Shaving with laser?

[frenky]

What do you guys think of this?
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/skarp/the-skarp-laser-razor-21st-century-shaving

Are the selling snake oil or is it really possible to put such a powerful laser in such small package?

[BulletMagnet83]

I also have to wonder if a laser powerful enough to shave with could be considered eye-safe? I mean... if you're supposed to point it at your face, they better have some sort of safety interlock in the "blade".

As a bald dude, I want to believe... being able to laser-polish my melon would be awesome. But I'm just not quite convinced.

[tggzzz]

What do you guys think of this?
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/skarp/the-skarp-laser-razor-21st-century-shaving

Are the selling snake oil or is it really possible to put such a powerful laser in such small package?

Wrong question. The right question is "would the product be safe and obtain regulatory approval?".

[firewalker]

Isn;t mandatory for KickStarter to ha e a working prototype of some kind?

I think this is another "mu thermal camera" type project.

Alexander.

[wraper]

If it is powerful enough to burn the hair, it is powerful enough to burn the skin too. Extremely dangerous to the eyes too. It would never pass safety approvals. Blatant scam. Regarding to the power, it's not even focused in one point but rather wide line, so no way a laser powerful enough + batteries required would fit in this size. Also imagine the smell of burned hair when shaving  .

[BulletMagnet83]

If it is powerful enough to burn the hair, it is powerful enough to burn the skin too. Extremely dangerous to the eyes too. It would never pass safety approvals. Blatant scam. Regarding to the power, it's not even focused in one point but rather wide line, so no way a laser powerful enough + batteries required would fit in this size. Also imagine the smell of burned hair when shaving  .

 

[android]

Yes, the classic warning label "Do not look into LASER beam with remaining eye" would be particularly appropriate in this case I think.

[Psi]

i cant see this being real. To cut hair fast enough and with a wide enough beam would require a lot of power

[GNU_Ninja]

And if you stick a http://batteriser.com/ in it it shaves up to 800% 80% closer 

[hayatepilot]

From the comments section:

Justin
@Creator
Assuming the laser will have the life span you suggest (50000+ hours) will the battery be replacable? As that will probably go well before the laser.

Skarp Technologies

Hi Justin,

the battery will not user replaceable, but with normal usage it should last 10 years.

Yeah riiiight.... 
100% scam. 

Greetings

[fcb]

Putting aside the practical reasons this might not work. There's no way they can make the timescales or for the price in small quantities. The amount the are trying to raise is tiny cf. what they will need.

If they get it to market i'll happily queue all night and spend a couple of hundred £ on one.

[tggzzz]

Yes, the classic warning label "Do not look into LASER beam with remaining eye" would be particularly appropriate in this case I think.

Ah, someone else who remembers that!

[codeboy2k]

Their goal is too low to begin manufacturing this.  But they might already have a good chunk of the money from outside investors and just want to use KS to gauge the market.

The CEO guy is apparently deeply involved in laser hair removal and bio-medical devices in general, and has previously started at least one other company creating laser hair removal devices.  So he seemingly has the skills, knowledge, experience and industry contacts to make it work.

I googled around and he did a lot of previous work in developing laser dyes that could emit in the spectrum needed to target specific chromophores in the hair follicles for laser hair removal.  So I think his work here is refining that dye technology for light hair (the biggest problem) and then packaging it for consumer use. 

There are already home laser hair removal systems available, and the guy has the experience and connections to make it work, so I think they might actually succeed with this.  Still, I'm like fcb -- I'll wait to see if they get it to market.  If so, I'll surely buy one.

[mikerj]

Yes, the classic warning label "Do not look into LASER beam with remaining eye" would be particularly appropriate in this case I think.

Ah, someone else who remembers that!

I have mikeselectricstuff laser hazard sign as my desktop background at work.  It's raised many smiles, especially as my boss does the laser safety training

A ten year battery life for a device powering a cutting laser used for several minutes everyday seems far fetched to put it mildly, unless they forgot to mention the battery isn't shown in the prototype pictures and is actually the size of a house brick.

[wraper]

Their goal is too low to begin manufacturing this.  But they might already have a good chunk of the money from outside investors and just want to use KS to gauge the market.

The CEO guy is apparently deeply involved in laser hair removal and bio-medical devices in general, and has previously started at least one other company creating laser hair removal devices.  So he seemingly has the skills, knowledge, experience and industry contacts to make it work.

I googled around and he did a lot of previous work in developing laser dyes that could emit in the spectrum needed to target specific chromophores in the hair follicles for laser hair removal.  So I think his work here is refining that dye technology for light hair (the biggest problem) and then packaging it for consumer use. 

There are already home laser hair removal systems available, and the guy has the experience and connections to make it work, so I think they might actually succeed with this.  Still, I'm like fcb -- I'll wait to see if they get it to market.  If so, I'll surely buy one.

Killing hair follicles with laser is not the same as burning the hair into the halves. Also that procedure is painful and causes skin irritation.

[firewalker]

Is there a way to red flag it with KickStarter?

Alexander.

[bigdawg]

If it is powerful enough to burn the hair, it is powerful enough to burn the skin too. Extremely dangerous to the eyes too. It would never pass safety approvals. Blatant scam. Regarding to the power, it's not even focused in one point but rather wide line, so no way a laser powerful enough + batteries required would fit in this size. Also imagine the smell of burned hair when shaving  .

You raise all the excellent points. I have extensive experience with high powered lazers for spectroscopy and I cannot imagine any kind of lasers in the market right now which is powerful enough to burn the hair as closely as a traditional mach3 (forget the 5 blade ones) yet compact enough not to use an external power source.

If indeed, this laser is that powerful, than I would argue this guy is in the wrong business; he should contact us for just selling his lasers.

[ferrix]

Yes, the classic warning label "Do not look into LASER beam with remaining eye" would be particularly appropriate in this case I think.

Ah, someone else who remembers that!

Yeah instead of "DANGER" at the top it said "DANG!"

[matseng]

After years of research & development, they discovered a chromophore in the hair that would be cut when hit with a particular light wavelength.

It must be a very lucky coincidence that this very specific frequency happens to fall right at one of the very narrow frequency bands that solid state diode lasers can lase at. They for sure ain't using a tuneable dye laser in that small handheld unit.

[Marco]

IPL dumps large amounts of energy in skin rather arbitrarily and manages to still mostly affect hairs follicles, so I don't see why this should be impossible as a given.

Lets theorize how this could work. Tightly wound fiber laser for the optical power. The stem and the flat "blade" are actually integrated optics to spread out the beam in 2D, the edge of the blade is essentially a rod lens. As for safety, maybe they can use "eyesafe" IR? (ie. medium penetration depth, doesn't dump it all on the cornea, nor all on the retina).

[bigdawg]

IPL dumps large amounts of energy in skin rather arbitrarily and manages to still mostly affect hairs follicles, so I don't see why this should be impossible as a given.

Lets theorize how this could work. Tightly wound fiber laser for the optical power. The stem and the flat "blade" are actually integrated optics to spread out the beam in 2D, the edge of the blade is essentially a rod lens. As for safety, maybe they can use "eyesafe" IR? (ie. medium penetration depth, doesn't dump it all on the cornea, nor all on the retina).

I am not saying that using lasers to burn off the hair is an impossible feat of science. Ofcourse, we can do it using existing lasers with benchtop PSU. What I am saying is that having a laser powerful enough to do that AND be powered using non rechargeble battery pack is such a compact form factor is truly a feat of engineering.

Moreover, have you ever played with a high powered laser to burn off the hair like in their video? I have used it on my arms, and I can tell you that the smell of burning hair is very unpleasant. Secondly, the "shave" you get is nowhere as close as my braun electric shaver which in itself is pretty bad compared to a wet shave from a Gillette razor. Thirdly, how do you minimize the irritation/laser burn.

Quotes like these by the backers on KS's comments section makes me skeptical:

Hi Justin,
the battery will not user replaceable, but with normal usage it should last 10 years.

[bigdawg]

Is there a way to red flag it with KickStarter?

Alexander.

I am thinking about making the lowest pledge so that I can get full access by being a "backer" and poke holes at their "invention". This is the patent http://www.google.com/patents/US9017322 and after reading the whole thing, there is no shred of the technological breakthrough in any of the 24 claims. In fact it seems like the only reason they bothered to file a patent was to use it as a marketing ploy for the KS campaign.

[Marco]

Moreover, have you ever played with a high powered laser to burn off the hair like in their video? I have used it on my arms, and I can tell you that the smell of burning hair is very unpleasant.

It's a bulk effect though, they aim to destroy the follicle. This device would aim to just sever the hair near the skin.

Thirdly, how do you minimize the irritation/laser burn.

You would focus the laser from a device like this in a fundamentally different way than the long term hair removal devices, the severity of heating/tissue damage remains to be seen.

[Kjelt]

I find it suspicious that in the movie there are three guys that are NOT clean shaven, two even have beards and don't shave at all 

[GNU_Ninja]

I find it suspicious that in the movie there are three guys that are NOT clean shaven, two even have beards and don't shave at all 

Maybe they're all growing beards so they can "demo" the device in a follow up video 

[LaserSteve]

Not to mention the device in the video he shows, in my opinion, has in-sufficient cooling for any kind of diode laser with enough power to blast a hair..  Just from looking at the package volume, that puppy is going to get warm, fast.  Facial hairs are tough critters... Only way I can see it, is if he has an array of diodes along the edge and they only switch on when they hit a hair.

You would possibly need a fume extractor too.. These days I won't burn anything with a laser without a fume extractor, and for good reason. Some of the partial combustion results are very nasty.  It will smell.


I'm a former scientific laser field service engineer and university laser technician. NO way I can fit that kind of Constant Current DC power source in a razor, without a fiber or cord, for the two minutes it takes me to shave.

  The IEC and FDA laser eye safety  compliance would be a nightmare.

Read the reviews on the NoNo hot wire hair remover...   Results would be similar.

However The math on the blackboard  and the laser beam mode mapping software looks real enough and are  in line with classical optics.


Steve

[bigdawg]

Not to mention the device in the video he shows, in my opinion, has in-sufficient cooling for any kind of diode laser with enough power to blast a hair..  Just from looking at the package volume, that puppy is going to get warm, fast.  Facial hairs are tough critters...

You would possibly need a fume extractor too.. These days I won't burn anything with a laser without a fume extractor, and for good reason. Some of the partial combustion results are very nasty.  It will smell.


I'm a former scientific laser field service engineer and university laser technician. NO way I can fit that kind of Constant Current DC power source in a razor, without a fiber or cord, for the two minutes it takes me to shave.

  The IEC and FDA laser eye safety  compliance would be a nightmare.

Read the reviews on the NoNo hot wire hair remover...   Results would be similar.


Steve

Steve, I hear ya. I am a laser spectroscopist too and have worked at a major raman spectrometry company before moving to a federal research lab; and all the claims made by this product sound highly implausible from the standpoint of the current technology; not to mention the price point too.

I would love to have that kind of powerful laser for less than $200 and I am sure many spectroscopists would appreciate that too especially the technicians using portable raman spectrometers. The patent application mentioned that they have developed these high powered batterey operated lasers for all three wavelength ranges (red, blue and green), so what's stopping them from marketing that directly instead of messing around with shaving.

[bigdawg]

Moreover, have you ever played with a high powered laser to burn off the hair like in their video? I have used it on my arms, and I can tell you that the smell of burning hair is very unpleasant.

It's a bulk effect though, they aim to destroy the follicle. This device would aim to just sever the hair near the skin.

