LudacusI must admit when I first heard of the LUMOS AURO projector, I was very skeptical. After all, my only first impressions of the projector came from the company’s social ads that went “54% OFF PRE-BOOK SPECIAL” and “AS FEATURED ON XX AND XX”.
You can’t blame me for my skepticism. By a general rule of thumb, good projectors don’t come with a cheap price tag, and projectors with a cheap price tag usually ain’t good cough Nebula Prizm cough. So I dug a little deeper into the company to find out that LUMOS is a local company that was incorporated in 2017 and that the aggressive pricing for its projector seemed to attributed to its direct-to-consumer sales model and that the LUMOS projectors are OEM models that the company made some modifications with the manufacturer. My interest was piqued to see if the projector did indeed lived up to its hyped-up marketing claims.
The LUMOS AURO came in a nicely designed white box that mainly only showed the hero image of the projector and its logos at the side. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that the projectors are sold mainly online and customers who purchase it wouldn’t even see the box till it is delivered to them. But the packaging looked pretty decent with a handle and would probably be a good house-warming gift for your BTO friends.
As an optional accessory, you can also choose to purchase the Rize Stand for an additonal S$55 (usual S$105) when you purchase the LUMOS projector.
In the box, you will get everything you need to get started:
- LUMOS AURO Projector
- Power cable
- HDMI cable
- AV Cable
- Remote Control
There are two versions of LUMOS available:
| Regular LUMOS – S$299 | Smart LUMOS – S$398 |
| Does not support Wi-Fi & Bluetooth. It requires an external input like a laptop/USB/TV box to display content. | Comes with its own Operating System (Android 6.0OS). It is Wi-Fi enabled with Inbuilt Netflix, YouTube, Casting Apps, Playstore & Bluetooth connectivity. |
Specs-wise, both projectors are pretty similar:
| Native Resolution | 1920*1080 (1080P) |
| Brightness | 6000 Lumens |
| Contrast Ratio | 4000:1 |
| LED Lamp Life | >50,000 Hours |
| Aspect Ratio | 16:9/4:3 |
| Projected Screen Size | 50-300 Inch |
| Projection Distances | 1.5-9.2M |
| Short Throw Ratio | 1.35:1 |
| Speaker | 4Ω5W (Dolby Audio Support) |
| Keystone Correction | Horizontal & Vertical ±15° (Using Adjustment Mechanism) ±50°(Using Remote Adjustment); With Zoom function |
| Interfaces | AV/VGA/HDMIx2/USBx2/ Audio out |
| Supply Power | AC100-240, 50/60Hz |
| Consumption | 150W |
| Weight | 3 KG |
| Dimension | 31.3*23.2*10.4 cm |
The LUMOS AURO comes packed with connectivity options. At the back of the projector, you have the power port, WAN LAN port (for wired internet), VGA port, 2 x USB ports, IR receiver, AV, and headphones jack. This basically means you could output the audio to an external speaker or headphones and even connect an external hard disk to play your media content.
There are also some built-in controls on the projector itself to navigate the built-in OS and also to access and control the settings of the projector.
There is also a slide out filter at the side that you can easily clean to improve the air intake of the projector.
And external remote control is also provided which allows you to control the same functions (and more) on the projector itself.
This is quite a nice to have feature, allowing more than one user to control the functions (or select the media/apps) on the projector, especially during a home gathering.
The LUMOS also supports SD card input and also 2 x HDMI input. This basically allows you to mirror any laptops with an HDMI output. The video formats supported are MP4,3GP,AVI,FLV,MKV,MOV,SWF,MPG. Do note that rmvb, mpeg2, vob files are not supported.
You can access your content on your external storage device like a hard disk or SD card by using the media browser. It plays most video and photo formats like .avi, .mp4, .mov, .jpeg and .mpg.
One pain point of using a projector is to use the built-in onscreen keyboard. It is always a nightmare keying in your wifi password or even to search for videos on the YouTube app letter by letter on screen. To solve that, LUMOS supports external Bluetooth devices like a wireless keyboard and also speakers.
Now let’s talk about the most important thing when it comes to a projector – its resolution. The LUMOS features a 1080p Full HD native resolution which is 225% times sharper than normal 720p projectors. Also, the LUMOS has 6000 Lumens of colors, making it 50% brighter than an average portable mini projector. And it shows.
The LUMOS AURO is really bright and sharp. Even without a dedicated screen (I am projecting it against a plain wall), you could see the brightness and the vibrance of the videos. If I have to nitpick about something, I find that the color tone is a little too cool but honestly that didn’t bother me much.
The LUMOS AURO runs on an Android 6.0 OS that basically lets you navigate through the various functions of the projector and also allows you to download apps from the app store (like YouTube and Facebook).
One of the cool features that I really liked about the LUMOS is the ability to mirror your device onto the projector. Simply tap on the AirScreen app in the menu and select Airplay on your iOS devices or MiCast on Android.
So, should you get the LUMOS AURO Projector?
The TLDR answer is … yes. My previous experience with Anker Nebula Prizm was pretty negative with its limited features, washed out colors and dim screen. The LUMOS Auro completely changed my perception of what a sub-$400 projector can do. Friends who I had over recently were also impressed with the video quality of the projector. With people spending more time at home, the LUMOS Auro is a good investment for home entertainment at just S$400.