FLUX unveils beamo, a compact and affordable laser cutter for the masses
We love it when technology makes our lives easier. While smartphones have come a long way in the past decade, other technologies have improved at a much slower pace. Laser cutters and engravers have always been large, complicated and very expensive, but the newly-announced beamo is an incredibly powerful tool that could go unnoticed in your office thanks to its sleek and compact design.
Made by FLUX, beamo is a laser cutter and engraver which is nearly as simply to operate as a printer. With just a few taps, you’ll be able to engrave your unique designs on wood, leather, acrylic and dozens of other materials or cut out unique shapes to bring your ideas to life.
Like FLUX’s other two products, beamo is being introduced through Kickstarter at $800 for a limited number of backers, offering a savings of $700 on its $1,499 retail price. The first beamo units will be shipping out of FLUX’s warehouses starting in December.
The beauty of beamo is that it’s one of the easiest laser tools to use on the market. While the laser cutter does work with more traditional software systems, you can also use your phone to snap a picture of a design that you sketched by hand, quickly import it into the machine and then have it etched on a product in just a few minutes. It’s as easy as snapshot, upload, print. For more complicated projects, beamo comes with a detailer 120-page guidebook and dozens of tutorial videos that will walk you through the process.
While beamo’s design and $800 starting price point make it compelling as a general consumer product, it’s packed with features that are usually found in professional/industrial laser cutters. This includes camera alignment, a hybrid laser, autofocus, internal water-cooling and a whole lot more. With an add-on, beamo is also capable of rotary printing which allows it to engrave cylindrical objects like a glass or a mug. And to top it all off, beamo is pretty quiet as well, so it won’t sound like a workshop in your office when it’s running.
Source: Kickstarter via FLUX