Best Portable Projectors for Kids

You may want to engage your kids through entertainment and edutainment with a little more impactful presentation than yet more time on the phone or tablet. Or even laptop, desktop, and TV. Yes, you might have considered going full wall-sized in the display arena with the help of a projector, but you want something that’s portable. The plan is to have a projector that moves between rooms and goes outside when the weather’s nice. That’s precisely what good portable projectors are designed for. And they’re very popular with the kids. Unlike your phone, a portable projector isn’t just a digital babysitter. It’s a true showpiece (and showcase) for impressive, memorable content, be it entertainment or learning.

Plus, good portable projectors are made durable thanks to drop, shock, and water resistance, so you needn’t fret too much over the children completely destroying the projector on the first day. But what else to look for in a portable projector meant for the young ones? 

To get the most out of a portable projector across a wide range of activities, you should make sure to pick the right one. Take a good look at the features of any model you consider before committing to a purchase, and be wary of really cheap pico projectors. Those will not suffice, as they lack anything beyond very basic projection and short battery life. Since we’re focusing on kids in this article, we think safety should be number one. That is, both for the kids and the projector, due to children not being exactly famous for their gentle handling of electronics. In short, good portable projectors for children offer more than great audiovisual experiences, and also cover safety to support responsible and long-lasting enjoyment.

Durability: the portable projectors you’re looking for pass rigorous testing to make sure they’re splash, drop, and shock resistant. You don’t want a delicate, hastily-assembled projector that’s not going to last long once the kids show up. Portable means moving and going outside. That entails possible drops, shocks, rain, spilled drinks, and lots more. A proper portable projector takes all that in stride.

Eye protection: relatively new tech offers smart proximity sensing. If anyone comes close to the projector’s lens, the projector shuts down illumination temporarily to avoid directing a bright beam of light into unsuspecting eyes. This is especially good for children, who wander about freely and may be tempted by the gleaming of a projector’s front side, and then get exposed to the brightness of a portable’s output, which isn’t healthy for developing vision.

Keypad lock: with one setting, you engage a very effective form of parental control by disabling the portable projector’s buttons. Kids love pressing buttons, and they may still do so, but they won’t be able to change settings or turn the projector on and off. Unless you want them to!

Great audio: for children, multimedia comes naturally. Image quality that’s not backed by similarly impressive sound may fail to impress them. That’s why you should seek out portable projectors that pack powerful audio and have Bluetooth built-in for easy pairing with your favorite music sources. 

Portable projectors have come a long way. You can now get devices that’ll showcase bright 1080p images with great sound on wall-sized displays, while including smart features, durability, connectivity, easy setup, and a compact form factor that weighs very little. And as we showed you above, the good ones also cover child safety and have features that are optimized for use by kids. Through that, you have fun and stay safe!