Futuristic bladeless laser razor could 'transform' shaving

[d000hg]

It did sound a pile of nonsense to be honest...

Laser razor kicked off Kickstarter - BBC News

This doesn't necessarily mean it's nonsense. The KS rules are quite specific that you have to already have a working prototype and be raising money to produce the thing... not raising R&D money which is where this is at.

Maybe it's not nonsense, we'll have to wait and see if anyone wants to give them seed funding

[minestrone]

The reddit thread mentioned on the BBC gives them as much chance as suity getting offered an extension.

[sal]

The bladeless razor, made of aluminium, can last for around 50,000 hours, and it runs on a single re-chargeable AAA battery.

I call bulltulip. Lasers are a lot more power hungry than your typical high power LED, and these typically last tens of minutes even on massive Li-Ion cells .

Read carefully, the laser bit (optics etc.) lasts 50,000 (like the light bulbs are rated to last X amount of hours), this is not the charge you get from the singe AAA battery

I read somewhere that in theory it's possible as they are looking at low power laser that doesn't cut the hairs with heat like Lightsabre, but instead disrupts the molecule bonds in the hair, just enough to sever it.

That being said, it looks too much like a scam to be true, good on KS for killing it.

[OwlHoot]

This doesn't necessarily mean it's nonsense. The KS rules are quite specific that you have to already have a working prototype and be raising money to produce the thing... not raising R&D money which is where this is at.

Maybe it's not nonsense, we'll have to wait and see if anyone wants to give them seed funding

The only safe and (maybe) practical approach I can think of is laser "blades" comprising one or more parallel thin channel(s) each at the end of a sharp ridge and entirely covered by a flat air-tight and water-tight layer of IR-opaque material which is then heated by one or more IR laser beams radiating from miniature diodes or something inside the strip.

But if so then does the use of lasers have any advantage over a tiny electric toaster-like element running along each channel? Maybe micro-toaster-elements wouldn't have an adequate reliable lifetime, or would require too much power, and I suppose it also lacks the cachet of a laser.

[Zero Liability]

Was it Hell IIRC? Disappointing I felt.

Yes, complete with the ominous Latin phrases. Apparently everyone in Hell has done a Classics course.

[d000hg]

The only safe and (maybe) practical approach I can think of is laser "blades" comprising one or more parallel thin channel(s) each at the end of a sharp ridge and entirely covered by a flat air-tight and water-tight layer of IR-opaque material which is then heated by one or more IR laser beams radiating from miniature diodes or something inside the strip.

But if so then does the use of lasers have any advantage over a tiny electric toaster-like element running along each channel? Maybe micro-toaster-elements wouldn't have an adequate reliable lifetime, or would require too much power, and I suppose it also lacks the cachet of a laser.

Just paraphrasing what I've seen written, without checking the veracity, but the idea is these are very low power lasers, so weak even pointing them at your eye doesn't warrant a safety warning.