Thirdly, how do you minimize the irritation/laser burn.

You would focus the laser from a device like this in a fundamentally different way than the long term hair removal devices, the severity of heating/tissue damage remains to be seen.

True, but I am very skeptical that a handheld laser powered by a AA or a AAA sized battery (thats what it looks like in their patent application) would be anywhere close to being powerful enough to even sever the hair. They are claiming on the comment section that a new video demonstrating their shaver will be posted by the end of this week. Lets see if that offers any more clues.

[bigdawg]

A new update posted by the creators on the lack of video:

Thank you to everyone that has backed us so far! We're so happy that you've decided to join the shaving revolution!

We've received a lot of feedback, which is really great. We wanted to address a few concerns & give a little update.

Firstly we'd like to talk about why we don't have a live product demo in the video. For this question I'll let our CEO & Co-Founder Morgan Gustavsson answer:

"Our proprietary fiber-optics are manually drawn in our laboratory. These must be of micron (um) tolerances and it is therefore incredibly difficult to get a consistent surface property along the entire length of the razor when drawing them manually. Hence not always does the entire surface length of the manually drawn prototype fiber optic emit the same power to cut the hair.

We will in any case attempt to post one later in the week in an update. We have production agreements in place with some of the worlds largest manufacturers of fiber-optics for computer controlled precision manufacturing of large quantities of extremely high tolerance of the special optics needed for the laser razor. We need your support to execute on those agreements to production."

Essentially, it's difficult to do in our lab, but we have an agreement in place with the manufacturer capable of producing these fiber optics at such a tolerance. They are ready to start as soon as our campaign has successfully finished. Which is why we need your support. However we are working on a way to show you a more thorough demonstration in our first weekly video update.

Safety has also been another concern. Safety is our absolute priority. The Skarp Razor is incredibly safe. Anything to do with lasers makes people think of James Bond or Dr. Evil. But essentially it's just light. The Skarp Razor uses a low power laser, & gets its hair cutting ability not from the strength of the laser, but from targeting the particular molecules in the hair that break when hit with a particular wavelength of light. It's really fascinating! If there's enough interest, we can post a video update explaining in detail how it works. Let us know in the comments!

There are also no long or short term side effects from using the Skarp Razor. No peer reviewed studies have ever shown any side effects from our level visible light.

We've also heard your concerns about the rechargeable battery, so we are looking into using a user replaceable battery instead.

We have also added more shipping destinations like South Korea, China, Japan & Australia. We're really excited to ship to those countries.

We really appreciate your feedback, please keep it coming, we read every single comment & message.

The shaving revolution has begun!

I dont know enough about fiber optics and tolerance of the commercially available ones, but this claim sounds a bit fishy. can anyone with experience in that confirm their claims?

[SkarpRazor]

Hi everyone,
We are men of science at Skarp so we think skepticism is very healthy.
Just want to address a couple gf things.
The Skarp Razor uses a low power laser, & gets its hair cutting ability not from the strength of the laser, but from targeting the particular molecules in the hair that break when hit with a certain wavelength of light. This means the laser is eye safe & capable of running on a AAA battery.
We've had a number of comments regarding the battery, & will decided to change to a user replaceable battery such is the overwhelming demand for it.
Feel free to head over to Kickstarter & post any other questions, i'll be checking back here too.

[Stupid Beard]

You would possibly need a fume extractor too.. These days I won't burn anything with a laser without a fume extractor, and for good reason. Some of the partial combustion results are very nasty.  It will smell.

As a bearded former smoker, I have had quite a number of accidental beard fires so I can attest to how badly burning beard smells. It's also very difficult to get away from it when it's right under you nose.

[fcb]

You would possibly need a fume extractor too.. These days I won't burn anything with a laser without a fume extractor, and for good reason. Some of the partial combustion results are very nasty.  It will smell.

As a bearded former smoker, I have had quite a number of accidental beard fires so I can attest to how badly burning beard smells. It's also very difficult to get away from it when it's right under you nose.

Is there such a thing as a non-accidental beard fire???

Presumably if the Skarp chaps have managed to tune the laser spectra to destroy a key molecule, then the hair may just break at that point and not burn.

[Marco]

True, but I am very skeptical that a handheld laser powered by a AA or a AAA sized battery (thats what it looks like in their patent application) would be anywhere close to being powerful enough to even sever the hair.

With a doped glass amplifier and a pulsed laser diode the battery isn't really an issue. That just limits how long it can work, not the peak power.

The problem is the cost and size.

[LaserSteve]

Point of Order Sir, having worked on doped glass and doped YAG lasers they are highly inefficient for this task.  That was the point of going to flashlamp based  IPL techniques for the other hair removal techniques.   He needs a "direct" laser diode, not a multistage process. Nor will "Q Switching" help him much, as that means he needs a laser medium with a long upper state storage time.  Besides ND:YAG and ND:Vandate rods are not easy to grow, nor is ND:Glass. That alone would drive the manufacturing  cost thru the roof. Trying to get a free running passive Q-Switch working at such low rep rates would not be a snazzy task either.

So, reading between the lines, here is my best guess.  He  probably has an "edge emitting" fiber optic pumped by a laser diode. When a hair hits the fiber edge, the total internal refraction is spoiled inside the fiber and it couples energy into the hair at the point of contact.  That is the reason he's mentioning the expensive custom drawn fiber. If its too small in diameter it is very difficult to couple enough light into the fiber for the process to work.  If it is too large, the coupling process when the hair spoils the internal refraction  is very inefficient or becomes several orders of magnitude too weak.

I still doubt cutting the hair is anything but an exothermic process.  I doubt you can break chemical bonds fast enough with a narrowband diode laser that drifts in wavelength like crazy.  Wavelength Drift is on the order of 0.2 nanometers per degree C for most diode materials, although some commonly used ones are far worse..  He may have found an adsorption maxima that is very efficient, but strong polymeric bonds do not just break apart by photo driven processes.

Steve

[bigdawg]

I still doubt cutting the hair is anything but an exothermic process.  I doubt you can break chemical bonds fast enough with a narrowband diode laser that drifts in wavelength like crazy.  Wavelength Drift is on the order of 0.2 nanometers per degree C for most diode materials, although some commonly used ones are far worse..

Steve

It definately is an exothermic process.

quotes from their patent:

"Hair shafts can be severed with high intensity light via absorption heating and burning and/or melting of the shaft"

"Additionally, to damage and/or cut one or more hair shafts with light, at least some of the light energy is absorbed by the hair shaft and converted into heat or induce a bond breaking mechanism. There are three chromophores in hair that substantially absorb light—melanin, keratin, and water. Keratin and water have absorption peaks at around 3000 nm. Melanin has an absorption peak around 300 nm, but remains relatively flat, decreasing almost linearly (on a logarithmic scale) to about 3000 nm. Darker hair, for example, black and brown hair, contains melanin and can be damaged or cut by sufficient amounts of ultraviolet (UV), visible (VIS), near infrared (NIR), and many infrared (IR) wavelengths."

They are worried about smell of burning hair; hence this:

"The device may also include a vacuum source coupled to the support and configured to provide aspiration near the cutting region."

I still havnt figured out how they are going to accomplish all these things with a handheld laser powered by a AAA battery  .

BTW, they reduced the battery life from earlier claim of 10 years to 1 month 

[bigdawg]

Hi everyone,
We are men of science at Skarp so we think skepticism is very healthy.
Just want to address a couple gf things.
The Skarp Razor uses a low power laser, & gets its hair cutting ability not from the strength of the laser, but from targeting the particular molecules in the hair that break when hit with a certain wavelength of light. This means the laser is eye safe & capable of running on a AAA battery.
We've had a number of comments regarding the battery, & will decided to change to a user replaceable battery such is the overwhelming demand for it.
Feel free to head over to Kickstarter & post any other questions, i'll be checking back here too.

we can get to the exact mode of action later since I dont want to quibble about symantics of "breaking" vs cutting/burning hair; but can you just provide detailed specs of the laser inscluing its output, power consumption, heat generated etc.

your patent claims list bunch of different wavelengths; I am not quite sure which one made it in the final design.

" The device of claim 1, wherein the wavelength is within one or more ranges selected from a group consisting of: 380 nm to 480 nm, 380 nm to 500 nm, 400 nm to 500 nm, 2500 nm to 3500 nm, 2950 nm to 3050 nm, and 2700 nm to 3500 nm."

[LaserSteve]

I'm still trying to figure out how to keep the optics clean and scratch free.
There is a an immense variation in laser hobbyists.  We have the "burners" who like to burn things with small hand held lasers. They give the wavelength collectors, pointer collectors, light show guys, and laser machinists,  a bad name.  However they often can get "burning"of spots on  plastics and biomaterials  down to 35-50 mW with a tightly focused beam.... There is a big difference between "burning" where they sit there fascinated for 30-60 seconds,  and readily cutting fast enough across a 30-40 mm swath to shave.  Burners may fry, blacken, melt or pierce stuff, but cutting with CW lasers  is always on the order of watts or more.

So lets jump up to 200 mW of near  IR, marginal, but it might do something reasonable  to a single hair with perfect, and I mean perfect, free space  optics... We're probably more or less on the order of Watts for a really good  optical shave...

Data sheet:

http://www.cnilaser.com/diode_laser808.htm

The 200 mW diode needs  280 mA at a 2.28 Vf ,  is ~ 650 mW  input power, not counting losses in the driver, which will be minimal but not so low as to ignore.  We'll need a boost driver to get the  "AAA" lithium battery up to  ~ 3.50 V to have enough headroom to run the laser.  If you look at this chart for one of the best batteries on the market, your looking at less then 1 hour of operation assuming a really well engineering boost circuit. Look at the constant current curve for 300 mA, 500 mA, and 1000 mA, which are the first three stock diode sizes. If you assume a boost circuit is 65 efficient, the time is quite a bit less.

http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/l92.pdf

Doable, but the average laser power is really, really, low. typical coupling efficiency to a decent sized fiber is probably 85% on a good day. Evanescent coupling from a fiber is not that awesome a way to extract energy, either..

I can see it being done, but  am I  ever skeptical...    If I want a laser razor, I'd want  localized ablation, not cutting, anyways..
I really hope these guys can prove me wrong on a production basis, but its going to be tricky to beat a modern multi-blade razor.

PS, I went back to the video and he IS doing the Evanescent coupling to hairs with the prototype fiber..


Steve



 

[SkarpRazor]

Hi everyone,
We are men of science at Skarp so we think skepticism is very healthy.
Just want to address a couple gf things.
The Skarp Razor uses a low power laser, & gets its hair cutting ability not from the strength of the laser, but from targeting the particular molecules in the hair that break when hit with a certain wavelength of light. This means the laser is eye safe & capable of running on a AAA battery.
We've had a number of comments regarding the battery, & will decided to change to a user replaceable battery such is the overwhelming demand for it.
Feel free to head over to Kickstarter & post any other questions, i'll be checking back here too.

we can get to the exact mode of action later since I dont want to quibble about symantics of "breaking" vs cutting/burning hair; but can you just provide detailed specs of the laser inscluing its output, power consumption, heat generated etc.

your patent claims list bunch of different wavelengths; I am not quite sure which one made it in the final design.

" The device of claim 1, wherein the wavelength is within one or more ranges selected from a group consisting of: 380 nm to 480 nm, 380 nm to 500 nm, 400 nm to 500 nm, 2500 nm to 3500 nm, 2950 nm to 3050 nm, and 2700 nm to 3500 nm."

