We’ve seen many innovative projects crash and burn at the crowdfunding stage, but the Photon Matrix is one that has successfully made it to market. According to the company’s last Indiegogo update, it has started mass production of the anti-mosquito device and expects to ship the first devices later this month. You can also now purchase the Photon Matrix Infrared and Blue Laser Mosquito Air Defense directly from its website, so you don’t have to be an early supporter to get one.
The Photon Matrix has been a long time coming; it entered the crowdfunding stage last July. It promised to shoot down bugs within a six-meter radius across a 90-degree horizontal scanning plane. While it uses a laser beam to strike down mosquitoes, it uses LiDAR, mmWave radar, and an AI vision module to detect targets between 2mm and 20 mm in size moving at or below 3.3 feet per second (1 meter per second).
The manufacturer’s test videos suggest it's quite effective at shooting down these pesky bugs. Nevertheless, we want to see this product in the hands of independent reviewers and how it performs in the real world. If it works as intended, the Photon Matrix Laser Mosquito Air Defense unit could be a game changer for homes and hospitals, especially in places where mosquito-borne diseases remain a major threat to public health.
This gadget costs a pretty penny, though. The infrared laser version, designed for homes, costs $988, while the blue laser version, which is ideal for industrial use, costs $100 more at $1,088. There are also questions about the safety of using a laser device that can shoot down mosquitoes in close proximity to humans (especially human eyes), but the Photon Matrix has passed stringent certifications to ensure that it will not harm people, pets, and even birds that happen to fly across the device’s target range.
People have been thinking of ways to control mosquitoes for hundreds of years, especially since it was discovered that they are vectors of certain diseases that have killed millions. While chemical-based pesticides were somewhat helpful in keeping their numbers down, they also negatively affect human and animal health. This makes the mosquito air defense system an excellent alternative, as it protects only the area where it is deployed and doesn’t use noxious chemicals.
Another user has been building their own system using lasers, a DSLR, and an AI model to build their own mosquito zapper, although this is just a prototype and will likely take a few more years before it can compete against the Photon Matrix. We also saw an autonomous micro-drone that serves as a combat air patrol against mosquitoes with a range of 26 feet. While this might sound like a fun, novel solution, it will likely be noisy and quite disturbing, making the Photon Matrix a more practical solution for fixed deployments.
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