FakeTV — 'Makes it look like you are home watching TV, even when you are not'

From the website:

FakeTV — Dynamic and Convincing Occupancy Simulation

FakeTV accurately simulates the light output of a real television.

The effects of scene changes, fades, swells, flicks, on-screen motion and color changes look just they came from a real TV.

A potential burglar thinks the home must be occupied so he moves on to an easier target.

From outside the house it looks like someone is watching TV.
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Burglars will almost always circle a home once before entering.

They are looking for the easiest way in — and for signs of life.

FakeTV gives them just those signs.
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FakeTV becomes part of your home, and we have designed it as such.

Yes, it is highly functional — but it is also stylish.

The opalescent diffuser lens gives an attactive glow and the optical illusion formed by the LEDs on the screen is, frankly, fascinating to watch.

Although we discourage you from doing so — it is never healthy to look at any bright light source for an extended period of time.
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The light from a television is something entirely different from other light sources.

It is constantly changing and gives the impression of being "alive."

FakeTV recreates that light and creates that impression.
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So why not just leave a television on whenever you are away?

Well, aside from consuming a lot of power needlessly, televisions get gradually dimmer with time.

Does it make sense to use up the life of an expensive TV when nobody is watching it?
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When you look at a real TV you see images on the screen.

But when you look at the light it casts in a room, the light from the screen melds to a uniform glow that changes with the changing images on the television.

FakeTV uses a built-in computer to control super-bright LEDs to produce light of varying intensity and color that light up a room just like a real TV.

The light effects of real television programming — scene changes, camera pans, fades, flicks, swells, on-screen motion, and more, are all faithfully simulated by FakeTV.

Just like a real TV, FakeTV fills a room with color changes both subtle and dramatic in thousands of possible shades.

Like real television programming, FakeTV is constantly shifting between more and less dynamic periods, more vivid and more monochromatic, and brighter and darker scenes.

FakeTV is completely unpredictable and it never repeats.

The effect is uncanny.
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From outside the home FakeTV is essentially indistinguishable from a real television.



Test subjects were not able to tell if it was FakeTV or the real thing.

"I think that was a news program, but now a bunch of commercials just came on. It must be the real TV."

No, that was FakeTV — the whole time.
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How does something the size of a coffee cup produce as much light as a television set many times its size?

Recent advancements in LED technology have brought about super-bright LEDs, some more than 10 times as bright as the plain old LEDs we are all familiar with.

FakeTV packs a dozen of these technological marvels into a package that includes a computer and some well-designed optics.

Super-bright LEDs are very expensive but we have a special partnership with Kodenshi, allowing us to offer FakeTV at a remarkably affordable price.
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The FakeTV diffuser lens is a bit of science (optics is what we do here) that borders on art.

FakeTV is not just a flickering light or flasher.

And neither is it just a random light source.

Yes, there are random number generators in the computer in FakeTV and FakeTV never, ever repeats.

But real TV is not random — any more than music is random sounds.

The light from TV is highly characteristic.

Discovering what makes the light from a TV look like, well, the light from a TV, was the key to making FakeTV so realistic.
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To develop FakeTV we took data using real televisions of different types and makes.

We characterized TV programs, analyzing the light output for intensity and color variation.

We generated a lot of computer files of television data.

Then, we came up with mathematical formulas that behaved just the same way.

We programmed those into FakeTV's computer and ran the same tests.

We tested these in the field, as well, and verified that our test subjects simply could not tell the difference between FakeTV and the real thing.

Okay, we got a bit compulsive with this.

Surely, no burglar has ever studied the light intensity output of a television, or measured the degree of color variation.

But we human beings are remarkably good at discerning patterns and subtle differences.

We did not to take the chance that a prowler might see the light from our television simulator and think, "something is not right here," even if he could not identify it.

We kept at it until we could see and measure no differences.


Features:

• Most televisions turn on with push buttons and do not work with timers — burglars know this, thus making FakeTV very effective

• Computer-controlled, super-bright multi-color LED Light output equivalent to a typical 27" TV

• Built-in light sensor automatically turns FakeTV on each evening at dusk and off at dawn

• Consumes only the electricity of a night-light

• AC adapter included

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$38.95.

[via J-Walk Blog]