We're not looking to give away our IP

[bigdawg]

Hi everyone,
We are men of science at Skarp so we think skepticism is very healthy.
Just want to address a couple gf things.
The Skarp Razor uses a low power laser, & gets its hair cutting ability not from the strength of the laser, but from targeting the particular molecules in the hair that break when hit with a certain wavelength of light. This means the laser is eye safe & capable of running on a AAA battery.
We've had a number of comments regarding the battery, & will decided to change to a user replaceable battery such is the overwhelming demand for it.
Feel free to head over to Kickstarter & post any other questions, i'll be checking back here too.

we can get to the exact mode of action later since I dont want to quibble about symantics of "breaking" vs cutting/burning hair; but can you just provide detailed specs of the laser inscluing its output, power consumption, heat generated etc.

your patent claims list bunch of different wavelengths; I am not quite sure which one made it in the final design.

" The device of claim 1, wherein the wavelength is within one or more ranges selected from a group consisting of: 380 nm to 480 nm, 380 nm to 500 nm, 400 nm to 500 nm, 2500 nm to 3500 nm, 2950 nm to 3050 nm, and 2700 nm to 3500 nm."

We're not looking to give away our IP

  isnt that the perfect excuse whenever it comes to providing any specs for products with tall claims.

[bigdawg]

I'm still trying to figure out how to keep the optics clean and scratch free.
There is a an immense variation in laser hobbyists.  We have the "burners" who like to burn things with small hand held lasers. They give the wavelength collectors, pointer collectors, light show guys, and laser machinists,  a bad name.  However they often can get "burning"of spots on  plastics and biomaterials  down to 35-50 mW with a tightly focused beam.... There is a big difference between "burning" where they sit there fascinated for 30-60 seconds,  and readily cutting fast enough across a 30-40 mm swath to shave.  Burners may fry, blacken, melt or pierce stuff, but cutting with CW lasers  is always on the order of watts or more.

So lets jump up to 200 mW of near  IR, marginal, but it might do something reasonable  to a single hair with perfect, and I mean perfect, free space  optics... We're probably more or less on the order of Watts for a really good  optical shave...

Data sheet:

http://www.cnilaser.com/diode_laser808.htm

The 200 mW diode needs  280 mA at a 2.28 Vf ,  is ~ 650 mW  input power, not counting losses in the driver, which will be minimal but not so low as to ignore.  We'll need a boost driver to get the  "AAA" lithium battery up to  ~ 3.50 V to have enough headroom to run the laser.  If you look at this chart for one of the best batteries on the market, your looking at less then 1 hour of operation assuming a really well engineering boost circuit. Look at the constant current curve for 300 mA, 500 mA, and 1000 mA, which are the first three stock diode sizes. If you assume a boost circuit is 65 efficient, the time is quite a bit less.

http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/l92.pdf

Doable, but the average laser power is really, really, low. typical coupling efficiency to a decent sized fiber is probably 85% on a good day. Evanescent coupling from a fiber is not that awesome a way to extract energy, either..

I can see it being done, but  am I  ever skeptical...    If I want a laser razor, I'd want  localized ablation, not cutting, anyways..
I really hope these guys can prove me wrong on a production basis, but its going to be tricky to beat a modern multi-blade razor.

PS, I went back to the video and he IS doing the Evanescent coupling to hairs with the prototype fiber..


Steve

all great points Steve. I might go ahead and test the lasers I have on hand and may post a video about it. I showed this product to my spectroscopist co-worker with 30 year experience in the field, and he flat out told me that its simply not possible to do either of these things without using a plugged in power supply and generating heat/burning smell.

[Mr.B]

The most fascinating thing about these "incredible" crowd funded campaigns is that I get to learn so much from the experts on the forum here.
Thanks for your input bigdawg and LaserSteve.

[SkarpRazor]

Hi everyone,
We are men of science at Skarp so we think skepticism is very healthy.
Just want to address a couple gf things.
The Skarp Razor uses a low power laser, & gets its hair cutting ability not from the strength of the laser, but from targeting the particular molecules in the hair that break when hit with a certain wavelength of light. This means the laser is eye safe & capable of running on a AAA battery.
We've had a number of comments regarding the battery, & will decided to change to a user replaceable battery such is the overwhelming demand for it.
Feel free to head over to Kickstarter & post any other questions, i'll be checking back here too.

we can get to the exact mode of action later since I dont want to quibble about symantics of "breaking" vs cutting/burning hair; but can you just provide detailed specs of the laser inscluing its output, power consumption, heat generated etc.

your patent claims list bunch of different wavelengths; I am not quite sure which one made it in the final design.

" The device of claim 1, wherein the wavelength is within one or more ranges selected from a group consisting of: 380 nm to 480 nm, 380 nm to 500 nm, 400 nm to 500 nm, 2500 nm to 3500 nm, 2950 nm to 3050 nm, and 2700 nm to 3500 nm."

We're not looking to give away our IP

  isnt that the perfect excuse whenever it comes to providing any specs for products with tall claims.

If I was in your position, I would be just as skeptical. I would like to remind you all that our CEO is Morgan Gustavsson, who invented & patented IPL in the 80's. His most recent project is TRASER http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0035899.
Obviously we can't talk about real specifics at this point, but if everyone's interested, we could organize a Q&A with Morgan?

[Marco]

Point of Order Sir, having worked on doped glass and doped YAG lasers they are highly inefficient for this task.  That was the point of going to flashlamp based  IPL techniques for the other hair removal techniques.

You can't compare a process which has to work through the depth of a follicle with something which only has to work across a thin plane. Ideally for this application you'd ablate the hair, not burn it, laser diodes simply don't have the peak power required for that. The pulsed laser might be inefficient but slowly heating the hair across a long section when you only want a cut isn't efficient either. What's more efficient would require either a deep understanding of the thermal masses and conductivity involved or some actual math.

I have neither, but I have a good reason to prefer ablation regardless of efficiency. It would help with the smell, less volatile compounds put in the air than when you burn a longer section of the hair.

Nor will "Q Switching" help him much

I wasn't suggesting Q switching, I was suggesting amplification of a diode laser (need more/stages of amplification, but the optics are a lot cheaper). Maybe start with fiber before going into one or more rods.

Besides ND:YAG and ND:Vandate rods are not easy to grow, nor is ND:Glass.

AFAICS retina-safe lasers is the only way you'd get away with not wearing safety glasses with something powerful enough to vaporize or burn a hair. So these won't work.

That alone would drive the manufacturing  cost thru the roof.

As I said, the price and the size are a problem.

When a hair hits the fiber edge, the total internal refraction is spoiled inside the fiber and it couples energy into the hair at the point of contact.

Ingenious, would save a lot of energy.

That is the reason he's mentioning the expensive custom drawn fiber. If its too small in diameter it is very difficult to couple enough light into the fiber for the process to work.  If it is too large, the coupling process when the hair spoils the internal refraction  is very inefficient or becomes several orders of magnitude too weak.

Or he could want a fiber laser/amplifier, but the COTS stuff can't survive the bend angle necessary to coil it within the handle.

I still doubt cutting the hair is anything but an exothermic process.  I doubt you can break chemical bonds fast enough with a narrowband diode laser that drifts in wavelength like crazy.  Wavelength Drift is on the order of 0.2 nanometers per degree C for most diode materials, although some commonly used ones are far worse..  He may have found an adsorption maxima that is very efficient, but strong polymeric bonds do not just break apart by photo driven processes.

I didn't even consider that as a possibility, using high intensity UV light just seems an incredibly bad idea (if it's not UV it's thermal).

[Marco]

We're not looking to give away our IP

If you don't have a patent pending you already have if it works.

[AF6LJ]

You won't see that in the united states.
The FDA won't approve a laser device that has no safety feature to allow only skin contact before activation to be sold in the US.
There is device you can get in the US that uses the proper wavelength of light that it will work on dark hair.
It was marketed for women and purports to have reasonably good success.
Google Silk Epil.

[Kjelt]

Lets give them the advantage of doubt.
The beta tests would reveal soon enough if it is a workable device or not.

BTW as follow up product I suggest:
I would rather have an automated mains connected mask that scans and identifies pores on my cheeck and neck and blasts the hairfollicles once per month than still keep on shaving every morning,would save a lot of time, money and agony.

[pickle9000]

The most fascinating thing about these "incredible" crowd funded campaigns is that I get to learn so much from the experts on the forum here.
Thanks for your input bigdawg and LaserSteve.

Same here

[BravoV]

Is there any video or photo of the working prototype of the "head" shaving some hairs ? I can't find any ? 

NOT some computer rendered graphic or some pretty 3D printed plastic sticks which serve no purpose.

C'mon, at least they already have some crude, probably ugly and ghetto built cutting head that has been tested on some hairy pig's skin, right ?

I'm guessing there is nothing to be afraid of in exposing the IP, just by showing a real video that has been heavily edited/cropped and close up shot where the laser in action cutting the hair, right ? Am I asking too much ? 

[firewalker]

Is there any paper with your research on the subject and real data of the prototypes?

Will white hair absorb you l.a.s.e.r.?

Alexander.

[tggzzz]

You won't see that in the united states.
The FDA won't approve a laser device that has no safety feature to allow only skin contact before activation to be sold in the US.
There is device you can get in the US that uses the proper wavelength of light that it will work on dark hair.
It was marketed for women and purports to have reasonably good success.
Google Silk Epil.

A quick look at all the many "silk epil" devices doesn't show any such thing. Some do have a light so you ca see the hairs.

Can you provide a specific pointer or specific device, please.

[bigdawg]

You won't see that in the united states.
The FDA won't approve a laser device that has no safety feature to allow only skin contact before activation to be sold in the US.
There is device you can get in the US that uses the proper wavelength of light that it will work on dark hair.
It was marketed for women and purports to have reasonably good success.
Google Silk Epil.

You are absolutely right. From what I understand, those type of devices targets melanin which is mainly found in "dark" hair; however, the real challenge is targetting blonde/white hair which has very little melanin. The only other thing I can think of is keratin, but that means you are going into IR region and that should probably generate more heat than acceptable levels.

[bigdawg]

Is there any paper with your research on the subject and real data of the prototypes?

Will white hair absorb you l.a.s.e.r.?

Alexander.

All great questions; I was looking for some papers too yesterday since they so boldly claim that peer reviewed literatre has found such a device "safe" meaning that probabaly FDA will apporve it without much fuss; but I havnt been able to find anything except their patent I attached earlier in this thread.

About white hair, I am not to sure. I am sure the creators will swoop in here and announce that their laser can cut anything and everything 

[bigdawg]

Lets give them the advantage of doubt.
The beta tests would reveal soon enough if it is a workable device or not.

True, and to be honest, I am keeping an open mind.

about beta testing, if you mean just some video they'll shoot and heavily edit then no, but if its a real beta testing with their products being distributed and tested by consumers than I am sure we all agree that yeah thats the true test.

I am more concerned about this product never quite reaching that stage. The claims are so broad and "path breaking" for something which has been a well studied topic (lasers and hair composition) that I find it hard to believe that they have made a product without the disadvantages/limitations raised by steve and me here. They already walked back on the battery life issue from their initial claim of 10 years to the most recent quoted value of 1 month.

