A Projector for Lying in Bed: Watch TV on the Ceiling

The phone slips and lands on your nose, again. Flat on your back, every screen in the house is in the wrong place. The TV's on the far wall, and watching it means a chin bent toward your chest. A phone held over your face lasts until your arm gives out. A laptop needs a lap, and a lap needs sitting up.

That's the corner the person who started a thread in r/POTS was in: too sick on their days off to sit up without feeling horrible, which rules out the usual lap desks and bed trays. One reply had solved it already:

I've got a projector instead of a TV in the room, which I can point at any wall or the ceiling. Best purchase ever.

u/MrsAussieGinger, in r/POTS

A small projector by the bed, tilted up, puts the picture on the ceiling above your pillow, where your eyes already are. If you spend your days lying flat, this is how people in two chronic-illness communities watch TV.

It's the same answer for an illness that keeps you there, a neck or back that won't let you sit up or a recovery measured in weeks. The BenQ GV32 is built for it, with a base that tilts it from the wall up to the ceiling, nothing mounted and nothing drilled.

If there's already a TV at the foot of the bed and the problem is only your neck, a pair of prism glasses bends your line of sight down the bed for a lot less. The projector is for when you'd rather have no screen in front of you at all.

How to watch TV while lying on your back

Nothing hangs from the ceiling. The projector stands on a bedside table or at the foot of the bed with its lens turned up, and the ceiling is the screen. BenQ's own page for the GV32 suggests putting it at either end of the bed.

A second reply in that thread needs only three words: "projector facing the ceiling". In r/cfs, someone asking whether to save up for one wanted the ceiling too, so they wouldn't crane their neck in bed.

It wants a smooth ceiling. The reply that first suggested it opens with that proviso, and adds that you can put something pretty up there in the background when nothing's on. A large blank wall works too, and one owner has projected theirs onto a bedsheet on a clothes rack.

Which projectors work on a ceiling

Three owners in r/cfs describe theirs. The person who started a thread called "Projector for those in bed" has had a small portable one for over two years. It works on the ceiling like a charm, adjusting itself to almost any angle.

Another owner likes their BenQ, which can do the ceiling or any angle on a wall. The GV32 is the one BenQ now sells for the bedside.

The third has an XGIMI Halo for the ceiling over their bed and calls it awesome. Their one caveat is that it isn't bright enough for daylight, which doesn't matter in a bedroom kept dim. The XGIMI Halo+ is the newer, improved Halo, in Expert Reviews' words.

Cheap works too. Someone with severe ME bought a cheap one off Amazon, pointed it at the ceiling and hooked a PlayStation up to it. Another owner's was a gift that didn't break the bank, runs off an HDMI cable from a Roku, and works in a two-metre room with a pull-down screen.

A basic unit is enough to find out whether the ceiling works for you. The one thing to check is whether it has streaming apps built in or needs a box plugged into it, as both of those did.

Is watching TV on a projector better for your eyes?

For some people with ME/CFS. Several in r/cfs went to a projector because screens hurt them, though they don't all report the same thing. One finds it much more bearable for a long stretch than a laptop or phone. They put it down to the light coming from behind them and bouncing off the wall, rather than a backlight straight into the eyes.

Another could watch things on a projector when screens were giving them migraines. For a third, a projector is a bit better than a TV because backlighting bothers them.

It doesn't help everyone. One viewer found it only marginally better than a TV of the same size and brightness. What helps them most is a small screen, low brightness and slow or familiar shows.

The people it does help keep the picture small and dim. One shrank theirs until it was no bigger than a small TV. Another turned the contrast and brightness down, and still needed sunglasses when their ME/CFS was at its worst.

One more thing, if flashes of colour bother you. Both projectors linked here are DLP, which shows the picture one colour at a time. Some viewers see the colours split into brief flashes when their eyes move across a bright area.

One owner in those threads had to buy a 3LCD projector because DLP made their brain feel like it was melting. Epson, which makes 3LCD projectors and calls them immune to it, says it happens to some viewers and not others. The BenQ owner above has a DLP unit and loves it.

What to check before you buy

• A dark room. One owner says you'll really need darkness for it to work, and the Halo owner's bedroom is always in semi-darkness anyway.
• The fan. One owner didn't think about how loud it would be. The spec sheet lists the noise in decibels, so compare before you order.
• Where it stands. The BenQ's base tilts the whole projector, which its maker likens to a built-in tripod. The Halo+ stands upright on its own, so aiming it at the ceiling takes a tilting stand, which XGIMI sells separately as its multi-angle stand.

Start with the ceiling rather than the projector: pull the curtains, lie down and look at the patch above the bed you'd be watching. If it's smooth, put the BenQ GV32 at the foot of the bed with its base tilted up, or the XGIMI Halo+ on a stand beside it.

Give the first evening to something slow with the picture kept small. Anyone who'd rather test the ceiling before spending properly can do what the owner with severe ME did and point a cheap one at it first.