physics does not care about a funding record. And 200 inches of UST screen is itself a serious purchase and a serious wall.
The other thing worth saying out loud to anyone about to back this: $10M in 12 hours is a marketing outcome, not a manufacturing one. Crowdfunding a projector from an established brand is much safer than crowdfunding from a stranger, sure, but you are still paying up front for a delivery date and a firmware roadmap that do not exist yet. Early Valerion backers can probably speak to how that went in practice better than I can.
So, to anyone who put money in during those 12 hours: what convinced you? Was it the 200 inch claim, the RGB laser, the price against a retail UST, or just the brand track record?