[bigdawg]

Hi everyone,
We are men of science at Skarp so we think skepticism is very healthy.
Just want to address a couple gf things.
The Skarp Razor uses a low power laser, & gets its hair cutting ability not from the strength of the laser, but from targeting the particular molecules in the hair that break when hit with a certain wavelength of light. This means the laser is eye safe & capable of running on a AAA battery.
We've had a number of comments regarding the battery, & will decided to change to a user replaceable battery such is the overwhelming demand for it.
Feel free to head over to Kickstarter & post any other questions, i'll be checking back here too.

we can get to the exact mode of action later since I dont want to quibble about symantics of "breaking" vs cutting/burning hair; but can you just provide detailed specs of the laser inscluing its output, power consumption, heat generated etc.

your patent claims list bunch of different wavelengths; I am not quite sure which one made it in the final design.

" The device of claim 1, wherein the wavelength is within one or more ranges selected from a group consisting of: 380 nm to 480 nm, 380 nm to 500 nm, 400 nm to 500 nm, 2500 nm to 3500 nm, 2950 nm to 3050 nm, and 2700 nm to 3500 nm."

We're not looking to give away our IP

  isnt that the perfect excuse whenever it comes to providing any specs for products with tall claims.

If I was in your position, I would be just as skeptical. I would like to remind you all that our CEO is Morgan Gustavsson, who invented & patented IPL in the 80's. His most recent project is TRASER http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0035899.
Obviously we can't talk about real specifics at this point, but if everyone's interested, we could organize a Q&A with Morgan?

Thanks for taking the time out for replying. Yes it will be helpful if anyone from your technical/scientific staff explain away the concerns raised by us on this thread without any handwaving on the "IP" part.

Since you mention your CEO has already been publishing, I am sure there would be some papers/patents which is already in public domain; so you might as well go ahead and provide those citations.

[AndreasF]

...
Since you mention your CEO has already been publishing, I am sure there would be some papers/patents which is already in public domain; so you might as well go ahead and provide those citations.

I think the link he provided got messed up (period at end was included in link - correct link here)

I think it is an interesting concept, and it seems (to me at least) far more legit than the 800% monkey probe business. However, it does also seem a bit more "experimental" than they make it out to be. If it comes out as an actual product at some point, I'd certainly be interested, but I'm not willing to spend the amount of money they are asking for at this stage.

[AF6LJ]

You won't see that in the united states.
The FDA won't approve a laser device that has no safety feature to allow only skin contact before activation to be sold in the US.
There is device you can get in the US that uses the proper wavelength of light that it will work on dark hair.
It was marketed for women and purports to have reasonably good success.
Google Silk Epil.

A quick look at all the many "silk epil" devices doesn't show any such thing. Some do have a light so you ca see the hairs.

Can you provide a specific pointer or specific device, please.

Sorry got the wrong name, Let me call her today and I will get the name of the actual device.

[LaserSteve]

There is a segment in the video where a fiber is glowing like crazy with near IR, as it cuts hairs on a guys arm. This shows as whitish violet on color cameras as it gets past two dichroic filters in most cameras, one red, one blue, but usually not the green in the CCD mosaic.  It is cutting hair on the guy's arm.   From past experience, lasers in the 700 nm region usually hit the red pixels in color camera, and lasers in the 808 region hit residual responses  on both red and blue. That strongly hints that the test laser is around 800 nm. 

This is a bit of voodoo on my part, as no two models of color cameras have the same filter Reponses, and most have a IR cutoff filter in front of the CCDs.   Better cameras cut IR entirely.  Standard Silicon CCD response falls sharply to zero at 1100 nanometers, and CMOS cuts off even earlier.   I have no idea what camera they used. We use off the shelf silicon CCD cameras  to  examine and aim  near IR laser light in labs. While the response is hardly optimized for near IR, it is a low cost way of doing things.   For that reason I have a good idea how various cameras react to wavelengths they are not designed for.

So there is either near  IR 752 nm  pump light in the fiber if the fiber itself is  doped with rare earth and is lasing, or the test laser in the video was in the 750-850-900  nm range.  Rare Earth  Fiber lasers line up with some of the near to mid IR wavelengths mentioned in the patent, but cost and complexity of the needed optics plus the need for another laser diode to pump the fiber gain medium, suggests this is unlikely.  It would have an advantage with the evanescent coupling as you just put a mirror at the end of the fiber laser and allow resonance to build up inside the optical cavity thus formed. But that is so darn "out there" as to be highly unlikely. 
I've never seen short fibers lasing either, usually the length is in the 10s of meters to a kilometer. 

There are very few affordable diodes at wavelengths greater then 1100 nm, and few high power diodes at 1300-1500 where there is a market for diodes for long range fiber communications.  There  is nothing inexpensive at wavelengths greater then 1500 nm.

As I doubt you can get a Erbium fiber laser to useful powers at low cost in such a small space, and based on the video, I'm betting on a IR diode laser at less then 900 nanometers... But longer then 750 nanometers...

Ockham's razor, plus an educated guess, suggests the video shows a near IR diode laser directly coupled to a fiber...

Steve
 

[AF6LJ]

Here is the right device.
http://www.amazon.com/Silkn-SensEpil-Hair-Removal-Device/dp/B00N58SSC6/ref=sr_1_5?s=hpc&ie=UTF8&qid=1443020527&sr=1-5&keywords=epil&refinements=p_89%3ASilk%27n

[LaserSteve]

I'm curious to see if the SensEpil really has a  FDA 401 medical  approval or an FDA  accession number...
There is so much stuff out there that does not, these days. I don't have time to check right now.

Steve

[SkarpRazor]

Lets give them the advantage of doubt.
The beta tests would reveal soon enough if it is a workable device or not.

True, and to be honest, I am keeping an open mind.

about beta testing, if you mean just some video they'll shoot and heavily edit then no, but if its a real beta testing with their products being distributed and tested by consumers than I am sure we all agree that yeah thats the true test.

I am more concerned about this product never quite reaching that stage. The claims are so broad and "path breaking" for something which has been a well studied topic (lasers and hair composition) that I find it hard to believe that they have made a product without the disadvantages/limitations raised by steve and me here. They already walked back on the battery life issue from their initial claim of 10 years to the most recent quoted value of 1 month.

We didn't walk back on that claim. We initially were offering a non replaceable rechargeable battery, that in our calculations would last around ten years. charging once a month with normal use. But the overwhelming response was that people wanted a user replaceable battery, so we reversed course on that. A single AAA will give around a month of normal use.

[AF6LJ]

I'm curious to see if the SensEpil really has a  FDA 401 medical  approval or an FDA  accession number...
There is so much stuff out there that does not, these days. I don't have time to check right now.

Steve

Good question...

[SkarpRazor]

Hi everyone,
We are men of science at Skarp so we think skepticism is very healthy.
Just want to address a couple gf things.
The Skarp Razor uses a low power laser, & gets its hair cutting ability not from the strength of the laser, but from targeting the particular molecules in the hair that break when hit with a certain wavelength of light. This means the laser is eye safe & capable of running on a AAA battery.
We've had a number of comments regarding the battery, & will decided to change to a user replaceable battery such is the overwhelming demand for it.
Feel free to head over to Kickstarter & post any other questions, i'll be checking back here too.

we can get to the exact mode of action later since I dont want to quibble about symantics of "breaking" vs cutting/burning hair; but can you just provide detailed specs of the laser inscluing its output, power consumption, heat generated etc.

your patent claims list bunch of different wavelengths; I am not quite sure which one made it in the final design.

" The device of claim 1, wherein the wavelength is within one or more ranges selected from a group consisting of: 380 nm to 480 nm, 380 nm to 500 nm, 400 nm to 500 nm, 2500 nm to 3500 nm, 2950 nm to 3050 nm, and 2700 nm to 3500 nm."

We're not looking to give away our IP

  isnt that the perfect excuse whenever it comes to providing any specs for products with tall claims.

If I was in your position, I would be just as skeptical. I would like to remind you all that our CEO is Morgan Gustavsson, who invented & patented IPL in the 80's. His most recent project is TRASER http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0035899.
Obviously we can't talk about real specifics at this point, but if everyone's interested, we could organize a Q&A with Morgan?

Thanks for taking the time out for replying. Yes it will be helpful if anyone from your technical/scientific staff explain away the concerns raised by us on this thread without any handwaving on the "IP" part.

Since you mention your CEO has already been publishing, I am sure there would be some papers/patents which is already in public domain; so you might as well go ahead and provide those citations.

We aren't going to give away our IP, but i'm sure Morgan & Paul would be happy to answer questions. Just post them on here & i'll do my best to get an answer to them all.
We're at the UCI dermatology lab today filming so I might not respond until tonight.

[AF6LJ]

I have a question;

How do you keep people from going blind by misusing your product?
After all in the US you have to preserve and protect the shallow end of the Gene pool.

[firewalker]

Is there any data from a real device to share?

Your project will fail but, I can't share the reason without IP infringement.

Alexander.

[SkarpRazor]

I have a question;

How do you keep people from going blind by misusing your product?
After all in the US you have to preserve and protect the shallow end of the Gene pool.

The laser is eye safe

[SkarpRazor]

Is there any data from a real device to share?

Your project will fail but, I can't share the reason without IP infringement.

Alexander.

We'd love to turn you around & get your support! If you have specific technical questions, let me know & i'll put them to Morgan.

[bigdawg]

There is a segment in the video where a fiber is glowing like crazy with near IR, as it cuts hairs on a guys arm. This shows as whitish violet on color cameras as it gets past two dichroic filters in most cameras, one red, one blue, but usually not the green in the CCD mosaic.  It is cutting hair on the guy's arm.   From past experience, lasers in the 700 nm region usually hit the red pixels in color camera, and lasers in the 808 region hit residual responses  on both red and blue. That strongly hints that the test laser is around 800 nm. 

This is a bit of voodoo on my part, as no two models of color cameras have the same filter Reponses, and most have a IR cutoff filter in front of the CCDs.   Better cameras cut IR entirely.  Standard Silicon CCD response falls sharply to zero at 1100 nanometers, and CMOS cuts off even earlier.   I have no idea what camera they used. We use off the shelf silicon CCD cameras  to  examine and aim  near IR laser light in labs. While the response is hardly optimized for near IR, it is a low cost way of doing things.   For that reason I have a good idea how various cameras react to wavelengths they are not designed for.

So there is either near  IR 752 nm  pump light in the fiber if the fiber itself is  doped with rare earth and is lasing, or the test laser in the video was in the 750-850-900  nm range.  Rare Earth  Fiber lasers line up with some of the near to mid IR wavelengths mentioned in the patent, but cost and complexity of the needed optics plus the need for another laser diode to pump the fiber gain medium, suggests this is unlikely.  It would have an advantage with the evanescent coupling as you just put a mirror at the end of the fiber laser and allow resonance to build up inside the optical cavity thus formed. But that is so darn "out there" as to be highly unlikely. 
I've never seen short fibers lasing either, usually the length is in the 10s of meters to a kilometer. 

There are very few affordable diodes at wavelengths greater then 1100 nm, and few high power diodes at 1300-1500 where there is a market for diodes for long range fiber communications.  There  is nothing inexpensive at wavelengths greater then 1500 nm.

As I doubt you can get a Erbium fiber laser to useful powers at low cost in such a small space, and based on the video, I'm betting on a IR diode laser at less then 900 nanometers... But longer then 750 nanometers...

Ockham's razor, plus an educated guess, suggests the video shows a near IR diode laser directly coupled to a fiber...

Steve

Great detective work Steve 

I dont know enough about CCD cameras/filters so I'll go with your knowledge on the issue.

I have come to a similar conclusion based on a separate analysis. The only chemicals in hair they could be targeting are melanin and keratin. Now, if you want to treat just the dark hair, then target melanin, go to a UV wavelength (http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~jgd1000/melanin.html), and boom; the hair comes off.

