ANALYSIS: SMART TECH TRENDS Home Entertainment
Samsung Premiere 5 projector.
Mounted on a 360° horizontal / 135° vertical gimbal, you can use it to project onto a wall, ceiling or anywhere between. Enthusiasts will find real appeal in its brightness, powerful sound and flexible positioning - and with the VIDAA smart TV platform, there’s always something to stream. Xgimi’s Horizon S Max is another standout in this category. It uses a novel Dual Light 2.0 system (a tri-colour laser combined with LED) to produce 3,100 lumens with excellent colour accuracy. The projector also includes Android TV with Chromecast support and has Harman Kardon powered audio. There’s little doubt Xgimi has more innovation to follow.
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Projectors make a comeback One of 2025’s surprises has been a resurgence of interest in projection. Forget big home cinema models, this new influx of beamers combine portability and compact design with high brightness laser projection.
aesthetic. If you don’t want to project up onto a wall, a clever two-part stand attaches via magnets at either end, angling the protected image downward, activating its novel interactive touch function.
Unlike the PICO
LED models of yesteryear, these newcomers are bright, stylish and genuinely living-room suitable. They also share the same smart TV platforms as mainstream TVs, reducing friction for users, and making their benefits far easier to sell on the shop floor: Google TV, Vidaa, and Android TV, are all standard. Just connect the projector to a home network over Wi-Fi and you’ll be ready to stream movies, binge telly boxsets or start playing games. Built around high brightness, long-lasting laser light engines, these new models are also able to entertain during daylight hours as well as after dark. They even feature decent sound systems, not the 5W sound systems buyers used to be palmed off with. Samsung’s Premiere 5 is easily the most experimental of this new wave. A triple-laser ultra-short-throw model, it can cast a 100-inch image from just 63cm. It also adds a Touch Interaction mode that turns table surfaces into interactive screens, with the right content. All from a chassis not much bigger than a Bluetooth speaker.
Samsung is pitching the Premiere 5 as a hybrid creative and entertainment device. It’s small enough to live unobtrusively on a sideboard or low table, while the tubular chassis and subtle touch controls lend it a premium
Whether consumers embrace the touch- surface concept remains to be seen - I found it can be very surface dependent - but it’s the kind of product that at the very least sparks conversation on the shop floor.
Hisense has also moved into the lifestyle
projection game, targeting a more conventional home cinema buyer, albeit one that doesn’t covet a dedicated theatre. Its 4K C2TUK Ultra packs a Tri-colour 3,000-lumen laser engine, offers IMAX Enhanced certification and Dolby Vision HDR, plus a JBL-designed 2.1 sound system.
The big picture If 2025 proved anything, it’s that display technology will be more varied in 2026 than at any time in the last decade. Consumers will buy bigger premium TVs, but they will also pick up smaller portable displays for kitchens, bedrooms and outdoor use. Micro RGB will challenge OLED at the top end; HDR standards will evolve to take advantage of ultra-bright panels; and compact projectors will continue their unexpected second life. For retailers, the opportunity lies in education
and differentiation. Customers will want help understanding whether OLED, Mini LED or Micro RGB best suits their room; whether a portable lifestyle screen is more useful than a second 55-inch TV; or whether a compact laser projector could replace a conventional set. The message is simple: screens are no longer one-size-fits-all - and that might be the most exciting development of all.
November 2025
ertonline.co.uk
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