Blu-ray Laser Gadget

i4u writes, "Wicked Lasers has done the unthinkable. They took the sparse blue laser diodes used in Blu-ray Disc drives and are making cool laser gadgets out of them, called Sonar. You can own one of these very limited edition lasers for $1,999.99. The price is that high because Wicked Lasers buys Blu-ray Disc players and removes the Blu-ray diode for the Sonar laser."

Comments

Beyond publicity, is there a point?

[Salvance]

OK, so it seems pretty crazy to junk a blu-ray just to grab the laser, but there must be some reason they are doing this other than the publicity, right? Can someone explain the importance of a blue laser over a regular handheld red laser of the same power that sells for ~$20? Or is it just supposed to be cool looking?

Looking online, I see that the standard price for blue laser pointers is over $1000 (here's the cheapest I found, which has a longer wavelength and lower power than the Blu-ray) ... are these so expensive just because they're expensive to make, or is there massive demand that keeps that the price up (and if so, what is that demand based on)?

Re:Beyond publicity, is there a point?

[j00r0m4nc3r]

Can someone explain the importance of a blue laser over a regular handheld red laser of the same power that sells for ~$20?

It's blue.

Barely Visible!

[Myriad]

Sheesh, this thing is down at 405nm... that's almost at the bottom of the visible spectrum. The funny thing is, that's so low it's not even blue anymore - it's violet!

Other "blue" lasers are in the range of 473nm. Given the color responsiveness of the eye these already appear darker than their Red and Green cousins even at similar power output. And you can't really get high power blue lasers.

So given that these are only 20mw and super low on the spectrum, I'd expect these are hardly visible in comparison with other pointers. A unique color, if you can see the damned thing.

Seems pretty pointless to me really... why would anyone buy one?!

Re:WTF?

[nietsch]

Well we are being told that it has a 3 Volt lithium battery in it and a 20 mW blue laser, so we can take guesses how long you can play with this blue laser thingie before the battery runs down.

Honestly, this is one of the most hollow slashvertisments I have seen in a long time. They are selling something, but we are not told why it is so good to spend 2K on it. My gues is they have bought 0 (zero) BlueRay players and created a mockup so somebody would pay them to take a blueray player apart (and put it's laser into a useless thingie).