However, I am assuming we want to even cut grey/blond hair  and for that the only logical place is keratin. Unfortunately this now means we are in IR ranges.  I found an old paper http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0022-2836(68)90405-1 which describes the IR spectra for keratin; and as you can see from it; keratin absorbs at NIR to IR ranges. (I couldnt attach the paper here since it exceeds 1 mb size limit for attachments)

So the only conceivable way this works on all types of hair is by using NIR lasers.

[bigdawg]

Is there any data from a real device to share?

Your project will fail but, I can't share the reason without IP infringement.

Alexander.

 

[SkarpRazor]

There is a segment in the video where a fiber is glowing like crazy with near IR, as it cuts hairs on a guys arm. This shows as whitish violet on color cameras as it gets past two dichroic filters in most cameras, one red, one blue, but usually not the green in the CCD mosaic.  It is cutting hair on the guy's arm.   From past experience, lasers in the 700 nm region usually hit the red pixels in color camera, and lasers in the 808 region hit residual responses  on both red and blue. That strongly hints that the test laser is around 800 nm. 

This is a bit of voodoo on my part, as no two models of color cameras have the same filter Reponses, and most have a IR cutoff filter in front of the CCDs.   Better cameras cut IR entirely.  Standard Silicon CCD response falls sharply to zero at 1100 nanometers, and CMOS cuts off even earlier.   I have no idea what camera they used. We use off the shelf silicon CCD cameras  to  examine and aim  near IR laser light in labs. While the response is hardly optimized for near IR, it is a low cost way of doing things.   For that reason I have a good idea how various cameras react to wavelengths they are not designed for.

So there is either near  IR 752 nm  pump light in the fiber if the fiber itself is  doped with rare earth and is lasing, or the test laser in the video was in the 750-850-900  nm range.  Rare Earth  Fiber lasers line up with some of the near to mid IR wavelengths mentioned in the patent, but cost and complexity of the needed optics plus the need for another laser diode to pump the fiber gain medium, suggests this is unlikely.  It would have an advantage with the evanescent coupling as you just put a mirror at the end of the fiber laser and allow resonance to build up inside the optical cavity thus formed. But that is so darn "out there" as to be highly unlikely. 
I've never seen short fibers lasing either, usually the length is in the 10s of meters to a kilometer. 

There are very few affordable diodes at wavelengths greater then 1100 nm, and few high power diodes at 1300-1500 where there is a market for diodes for long range fiber communications.  There  is nothing inexpensive at wavelengths greater then 1500 nm.

As I doubt you can get a Erbium fiber laser to useful powers at low cost in such a small space, and based on the video, I'm betting on a IR diode laser at less then 900 nanometers... But longer then 750 nanometers...

Ockham's razor, plus an educated guess, suggests the video shows a near IR diode laser directly coupled to a fiber...

Steve

I read Morgan this post, his response:
"He's obviously a very bright guy! Tell him to keep guessing, if he had more disclosure, he would do better. I would like to personally speak to him after deliveries start."

[TheAmmoniacal]

If I try to do some rough math in my head on this - assuming they use a 800 nm diode.

It uses a AAA battery that lasts for 30 days with normal use, I'll assume normal use ~ 1 minute per day (or 2 minutes every 2 days). So 30 minutes runtime. A AAA cell is about 800 mAh at a nominal 1.2V ~ 1 Wh, 1Wh/0.5h = 2 W. 2 W laser? 

Would that mean a spectral irradiance of 2/(0.0002*850*10^-9) = 11764705882 W/(m^2.nm)? (If we assume a 2 cm^2 shaving area).

 Someone correct me on this please

[AF6LJ]

Without more information I have to call BS on this....

[SkarpRazor]

If I try to do some rough math in my head on this - assuming they use a 800 nm diode.

It uses a AAA battery that lasts for 30 days with normal use, I'll assume normal use ~ 1 minute per day (or 2 minutes every 2 days). So 30 minutes runtime. A AAA cell is about 800 mAh at a nominal 1.2V ~ 1 Wh, 1Wh/0.5h = 2 W. 2 W laser? 

Would that mean a spectral irradiance of 2/(0.0002*850*10^-9) = 11764705882 W/(m^2.nm)? (If we assume a 2 cm^2 shaving area).

 Someone correct me on this please

From Morgan:
"Never assume!"

[LaserSteve]

The more I crunch the numbers, I too come up with technological long shot, but never assume...

Rant about success in innovation  snipped via self edit...

Steve

[AF6LJ]

I would like to see them succeed also, but my family and friends will tell you I am the model Skeptic.
I don't expect them to show all their hand, but there are some things about this product that bug me.

[Pinkus]

I would like to see them succeed also, ....

me too, and if it is just to grin at Gillette with their 10x over priced blades.
Well, if I think about it, if this reall works, P&G will probably buy these guys/patents and lock everthing forever in a big safe so we will never have the chance to use anyway.

[SeanB]

Buy a used Phillishave, and replace the 2 dead cells inside and you will come out ahead. Bought 2 115VAC mains powered ones recently, though they are almost antiques.

[Marco]

So the only conceivable way this works on all types of hair is by using NIR lasers.

A couple Watt of <1300nm NIR is not eye safe though. The neat concept of FTIR would help with detecting hair to save on power but it can't contain the light. A simple water drop could couple out the light as well and if it can burn a hair it can burn a spot on your retina.

[TheAmmoniacal]

Who shaves with blades anymore though?

[LaserSteve]

So the only conceivable way this works on all types of hair is by using NIR lasers.

A couple Watt of <1300nm NIR is not eye safe though. The neat concept of FTIR would help with detecting hair to save on power but it can't contain the light. A simple water drop could couple out the light as well and if it can burn a hair it can burn a spot on your retina.

Large amounts of the classical 1970s Laser Safety research are starting to show as being very conservative. Things like audience scanning during laser light shows in Europe and recent tests involving  exposure to laser pointers have shown the damage thresholds for retinas that were put into place may be extra conservative.  I'm a certified LSO for laser shows, my old hobby. So I keep an "eye" on this area.  I'm usually the de-facto LSO for the area I'm working in, as not many organizations these days can afford a full time LSO. Remember when the standards were formed in the 1970s, calibrated  devices for measuring laser power were in their infancy.   

Couple that with high multiplication factors tacked on by researchers who RIGHTFULLY wanted to ensure public safety, and you can see that some of the numbers are very high.  Back then they did not have confocal imaging to see lesions or photochemical damage on the test animal  tissue, either.


I still tell people never to fail to take precautions  around with anything hotter then  Class IIIA devices, but some of the classic thresholds and teachings are very, very conservative.  There is a current campaign to allow "Ten Times MPE" for audience scanned laser shows by trained operators with certified fail safes in the scanning gear. 

That said, the only way to ensure laser safety in ANY real world situation is to NEVER assume anything and take actual measurements.

Steve 

[AF6LJ]

So the only conceivable way this works on all types of hair is by using NIR lasers.

A couple Watt of <1300nm NIR is not eye safe though. The neat concept of FTIR would help with detecting hair to save on power but it can't contain the light. A simple water drop could couple out the light as well and if it can burn a hair it can burn a spot on your retina.

Large amounts of the classical 1970s Laser Safety research are starting to show as being very conservative. Things like audience scanning during laser light shows in Europe and recent tests involving  exposure to laser pointers have shown the damage thresholds for retinas that were put into place may be extra conservative.  I'm a certified LSO for laser shows, my old hobby. So I keep an "eye" on this area.  I'm usually the de-facto LSO for the area I'm working in, as not many organizations these days can afford a full time LSO. Remember when the standards were formed in the 1970s, calibrated  devices for measuring laser power were in their infancy.   

Couple that with high multiplication factors tacked on by researchers who RIGHTFULLY wanted to ensure public safety, and you can see that some of the numbers are very high.  Back then they did not have confocal imaging to see lesions or photochemical damage on the test animal  tissue, either.


I still tell people never to fail to take precautions  around with anything hotter then  Class IIIA devices, but some of the classic thresholds and teachings are very, very conservative.  There is a current campaign to allow "Ten Times MPE" for audience scanned laser shows by trained operators with certified fail safes in the scanning gear. 

That said, the only way to ensure laser safety in ANY real world situation is to NEVER assume anything and take actual measurements.

Steve

If this is true then please post links to the studies.

/She who is skeptical....

[Kjelt]

Who shaves with blades anymore though?

I use both, nothing as clean as a wet shave with blades, it even removes the dead cellsupper layer. In  a hurry i take the ele tronic shave.

[Bud]

Who shaves with blades anymore though?

This never produced clean shave for me regardless of make/model. I use blades and shaving gel.

[bigdawg]

Without more information I have to call BS on this....

I am calling bs too. The only difference between this campaign and other failed KS campaigns is that this product has a technical team with some established track record and that lends them some credibility. However, once you grow through their publicatipon records, and read up their own disclosures; nothing quite adds up. Talks about their "breakthrough" and new way to target hair is just words.

Hence, my conclusion is that they'll raise something over $2M through this campaign and then we'll probably not see any updates from them for months before they come back in 12-18 months saying they ran out of all the money 

[bigdawg]

Who shaves with blades anymore though?

I use both, nothing as clean as a wet shave with blades, it even removes the dead cellsupper layer. In  a hurry i take the ele tronic shave.

I have to agree that wet shave is a better option than using a shaver. I have a Braun foil shaver which gives me a pretty close shave on the flat portions of my face; but it doesnt come close at the neck. Phillips rotary shaver is quite the opposite, with slightly better at my neck area. Both of these are waterproof models so I can use it for a wet shave if needed. However, that kinda defeats the purpose of using a shaver; so I only stick with dry shave.

I try to atleast have a wet shave with a 5 bladed Gillette razor couple of times a week just because its less irritating, and gets me the closest shave out of all the other options.

[LaserSteve]

As research these days is so technical and team oriented, you often cannot find out until you try.

Besides I think its time for a revolution. My favorite razor company just forced everyone to buy their new product by making the connector on the razor handle obsolete.  Which was covered by calling it a "New and Improved" product. (again!) 

    We shall see...

Steve

[Bassman59]

You raise all the excellent points. I have extensive experience with high powered lazers for spectroscopy and I cannot imagine any kind of lasers in the market right now which is powerful enough to burn the hair as closely as a traditional mach3 (forget the 5 blade ones) yet compact enough not to use an external power source.

Fuck everything, we're doing five blades.

[AF6LJ]

As research these days is so technical and team oriented, you often cannot find out until you try.

Besides I think its time for a revolution. My favorite razor company just forced everyone to buy their new product by making the connector on the razor handle obsolete.  Which was covered by calling it a "New and Improved" product. (again!) 

    We shall see...

Steve

I know that you are not likely to be able to sell this product in the US without FDA approval, and I sure hope you are right about the safety issue or your business venture will only last to the first law suite.

[bigdawg]

You raise all the excellent points. I have extensive experience with high powered lazers for spectroscopy and I cannot imagine any kind of lasers in the market right now which is powerful enough to burn the hair as closely as a traditional mach3 (forget the 5 blade ones) yet compact enough not to use an external power source.

Fuck everything, we're doing five blades.

 

[Delta]

.

Best.
Username.
Ever.

😀

[f4eru]

I'm a certified LSO for laser shows, my old hobby. So I keep an "eye" on this area.

Do you keep only the remaining eye ? )

[FrankBuss]

Is there any paper with your research on the subject and real data of the prototypes?

