EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn., May 19, 2008 — Ever notice the flickering glow shining from your neighbor's windows when they are watching television? Burglars use this as a cue that a home is occupied, so they know to move on to another target. But from now on, many would-be thieves are going to be misled by a new burglar deterrent device, FakeTV(TM). A FakeTV simulates the light output of a television, making it look like someone is home watching TV. A built-in computer controls super-bright LEDs to produce light of varying intensity and color that lights up a room just like a real television does. The light effects of real television programming — scene changes, camera pans, fades, flicks, swells, on-screen motion, and more — are all faithfully simulated by a FakeTV.
FakeTV was conceived by author and inventor Blaine Readler. "My wife and I were going out for the evening, and I decided to leave the TV on so that it looked like somebody was still at home. I commented that it was a shame to waste all that electricity, when the burglars couldn't even see the picture itself, just the reflection off the wall. That evening, my mind kept coming back to this. There had to be a cheap way to simulate a television as seen from outside." Mr. Readler teamed with Opto-Electronic Design, Inc., experts in optics and in high-volume manufacturing.
They studied that flickering glow in detail, gathering much data with sophisticated instruments about the exact nature of the intensity and color variations emanating from a real television. News programs, for example, are far more static than dramas, and commercials more dynamic. A sequence of outdoor water scenes may have a bluish cast, a game show set might be reddish, while an animated sequence might explode with color. Engineers wrote computer programs to simulate all of these effects. Test subjects were unable to tell the difference between the prototype television simulator and the real thing.
The effect of the resulting FakeTV product is uncanny. The gentle pulse, dance, and subtle chameleon-changing colors are uniquely identifiable as coming from a television, even though they are not. The modulated radiance announces, "People home!" This makes FakeTV a remarkably effective burglar deterrent because, unlike a static light on a timer, it looks "alive." Modern televisions turn on with buttons, so it is not possible to put most on a timer. The bad guys generally know this, and for thieves the light from an operating television is an unwelcome sight. FakeTV has been available through several Internet resellers since April, and carries a suggested retail price of $49. FakeTV is a trademark of Opto-Electronic Design, Inc., and patents are pending on the product. 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