Lasers pointed at things on the ground and not pilots are perfectly legal.
Sorry for your outrage, no “idiots” to be found on this side.
“In the two known incidents, the homeowners were simply asked to adjust their displays”.
The horrors!
4 Likes
You’ve been spending too much time with Edmund Scientific. 
15 Likes
I dunno, this just seems like a “fuck it, you want lights, here’s lights” sort of thing. Granted I haven’t seen it on a tree, so I am curious how that looks, but in general the ones I have seen look pretty meh.
I am not really worried about dangers. Everyone keeps their curtains shut to keep out peepers and drones - and drone peepers. And it is just a couple lasers being split up by the film that diffracts(?) the laser into several smaller, lower powered beams. And considering many of them move some, I doubt it would hurt anyone. Plus, you know, they test for things like that in the sue happy US.
ETA - I got it - this is like laser glitter…
7 Likes
Virtually everything less dangerous than a nuclear weapon is “perfectly legal” under the right circumstances.
I don’t think he’s betraying an unreasonable amount of outrage to call the people who deliberately point lasers at planes “idiots,” but then I’m not that invested in laser Xmas lights.
1 Like
That’s right, they’ll fine you $11,000 per pilot blinding (hmmm my projector seems to project a bajillion lights, that could get expensive fast.)
For pointing your X-mas blinding lasers so they blind drivers on your street, mail/delivery people or wandering dog walkers… It’s all free baby! (At least until the class action suit.)
Also, I tried pointing it up into the tree in my yard but didn’t get enough spread on lights to cover the whole thing. All in all a bit of a disappointing effect.
1 Like
It’s the last point. Your $100 projector isn’t designed to be used outside in the cold but smaller boardrooms and certainly not for 5 hours at a time. You’d need to build a custom enclosure with forced air to get air in while keeping snow and rain out. And then you need to secure it, because some people would prefer to suddenly source their own backyard projector for the summer from your front yard in the winter.
If you wanted to buy a new one every year you could, but I’ve only looked into doing image mapping for Halloween, the problem being that it’s a lot of work for only one night.
5 Likes
I’m with her and I’m now stealing that phrase.
2 Likes
We got one. It works nicely. It comes on only after dark and doesn’t dance until morning but remains on for some reason.
We have a dog that will chase laser pointers like a cat, but he doesn’t seem to notice this thing much, even though it shines in some windows.
The beams look very cool with precipitation.
I wouldn’t use one to help me get something out of someones eye, but it seems safe enough.
3 Likes
What’s really great about this is that I live under the approach to a major international airport, and can just leave it pointed up into the sky and watch jetliners sail into the mountainside. I’ve had mine for barely a week and already killed thousands of travelers! Definitely would recommend.
23 Likes
you should place The Safe on said mountainside
15 Likes
I encountered these for the first time last year, while walking home from a party, full of “Xmas cheer” if you will. Took me a bit to work out what was going on. Saw them sober this year, did not disappoint.
3 Likes
I used one or two of these suckers last year, pointed at my house from atop the hedge at the front of our property. Worked well enough, but yeah, walking out of the house could be disorienting. I don’t think it did any lasting damage, but who knows… I might have a few “dead pixels” on my retinas that weren’t there a year ago.
4 Likes
Do you know if the projector works like a short throw projector or does it really only work best when it’s at a distance from the home?
Not that i would use one since i rent an apartment but i’m just curious 
They’re lasers, aimed from a ~4"-diameter canister, and the spread is more or less optimized to cover a… oh, I don’t know, maybe a 40 degree cone? When ours was set around 25’ from the house, the dots would cover most of the house.
But the lasers are pretty weak. You could light up the house across the street, but the dots would be fairly dim and far apart.
Edit: I dunno, never took it apart, but I assume there’s just one or two lasers, and a whole bunch of wee mirrored surfaces. And some of the ones this year are motorized to move in kaleidoscopic patterns. Ours from last year was static. You could switch between red only, green only, or both.
A static diffraction grating creates the pattern, or one that moves in the motorized versions.
1 Like
I see you succumbed to the blitz of TV’o’mmercials?
Waaaaaait a minute. Didn’t you swear up and down you bought this contraption last year? And now you’re encountering it for the very first time and your wife is pretending to be all surprised again?
2 Likes
Now that is impressive.
Then there’s the dubstep christmas light trend…
3 Likes
Because each laser beam is split into thousands of component dots, each dot is actually quite weak. It’s been calculated that the maximum distance where one of these could actually interfere with vision is 411 feet. If there’s a plane flying 400 feet from your house, you’ve got bigger problems than Christmas decorations.
That said, the beams can still be seen from the sky, and a pilot might report that someone is attempting to laser aircraft, and you could get a visit from the authorities, asking you to adjust your lights.
5 Likes
On the topic, since my GEs busted, is there any fun semi-interactive or hackable LED set I should be looking into?
Is there a community or review site for lights?
I’d think there would be…
1 Like