Will white hair absorb you l.a.s.e.r.?

They don't show a working device in their video, but at 1:30 in the video you can see how good a laser cuts hair with probably even a much more powerful laser than what is used in the laser razors, judging by the heavy eye protection glasses.

[f4eru]

Yeah. An AAA cell cannot supply more than 2W.

Powering a laser with that is possible, but with the bad efficiency of the laser, the so-so coupling to a fiber, the huge losses when leaking out light from the fiber at a very small contact point, touching the hair for, say, 50 ms. Let's saw the hair got 1mW of optical power ( and that's really optimistic)

That is not going to smell like burnt hair

I smell ..... I smell Bullshit !

[bigdawg]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/skarp/the-skarp-laser-razor-21st-century-shaving/posts/1363227

This is their "demo" video. I thought this project was probably B.S. but now its 100% confirmed.

[hayatepilot]

Very interesting technology that they have.
The laser runs in a glas fiber and when a hair touches the fiber, the laser light gets coupled out and burns/cuts the hair.
But this system seems very delicate and fiddly. And it doesn't seem to cut the hairs reliably, or at least very slowly. 

But maybe they can solve these problems.

Greetings

[AF6LJ]

Very interesting technology that they have.
The laser runs in a glas fiber and when a hair touches the fiber, the laser light gets coupled out and burns/cuts the hair.
But this system seems very delicate and fiddly. And it doesn't seem to cut the hairs reliably, or at least very slowly. 

But maybe they can solve these problems.

Greetings

To quote Tim The Tool Man Taylor "More Power"...

[edy]

That is quite an inefficient cutting system. It burns your hair and if there is a glass fiber that is doing the work, it won't be long until it is covered by carbonated deposits of your burned hair follicles. It will have to be cleaned and the fiber surface will need to be smooth again and not scratched.

The smell is going to be quite awful (have you smelled burning hair?), and it will require a dry environment. You will not be using any shaving creams or soaps with this, and not in the shower either. It just seems to me like it is not the right solution for the problem. Another consideration is hair color.... is the cutting power based on absorption of light? Will dark hair cut easier than white or blonde?

Good luck to them for trying, I hope the backers won't be disappointed. I'll wait until I see one that really works the way it should. I'll wait and observe for now how it goes.... 

[frenky]

They claim otherwise:

Creator Skarp Technologies 8 minutes ago
There is no smell when you use the Skarp Razor! We are not burning the hair.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/skarp/the-skarp-laser-razor-21st-century-shaving/comments

[LaserSteve]

TIR  need not only occur in a fiber, they could use a coated sapphire or quartz wedge for example... That would solve the frail fiber problem.
Steve

[Marco]

That is quite an inefficient cutting system. It burns your hair and if there is a glass fiber that is doing the work, it won't be long until it is covered by carbonated deposits of your burned hair follicles. It will have to be cleaned and the fiber surface will need to be smooth again and not scratched.

Assuming the carbon still couples out power and they pulse it a bit it might be self cleaning (won't evaporate it obviously, but temperature cycling might pulverize it).

[AndyC_772]

It's made The Register now:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/29/laser_shaver_kickstarts/

Surprisingly few dissenting voices in the comments 

[EEVblog]

Isn;t mandatory for KickStarter to ha e a working prototype of some kind?

Just heard about this one.
The big red flag is that with all their talk about going into production, an all their fancy lab gear and credentials, that couldn't actually show one working actually shaving someone.

[hayatepilot]

The big red flag is that with all their talk about going into production, an all their fancy lab gear and credentials, that couldn't actually show one working actually shaving someone.

In their recent update they show a (to some degree) working prototype:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/skarp/the-skarp-laser-razor-21st-century-shaving/posts/1364296

If they want to beat existing shavers, they have to improve A LOT in the final product.

Greetings

[firewalker]

They posted a proof of concept. Not a working prototype.

I think this project is like Mu thermal image.

Alexander.

[EEVblog]

If I was in your position, I would be just as skeptical. I would like to remind you all that our CEO is Morgan Gustavsson, who invented & patented IPL in the 80's. His most recent project is TRASER http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0035899.
Obviously we can't talk about real specifics at this point, but if everyone's interested, we could organize a Q&A with Morgan?

I and I'm sure others on here are quite impressed that you are willing to answer questions on a technical forum like this, kudos for that, most are too scared 

I have a question if I may:
- If you are targeting delivery by March 2016, you'd surely have some real prototypes by now, even if they are ungainly. Why have you not actually demonstrated a working prototype unit?
There is only a small snippet at 1:35 in the video of something that looks like a fibre optic laser working, and I noted the following issues:
1) It looks to give a very poor results, still hairs left over.
2) It looks like flames are shooting up as the hair burns (other have noted the potential smell issue as well)
3) The guy is using protective laser glasses. Why is he doing that if it's a wavelength is safe for people to use?

[EEVblog]

In their recent update they show a (to some degree) working prototype:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/skarp/the-skarp-laser-razor-21st-century-shaving/posts/1364296
If they want to beat existing shavers, they have to improve A LOT in the final product.

Ok, I didn't see the update. Seems they do have a working prototype.
But yeah, I agree, it needs a LOT of work. That is horrible demo. Fiddly, slow, barely works, seems to only work on a point hair and not across the whole face.
This is the stuff that should have been sorted before taking people's money.

[EEVblog]

If they want to beat existing shavers, they have to improve A LOT in the final product.

And that's the trick. It has to be at least as fast and efficient as razors or electric shavers or people simply won't use it.
I switched to electric shaver a long time ago for the convenience and speed.

[fcb]

In their recent update they show a (to some degree) working prototype:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/skarp/the-skarp-laser-razor-21st-century-shaving/posts/1364296
If they want to beat existing shavers, they have to improve A LOT in the final product.

Ok, I didn't see the update. Seems they do have a working prototype.
But yeah, I agree, it needs a LOT of work. That is horrible demo. Fiddly, slow, barely works, seems to only work on a point hair and not across the whole face.
This is the stuff that should have been sorted before taking people's money.

I don't know Dave, it's a fairly convincing video for a proof-of-concept.  I reckon they must have figured out the power budget vs. battery size vs. speed of shave before they got this far.

I think they might just do it (although I'd be surprised if they hit the timescales or budget) - they probably have some big backers in the wings...

[hayatepilot]

Yes, of course, you are right, it's just a proof of concept.
I doubt, that they can improve much though.
They claim that a mass produced fiber will be "several orders of magnitude better", but how do they know that? 

And what happens when the fiber breaks? Will it burn your eyes out?
The fiber looks incredibly delicate. I can't imagine it holding long with daily use. 
Unless they will use a wedge shaped lightpipe for the laser this is going to fail.
Or you would have to buy replacement fiber cartridges. But then you are back to the expensive replacement blades from conventional shavers.

Greetings

[EEVblog]

I don't know Dave, it's a fairly convincing video for a proof-of-concept.

That a laser can burn through a hair. Yep, check, no problem. But actually working as reliable shaver, it was almost excruciating to watch how tedious it was.
If that's the best they've ever demonstrated, and they think that it just takes money to build the "high performance & rigidly mounted fiber can only be manufactured through mass production." that will magically just slice through a face full of hair in one stroke like a razor. Then I think they might be in for a few problems...

[EEVblog]

They claim that a mass produced fiber will be "several orders of magnitude better", but how do they know that? 

They either have test data to substantiate that claim, or it's just wishful thinking. Perhaps they'd like to clarify how they know that?

[bigdawg]

In their recent update they show a (to some degree) working prototype:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/skarp/the-skarp-laser-razor-21st-century-shaving/posts/1364296
If they want to beat existing shavers, they have to improve A LOT in the final product.

Ok, I didn't see the update. Seems they do have a working prototype.
But yeah, I agree, it needs a LOT of work. That is horrible demo. Fiddly, slow, barely works, seems to only work on a point hair and not across the whole face.
This is the stuff that should have been sorted before taking people's money.

I don't know Dave, it's a fairly convincing video for a proof-of-concept.  I reckon they must have figured out the power budget vs. battery size vs. speed of shave before they got this far.

I think they might just do it (although I'd be surprised if they hit the timescales or budget) - they probably have some big backers in the wings...

Yes they seem to have some type of a prototype[e and that's better than other failed KS projects however, it seems like that video was shot poorly on purpose. I wanted to have a clear view of the razor cutting hair without even the possibility of it being powered externally.

Another major concern is using such a laser based razor on your face while standing in front of a mirror. Now, anyone who has worked with lasers knows how using it in vicinity of large mirrors without wearing safely glasses is such a risky proposition.

They also claim you can wet shave using this razor. I have a very hard time believing that too.

[Kjelt]

And that's the trick. It has to be at least as fast and efficient as razors or electric shavers or people simply won't use it.
I switched to electric shaver a long time ago for the convenience and speed.

Conventional blade: takes up to 3 minutes extra for preparation soaping in the skin, water in the basin, cleaning the rasor between shavestrokes.
Electrical raser: you often need multiple times doing the same area because some hair just would not be shaved off right.
So if it takes < 10 minutes to shave it would be fine. If it takes half an hour they better laser the follicles themselves so you don't have to shave for a few days/weeks 

[LaserSteve]

Note this video is not showing near IR effects.. Either they learned from what I said, or they are using mid-IR. It would help if the white balance compensation was set on the camera for that weird greenish light  they were using to film with.

Either way, for a laser professional like me, that was somewhat painful to watch, its working, but its not quite there. Machine stretched and aligned fibers are the way to go. Even the source alignment when they couple the fiber to the laser module and

bond it needs to be automated...  Which is done all the time and is available off the shelf....  How to automate the alignment has been published in great detail over the years.   

There are some scientific uses for stretched fibers. Commercial fiber tapering machines are off the shelf items.
As for knowing the fiber diameter needed, the math is readily available if you know the index of refraction of the hair.

The electronic analogy is knowing guide cutoff wavelength, and S Parameters for your transmission line, ie S11, S12, S21,S22. Then you  break open braid open on the Coax, introducing a loss, and measuring again....   The modeling software would be on the order of 10K$ for the basic package. Optical modeling software is not cheap...

It should be theoretically possible to support the fiber in a way that TIR is not spoiled, but that is going to need phase II funding to engineer. That mount would let it be cleaned...



 That clearly is not something like stock 62/125 u  fiber....

Steve   (edited 12:46:48 on 9/30/2015, because I screwed up on S22)

[bigdawg]

Note this video is not showing near IR effects.. Either they learned from what I said, or they are using mid-IR. It would help if the white balance compensation was set on the camera for that weird greenish light  they were using to film with.

Either way, for a laser professional like me, that was somewhat painful to watch, its working, but its not quite there.

Machine stretched and aligned fibers are the way to go. Even the source alignment when they couple the fiber to the laser module and bond it needs to be automated...  Which is done all the time and is available off the shelf....  How to automate the alignment has been published in great detail over the years.   

There are some scientific uses for stretched fibers, commercial machines are available for small bio  labs, for example.

As for knowing the fiber diameter needed, the math is readily available if you know the index of refraction of the hair.
The electronic analogy is knowing S Parameters for your transmission line, ie S11, S12, S21,S21, and then breaking the braid open on the Coax and measuring again....   The modeling software would be on the order of 10K$ for the basic package. Optical modeling software is not cheap...

It should be possible to support the fiber in a way that TIR is not spoiled, but that is going to need phase II funding to engineer.
That mount would let it be cleaned...



 That clearly is not something like stock 62/125 u  fiber....

