Former Huawei subsidiary Honor is primarily known for its phones and wearables, but is now planning to ride the wave of smart projectors with a compact gimbal-packing, AI-powered 1080p model that comes with a stylus for doodling on wall or screen.
The first interactive projector I tried at home was a compact crowdfunded box called the Touchjet Pond. It came with a couple of stylus-like pens that were tracked by the projector to allow users to tap the visuals on the wall to play simple games.
Just over 10 years later, Honor has taken the essence of this basic idea and launched an equally compact image thrower called the Choice AI Air that takes design cues from Dangbei's Atom smart projector but comes mounted to a handy gimbal stand.
This allows for instant repositioning of the thrown image by 160 degrees over the vertical, so you can go from wall to ceiling with relative ease. Autofocus, keystone correction, fit-to-screen and image resize for obstacle avoidance are all baked in, and users can look forward to 1080p viewing of streamed content over Wi-Fi 6 or cabled favorites over HDMI.
The LED light source only puts out 280 CVIA lumens though, and contrast is reported to be 2,500:1. This combination will restrict watching and interacting to darkened spaces, though there may be times when daytime use – albeit in a shadowy corner – could be possible without suffering too much washout.
The setup supports AI-powered gesture control by tracking the movement of a chunky pen-like input device in front of the business end. If our experience with the adorable Zip is anything to go by, outlining dark shapes on a light background should be fine in that shaded corner. Added color won't be as defined though.
As you happily doodle away using creativity apps, you'll soon appreciate the limitations of standing between projector and vertical surface as your carbon copy blacks out potentially large parts of the projected imagery. This is where ultra-short-throw designs from the likes of Samsung and Acer would prove a better – if more expensive – solution. And you'll need to resist any temptation to turn your peepers towards the blinding light as well.
Rounding out other keys specs, the projector rocks a single 5-W speaker but includes a 3.5-mm audio jack for exporting the soundtrack to an external sound system. Bluetooth 5.0 is also onboard, which will likely pair with a remote that allows access to DeepSeek AI as well as device control. The unit can also pair with a smartphone running a companion mobile app. And quad-core processing brains are supported by 1 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage.
If you're looking to leap into interactive projection, the good news is that you can do so without breaking the bank. The bad news is, for the moment at least, the Honor Choice is only available in China. The pre-order price tag is currently CNY 499 (which converts to US$70).
Product page: Honor Choice AI Air
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