EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn., July 30, 2009 — It may sometimes seem like the program content on your television is utterly mindless, but it turns out to be devilishly difficult to counterfeit it. A new burglar deterrent device, FakeTV, does just that: FakeTV produces exactly the same sort of light your television does. The idea is that when a burglar sees the light from an operating television shining through the curtains, he probably thinks that somebody is home and that he should move on to an easier mark. For the trick to work, and to leave no telltale signs that might tip off the crook, FakeTV has to be a near-perfect imitation of a real television.
FakeTV was invented by author, engineer, and inventor Blaine Readler. One evening when Blaine was leaving the house, he turned the television on to keep the burglars at bay. It occurred to him that all the would-be thief would see was the light the television cast through the curtains, and that most of the energy that went into making the picture was wasted. He set out to make a device that made just the light, not the picture. Blaine worked with the optics experts at Opto-Electronic Design, Inc. to measure exactly what sort of light real television programming produces. Romantic comedies, for example, are brighter but more static than action-adventure dramas. News programs tend to be monochromatic, and animated features are colorful and dynamic. Commercials explode with color and intensity changes. Blaine and the team programmed a computer to control super-bright LED's to produce exactly the sort of light produced by all of these genres.
FakeTV, the product that resulted from all of this effort, is about the size of coffee cup, and costs under $40. A built-in light sensor and timer turns FakeTV on at each dusk to run for either four or seven hours. True to Blaine's green objective, FakeTV consumes about one percent of the power of an operating television. Most important, viewed from outside the home, FakeTV is essentially indistinguishable from the real thing. FakeTV is effective burglar repellent because when you see a light from an operating television, you usually simply assume someone is watching it. Burglars usually make the same assumption. FakeTV is a trademark of Opto-Electronic Design, Inc., and the device is protected by issued and pending patents. For more information, visit http://www.faketv.com or call 1-888-621-5800.
For high resolution images, visit http://www.faketv.com/pressrelease
Contact:
Rein Teder
President
Opto-Electronic Design, Inc.
888-621-5800
Email
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