Logitech Spotlight - The whimsical little box for presentation professionals that you can win
9.3.2017
Translation: machine translated
PowerPoint presentations are part of every meeting in every company. But if these meetings have high quality standards and you don't want to bore your audience or embarrass yourself, then you need not only the right presentation but also the right tool. The Logitech Spotlight, for example.
A small box. Anthracite black. Three buttons and the engraving "Yves Sahli" underneath. The Logitech Spotlight is minimalist and personalised. And yes, it's quite possible that I borrowed the small device with the engraved name from our product manager, because I haven't held such a fascinating device in my hand for a long time. Because at first glance, I can't explain how the device works.
What it does is obvious. How it does it is still a mystery to me. The research begins.
But first, a competition.
Your chance to win
In collaboration with Logitech, Product Manager Yves Sahli has been given the chance to give away five Logitech Spotlights with engraving of your choice. To make sure you cut an impressive figure at your upcoming presentation, tell us a short story in the comments.
The question: What's the biggest presentation fail you've ever experienced? You will receive bonus points, which will not increase your chances of winning, if you tell us the biggest presentation fail that has happened to you.
The competition runs until Monday, 20 March 2017, at 12:00 noon.
Update: The competition is over. If you'd still like to share your presentation favours with us, be our guest. But the winners have been notified and will receive their spotlight.
And now, find out how the Logitech Spotlight works.
What the Spotlight does
Logitech invented the Spotlight so you don't have to wave a laser pointer and a remote control around during a presentation. Plus: Phrases like "Can you go to the next slide? Er no, one more... Yes, that one. Thank you" are a thing of the past.
So that you can be nervous when you're standing in front of your boss or professor, Logitech has replaced the laser pointer with software. This is where the Spotlight becomes fascinating
You plug a USB dongle into your laptop and the Spotlight connects to your machine via Bluetooth. To do this, install the software and you're ready to go. Some functions also work without software, namely the forward and back buttons. This means that the little box can also play multimedia content in presentations. A small side note at this point: As far as I know, PowerPoint cannot embed YouTube videos. Google Slides can. The Logitech Spotlight is compatible with both services. Also Keynote, PDF and Prezi. In other words, no matter what you need to show up front, the Spotlight can handle it.
The Spotlight software has some nice features like a timer that tells you when you're running out of time to talk. The highlight function can be replaced by zoom and if you want to have all the attention on you as the speaker, you can make the screen black.
The bottom two buttons - forwards and backwards - are pretty self-explanatory. But with the top button you can switch on the pointer. This can be provided with either a magnifying glass or highlight circle function. In other words, the entire screen is darkened except for the area you are currently aiming at. How the device knows where you are pointing is a mystery at first glance. The fact is that we can aim at the wall opposite the laptop and the zoom or highlight function knows where we are aiming.
A little stroke of genius for the nervous
How does that work? How is it possible for a device to know where I'm aiming, even if it can't get any information about where I'm waving the Logitech Spotlight around? Because if I had to aim at the laptop, I would understand that. Of course, the Spotlight also supports this function, but it's only really fascinating when the presentation is behind me and the laptop is in front of me.
My first thought: I'll take the thing apart and have a look at it. But Yves Sahli expressly told me not to, because it's his private device and he still needs it. Shockingly, he also turned down my offer to repair it professionally with adhesive tape. Something about "nice design", he says.
Well, let's just ask Logitech. The answer is surprisingly simple. Bluetooth calibration with altimeter? No. Location service in a Bluetooth field anything? No.
The answer is much simpler: Logitech has built tilt sensors into the Spotlight that don't need to know where the presentation is at any given time. The Spotlight darkens the entire screen the first time it is used, with the exception of a bright circle in the centre. Voilà, spotlight. Then the tilt sensors measure where you move the spotlight. The dot follows the tilt, creating the illusion of the dot being moved.
If you get nervous when you're in front of an audience and your laser pointer is usually fidgeting wildly on the screen, the Logitech Spotlight puts an end to that. As the signal from pointer to screen does not come directly from the pointer itself, Logitech's engineers have built in a tolerance that prevents small wobbles and jitters from being transmitted to the screen. In short: you look more confident, have one less reason to be upset and the highlighting works even better.
This all comes at a somewhat hefty price, but makes presenting much more carefree, clearer and more enjoyable.
Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.
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