Steve

Which software would you use for something like this? I have Zemax which we use for ray tracing, illumination modeling etc but I dont know if it can do the kind of analysis you mentioned.

[LaserSteve]

Dawg, I'm not sure what optical modeler  I'd use..  Every time I need that kind of code, some bean counter or project manager makes me find another way to model the problem. They all cite the initial expense of 10K$ or 20K$ as too much.  Then someone  tells me to built the system and modify as needed based on bench work and first order approximations.   

Or I'd buy half a day of a really skilled consultant's time.

Steve

[firewalker]

Note this video is not showing near IR effects.. Either they learned from what I said, or they are using mid-IR. It would help if the white balance compensation was set on the camera for that weird greenish light  they were using to film with.

I thought they were using a filter to protect the camera's ccd.

Alexander.

[LaserSteve]

I'm not awake yet... and forgot about that... I had the audio off in the cubical when I viewed the video.
On using the filter,  I concur, that green glass would be typical of a IR Laser Goggle.
I  Do know from past experience that in some cases, CCD pixels are much easer to damage then eye tissue.

Steve

[Marco]

It should be theoretically possible to support the fiber in a way that TIR is not spoiled

It will have to be glued to something won't it? A thin glass fiber not solidly attached along it's length to something more robust seems like a very bad idea in a consumer product.

[bigdawg]

Dawg, I'm not sure what optical modeler  I'd use..  Every time I need that kind of code, some bean counter or project manager makes me find another way to model the problem. They all cite the initial expense of 10K$ or 20K$ as too much.  Then someone  tells me to built the system and modify as needed based on bench work and first order approximations.   

Or I'd buy half a day of a really skilled consultant's time.

Steve

yeah I agree I'll rather get an experienced consultant on board too. I've never had the need to do such modeling on handheld fiber optic systems. My lab set-up uses benchtop lasers, xenon and D2 lamps mounted on (optical) breadboards; which makes conventional ray tracing modeling good enough for our purpose.

[LaserSteve]

The fiber would probably not be  glued . More likely stretched and then spiked down with metal tabs/clamps or even metalized and soldered/welded  in full  production.


Steve 

[LaserSteve]

Skarp just broke 2 megabucks on Kickstarter... Congrats guys, that alone is impressive...

Steve

[edy]

I just checked and they are at $3 million. 

There is no shortage of fools willing to part with their money. Let's look at what we have so far:

- latest video shows some kind of piss-ant fibre-optic cable acting as the "blade edge" which has some high-power light in it.... how easy is it to break it? And when it breaks, how much will it cost to fix?

- latest video shows such inefficient and slow cutting that it seems a far stretch that it will be anywhere close to being practical for all intents and purposes

- latest video does not show the handle completely... for all we know there is a high-powered laser plugged into the mains just running down a long optical fibre and into the handle.... How are they going to fit all that in a tiny portable shaving handle?


Seriously... 


EDIT:  Just wanted to add this link:

https://www.reddit.com/r/kickstarter/comments/3n59gt/scam_alert_the_wildly_successful_skarp_laser/

Some good comments... And actually what seems like some responses from Skarp (if we are to believe it is them) also chiming in to the thread, and a bunch of jabs in each direction about how skeptical it all seems and why these seemingly reputable researchers wouldn't be involved in this if it were a scam.

[jkestner]

I don't know Dave, it's a fairly convincing video for a proof-of-concept.

That a laser can burn through a hair. Yep, check, no problem. But actually working as reliable shaver, it was almost excruciating to watch how tedious it was.
If that's the best they've ever demonstrated, and they think that it just takes money to build the "high performance & rigidly mounted fiber can only be manufactured through mass production." that will magically just slice through a face full of hair in one stroke like a razor. Then I think they might be in for a few problems...

Right. This probably isn't a scam. Too many people are quick to call failed Kickstarters scams, which doesn't do the concept of Kickstarter justice. These guys may know as much about cutting hair with a low-power laser than anyone.

More likely that this will be the second kind of Kickstarter failure - well-intentioned venture that fails in scaling up. (See: CST-01 watch.) They probably don't know as much about bringing a new product requiring novel production techniques to the mass market where consumer expectations are high (and because of the Kickstarter pitch, even higher).

[LaserSteve]

New video,

https://d2pq0u4uni88oo.cloudfront.net/assets/004/651/986/9fb532290d7db7537d4d35c9a9591f91_h264_high.mp4

Steve

[GNU_Ninja]

I've been using the same wet shave BIC disposable razor (the really cheap one shave jobs) for the last nine months. Still shaves OK. Bought a pack of 20 for a quid at Tesco's. Still have nineteen of 'em left which ought to last me until I peg it or I need to buy another pack of 20. I doubt this laser doofus will ever compete. EVER!

Filing this crapola under another pointless first world bullshit product that nobody really needs. This planet is fucked up enough already 

[firewalker]

I think that it the same fiber stretched across a plastic model. Not power by it self.

Alexander.

[tggzzz]

Oh dear.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/10/five-things-we-love

[SeanB]

I've been using the same wet shave BIC disposable razor (the really cheap one shave jobs) for the last nine months. Still shaves OK. Bought a pack of 20 for a quid at Tesco's. Still have nineteen of 'em left which ought to last me until I peg it or I need to buy another pack of 20. I doubt this laser doofus will ever compete. EVER!

Filing this crapola under another pointless first world bullshit product that nobody really needs. This planet is fucked up enough already 

Same problem, just I use them for a month and drop them in a bin. Still have a dozen or so left from the last bulk buy, a few years ago. Can't remember how much I paid, but the price must have been low that I stocked up with the blue Bic ones. I did use a "free" 5 blade Gillette that was offered with Popular Mechanics, but never bought spare blades for it, just used the 5 pack it came with. Must admit it did cut nicely, but I can buy the same 5 blade razor as disposable for less than half the price, and it lasts just as long. Just buy a jar ( not a spray can, the jar with solid white cream inside) of prep, and use a tiny amount to make a thin layer before shaving, and it works very well with the disposables.

[EEVblog]

Some good comments... And actually what seems like some responses from Skarp (if we are to believe it is them)

I can verify it is them. They are using legit comany email address

[kalleboo]

New video,

https://d2pq0u4uni88oo.cloudfront.net/assets/004/651/986/9fb532290d7db7537d4d35c9a9591f91_h264_high.mp4

Another unconvincing demo... For the steel razor they pushed against all hairs at once. For the laser razor, they went one hair at a time right away...

[NiHaoMike]

I've been using the same wet shave BIC disposable razor (the really cheap one shave jobs) for the last nine months. Still shaves OK. Bought a pack of 20 for a quid at Tesco's. Still have nineteen of 'em left which ought to last me until I peg it or I need to buy another pack of 20. I doubt this laser doofus will ever compete. EVER!

Filing this crapola under another pointless first world bullshit product that nobody really needs. This planet is fucked up enough already 

I've also had great luck with those cheap razors. Those who go through razors a lot or keep cutting themselves are using too much pressure.

[mikerj]

New video,

https://d2pq0u4uni88oo.cloudfront.net/assets/004/651/986/9fb532290d7db7537d4d35c9a9591f91_h264_high.mp4

Another unconvincing demo... For the steel razor they pushed against all hairs at once. For the laser razor, they went one hair at a time right away...

It's fairly convincing in terms of the stated underlying theory IMO.  No visible smoke, and it gets through the hairs pretty quickly with minimal force.   Even one hair at a time with a razor blade would require a reasonable amount of pressure unless you slide the blade.  However, what it doesn't demonstrate is how well this will work on short, thick hairs that must be cut close to the skin, and I suspect this is where they are going to have problems.

[edy]

I have been using those 5-blade Mach vibrating ones and even after months it still gives a clean shave, both face and head to a glossy finish. I always shave in the shower and have soap to ensure things glide easily. Even those AAA batteries powering the vibration motor last forever.

Yeah... I give them credit for trying. But I'll sit this one out. Let those backers be the Guinea pigs.

On the other hand, we may find some hack for this that makes it practical for some other application for a fraction of the price. Then you could buy it and bust it apart to use for the other reasons.

By the way, I have one of these and it does cut. But I still use a stainless steel blade for 99% of my work because it is faster and cheaper:

http://www.biolase.com/products/ilase/

[Gromitt]

It's in a newspaper in Sweden to, Göteborgs-Posten http://www.gp.se/ekonomi/1.2859322-svenska-laserrakhyveln-skarp-ar-en-smashhit has an article Saturday about the inventor Morgan Gustavsson, who is from Sweden. Btw, 'skarp' is sharp in swedish.

[Ashish3]

Long time reader and podcast listener. Have been following all hot eevblog discussions. Just registered to post that Skarp funding was suspended half an hour ago by kickstarter. I was hoping they would be funded, deliver and Dave and others would be tearing it down and testing.   

[Kean]

Suspended...
So apart from why... I wonder how much of the KS money (that they no longer have) has already been spent.
Im sure it is nowhere near $4m, but they could still already have spent a substantial amount (on top of their previous development costs) based on the expected big funding.

[Kean]

So apparently it was suspended due to lack of a working prototype - per this image posted on Reddit

I'm sure KS was in touch with the Skarp creator to give them a chance to explain before suspension, but I think it clear certain KS T&Cs had been violated.
They did appear to show lasers cutting strands of hair, which is beleiveable albeit with much more powerful lasers than I'd like to be pointing near my face.
But they clearly did NOT show something capable of giving a close shave, let alone one that uses eye safe lasers, and could be delivered in the form shown.

So despite the fact I didn't believe they could deliver, and that I do agree with the suspension, it does raise the issue of what KS consider to be a working prototype.
Prototypes often just show the proof of concept, and don't always have all the details ironed out.
Generally the crowd would then critically evaluate the campaign, which is where the unmoderated comments of KS are invaluable to people who bother to read them.

Discuss. 

[Kean]

Oh, and how soon can we expect to see Skarp on IGG?   

[Mr.B]

Oh, and how soon can we expect to see Skarp on IGG?   

This afternoon... ?

[hayatepilot]

Already online on IGG. 

[Kean]

Already online on IGG. 

Ah, so it is... but doing pretty poorly as you'd expect
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-skarp-laser-razor-21st-century-shaving/

EDIT: OK, it was apparently only put up an hour ago, so $15k already isn't too bad.  I assumed the 13 days left meant it had already been up for 2 weeks or something.
But many of the poor suckers coming from KS probably don't know about IGG and flexible funding...

[robca]

Suspended...
So apart from why... I wonder how much of the KS money (that they no longer have) has already been spent.
Im sure it is nowhere near $4m, but they could still already have spent a substantial amount (on top of their previous development costs) based on the expected big funding.

Kickstarter releases money only after the campaign ends (by date, not when they meet their funding goal). As far as I know, the Skarp campaign was still open, so KS should not have released any money

Good on KS to have caught this. But there are hundreds of other projects with no working prototype funded in the past that are starting to come back to KS as lawsuits. Too many teams with no product overpromised and underdelivered... I hope they get more serious about vetting prototypes (kinda like a peer review that is done before an article is accepted for publication)

[Kean]

Kickstarter releases money only after the campaign ends (by date, not when they meet their funding goal). As far as I know, the Skarp campaign was still open, so KS should not have released any money

Yes, I know this - but odten when you think you're about to get a big windfall, sometimes you can get a bit excited and start to spend the money before you actually have it.  Especially if you think that spending that money will help to bring in even more.

[coppice]

Is there such a thing as a non-accidental beard fire???

