Holographic Home Assistant Display

Description

Home assistants are cool, but somehow visually boring.
So I thought, why not just give my voice control a face and then display it as a "hologram".
The whole thing is based on the principle of retroprojection, so that an image can be created on the matt pane. It should also be low cost and with material that anyone can get or make.
Now Alexa and Co look like the 21st century :)

Project Logs

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A few different optical designs
Alain Mauer • 06/23/2021 at 18:06 • 4 comments

I'm still trying a few designs to get more light output from the 3 Watt LED.
At least I've got the hang of building projectors with resin lenses that work right away.
First ever holographic projection
Alain Mauer • 06/18/2021 at 10:02 • 2 comments

The flickering is due to the fact that my prototype runs on an Arduino Nano. The result is still amazing.
Then I can now turn my attention to the housing
Prototype ready
Alain Mauer • 06/16/2021 at 13:15 • 0 comments

Prototype is finished. Now I hope that everything works as I have imagined it.
First CAD Design of the UST-Projector
Alain Mauer • 06/14/2021 at 13:04 • 0 comments

This is the mirrorless version, for the projection tests.
Isn't that a crazy optical setup for a projector?
Alain Mauer • 06/12/2021 at 12:04 • 0 comments

But is seems to work. Next step, is the projection surface.

Very short projection distance, at maximum magnification.
The Projector Lens
Alain Mauer • 06/11/2021 at 07:06 • 0 comments

I experimented with some loupes and VR lenses, but was not satisfied with the results.
So I tried epoxy resin. I managed (by accident) to make a lens with a focus point of a few mm. The first results with this lens are promising, even though it no longer covers the whole display and I can now only use 128x128 pixels. The distortion caused by this lens gives my hologram a special touch. I hope :)
I held the lens directly in front of the eye and the camera directly on the other side. And the picture is not bad.
The Projector Part
Alain Mauer • 06/08/2021 at 07:55 • 0 comments

First I develop the lighting for the LCD display. The display is an ST7735 chipset with a resolution of 128*160 pixels.
I use a 3W led as the light source. It should be bright enough for my project and will not generate too much heat during continuous operation.
I also need to make a pre-lens out of resin to focus the light onto the display.

Here is the first test setup.