For the really really unpopular beard wearer, of course there is. 

[mikeselectricstuff]

..of course there is a really simple thing KS could do without crippling funding of projects at an early stage.
 No prototype = limit on funding total until you can show one, $50K maybe.

of course IndieScamScam have long since given up having any shame & are still happy to take all-comers with flexible funding

[coppice]

Shaving systems rely on pulling at the hairs to lift them in the hair follicles. Without that you can't get a very close shave at all. A gentle pull can raise hairs a couple of mm if the skin is warm, although they tend to stand out on their own with really cold skin. Is this laser shaver only suitable for people standing right in front of an air con?

[EEVblog]

Suspended...
So apart from why... I wonder how much of the KS money (that they no longer have) has already been spent.
Im sure it is nowhere near $4m, but they could still already have spent a substantial amount (on top of their previous development costs) based on the expected big funding.

Wouldn't you automatically sue for that in the US? (stereotyping that yanks sue for two flys up a wall  )

[EEVblog]

EDIT: OK, it was apparently only put up an hour ago, so $15k already isn't too bad.  I assumed the 13 days left meant it had already been up for 2 weeks or something.
But many of the poor suckers coming from KS probably don't know about IGG and flexible funding...

If your project is suspended on KS do you still the ability to message all the backers or post updates? i.e. point them to the IGG campaign?

[EEVblog]

Can someone please explain why a laser razor needs a "Lead Firmware Engineer"?
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-skarp-laser-razor-21st-century-shaving/#/

[GNU_Ninja]

Can someone please explain why a laser razor needs a "Lead Firmware Engineer"?
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-skarp-laser-razor-21st-century-shaving/#/

Wonder if they're looking to headhunt the morally bankrupt firmware people from VW 

[Kean]

If your project is suspended on KS do you still the ability to message all the backers or post updates? i.e. point them to the IGG campaign?

Pretty sure they can't post updates, as I've seen a few get suspended and never any updates.
Their account isn't suspended so they can still post comments, and they can possibly send individual messages to backers (i.e. one at a time), but again I'm pretty sure they can't do bulk messaging.

[EEVblog]

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-10/13/skarp-laser-razor-indiegogo

"[Indiegogo] have been incredibly helpful & they believe in the Skarp Razor as much as we do," Skarp said on its Facebook page.

So Indiegogo courted them perhaps?

[Kean]

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-10/13/skarp-laser-razor-indiegogo

"[Indiegogo] have been incredibly helpful & they believe in the Skarp Razor as much as we do," Skarp said on its Facebook page.

So Indiegogo courted them perhaps?

Almost certainly!  I've been involved in a Kickstarter, and as soon as IGG got a whiff of the fact we were about to launch they were all over us trying to get us to switch to their platform.

[edy]

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-10/13/skarp-laser-razor-indiegogo

EDIT:

This just proves that you can't keep people from spending their money on this stuff. What will their KS backers do? Blindly follow them to IGG and get back up to $4 million, or take this chance opportunity to re-evaluate their foolishness? It's just starting to get interesting.

How soon until they say the multi-billion dollar shaving industry was responsible for getting them booted off KS?

[frenky]

The have a new demo video:


I'm know this is only a prototype but with this speed of shaving you would have to wake up two hours earlier to shave.

[edy]

Now if they could market this as a genital and anal shaving tool, they might have something... 

[EEVblog]

How soon until they say the multi-billion dollar shaving industry was responsible for getting them booted off KS?

Big Shaver Conspiracy! 

[EEVblog]

I'm know this is only a prototype but with this speed of shaving you would have to wake up two hours earlier to shave.

It's an embarrassing demo!

[GNU_Ninja]

One whisker at a time. Life's to short 

I suspect that fibre's way too fragile for a proper drag through the old face fungus 

[helius]

I think from the demo videos and the technical descriptions that there's no doubt that light energy can be used to fragment hair shafts.
But there is a lot more involved with a simple task like "shaving" than that. When using a razor blade, the blade is made very thin not for sharpness, but for flexibility. It bends to conform to the surface of the skin so that you can easily shave a curved skin surface. The lather made from soap is a water emulsion with lubricating and load-bearing properties so the blade can glide over the skin surface evenly without digging in.
I see no attention to this detail in the SKARP campaign at all.

[edy]

Forget Laser.... What about this:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Fire-Shaving/



Somebody get photoshop and combine this image:



... With this....



Then we can have little flames coming out the end of the Skarp... Handle will contain butane refillable chamber and you "turn" the end (or click a button on the end like a pen) to spark it into action. Ok IndieGogo... here I come!


This guy has the right idea... Look how fast those hairy legs become super smooth with a blow-torch....

        

[0xdeadbeef]

They are on Indiegogo now btw. and already nearly reached  their goal.

[FrankBuss]

They are on Indiegogo now btw. and already nearly reached  their goal.

Why does anyone support this project again after watching the last video? It might be possible in theory, but as helius wrote, there are lots of details and doesn't look like they know them. Would need some years more research for a product which is as good as a traditional razor.

[0xdeadbeef]

Nobody with a sane mind would want to risk his eyesight even if shaving with a laser would work as good as or better than traditional ways.
Then again, this probably goes to show that a good share of humankind is simply a bunch of idiots.

[Scrts]

Is it me only seeing a small hot wire as a razor? So the guy is trying to avoid touching it to his skin? Seems like not laser at all. The other thing is that the wire seems to be hot after touching the hair, so you can see it glowing.

[edy]

Is it me only seeing a small hot wire as a razor? So the guy is trying to avoid touching it to his skin? Seems like not laser at all. The other thing is that the wire seems to be hot after touching the hair, so you can see it glowing.

It is a glass optic fiber suspended across which forms the blade "edge". When light enters a fiber like this it bounces off the internal walls and travels along the glass fiber without exiting... Otherwise you would have all your light escaping out the sides very quickly.

It just so happens that when you have AIR and GLASS interface, the incident angle for a beam to hit the inner side of the glass/air interface has to be greater than some angle for the light to pass through. Otherwise almost all of it gets reflected back. But as soon as you change the materials that make up the interface (say make it GLASS/GLASS) the light can pass right through.

Imagine you have a piece of GLASS with light inside. It is surrounded by AIR. Light hits the inner wall of the glass (to try and escape) and bounces off. Because the GLASS/AIR interface requires a larger angle to escape than what the light hit at.

Now put another piece of GLASS up against the first GLASS with light in it. As far as the light is concerned, it has no idea it left one piece of glass and went into another. If there is no air space between them, the light thinks it is in the same piece of GLASS and will leave the first piece and enter the second piece at pretty much the same angle.

This is all basic stuff about reflection, refraction and what's called the critical angle.

Anyways, the "Skarp" works because when HAIR touches GLASS, the light is no longer interfacing a GLASS/AIR interface (which causes the critical angle to be such that light bounces back into the glass fiber). When you have GLASS/HAIR interface, the critical angle changes so that the light can now escape and travel through the hair, causing it to burn to a crisp.

That's the idea behind the technology. It is nice in theory, but will take WAY WAY more refinement for it to work. For one, they need to create a SOLID FIBER channel rigidly kept in place and not a thin piece suspended in thin air which will easily break. Also, it will need to bend a little to allow some flex over curved skin surfaces. It will also perhaps need some forced-air to come out the tip to blow away the hair as it cuts, so it doesn't "fuse" back and just dangle half-cut like it shows in the video.

Anyways, LOTS of refinement is needed... They are going to burn through that $4 million fast.

(EDIT: Spelling mistakes)

[Marco]

But how do you get close to the skin without coupling into the skin?

[Kean]

OK, now this is interesting... it seems that people from Indiegogo are now reading this thread.  I base this on the fact that just last night I mentioned in an earlier comment here about IGG courting our project [1] that was about to launch on KS, trying to get us to launch on their platform instead.  That was nearly 3 years ago, and I never dealt with IGG directly then or since as I was the "tech guy", and others were doing the "biz stuff".

And all of a sudden I receive a Linkedin message from someone at Indiegogo overnight...

I hope this finds you well. I am a crowdfunding specialist with Indiegogo and was interested in discussing a potential large volume campaign with us for the Light product you helped develop.

We've supported various Australian businesses in reaching the US and would like to extend the same efforts for the Light. Are you still involved with this project?

This is a classic example of how IGG really should have some liability for the campaigns on their platform.

[1]: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cloudlight/light-1/

[Kean]

But how do you get close to the skin without coupling into the skin?

This is another reason why the Skarp isn't practical - it can't possibly provide a close shave.

[Marco]

This is another reason why the Skarp isn't practical - it can't possibly provide a close shave.

A star wars version which detected where the hair was and pew pew'd them with a converging beam just below the skin could provide the closest shave ever

[Howardlong]

Even on the BBC website, apologies if already cited, I did look, promise. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34516907

What a steaming pile.

[tggzzz]

The Space Age Razor Race http://imgur.com/gallery/fDkFb

Source: Mad 1979 and http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2015/10/13/laser_razor_indiegogo/

[AF6LJ]

Forget Laser.... What about this:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Fire-Shaving/



Somebody get photoshop and combine this image:



... With this....



Then we can have little flames coming out the end of the Skarp... Handle will contain butane refillable chamber and you "turn" the end (or click a button on the end like a pen) to spark it into action. Ok IndieGogo... here I come!


This guy has the right idea... Look how fast those hairy legs become super smooth with a blow-torch....

        

Only a man would think of these.

Wax and cloth strips much better and safer.

[edy]

I had a bit of fun with Photoshop...  Enjoy!

[Kilrah]

The have a new demo video:

That looks like the same embarrassingly awful one they posted a couple of weeks ago as a kickstarter update.

[Howardlong]

Is this razor thing a parody in itself, a demonstration of just how easy it is to do a scam on crowdfunding websites?

[AF6LJ]

I had a bit of fun with Photoshop...  Enjoy!

That's Cute.

[skrubis]

We made a working prototype here at SKAM Technologies-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQz4LKK6x2s&feature=youtu.be

[bigdawg]

I had a bit of fun with Photoshop...  Enjoy!

Edy you cracked me up with your cool photoshopping skills 

We made a working prototype here at SKAM Technologies-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQz4LKK6x2s&feature=youtu.be

Thats awesome!

[Chasm]

But how do you get close to the skin without coupling into the skin?

Their claim to fame -and the actual invention- is that they have found a specific wavelength that is very effective and energy efficient at destroying the structure of hair (all kinds and colors of human hair) but not so much on other stuff. Because it can be so low energy.

Now, does this wavelength exists? Did they find it? Nobody knows. Would be very cool if. But I'm not betting any money on it.

[Marco]

You still don't want the light to couple out, not because it would damage the skin but because it would use up all the energy before it gets to the hair.

I guess it's possible the refractive index of hair is higher than skin though.

PS. hair actually has a really high refractive index whereas skin is lower than the silica of the fiber ... well damn, now I don't know what to think. I kind of doubt the wavelength is very relevant, other than for eye safety.

PPS. couldn't they just attach the fiber to something with a low refractive index using a low refractive index adhesive to get a more convincing demo where they don't need to be scared of breaking the fiber?

[Solion]

I think it is pretty obvious now to everyone if not a scam, (or is that Skam) that these guys have no freaking clue.

I lean towards scam now because earlier they were all over this forum , and now they are not. I think the Jig is up and well, it's the simple logic of the thing.

The"blade is not going to come in contact with just one hair at a time, it will be 30-40  at exactly the same time on a 3cm blade. the amount of power needed for their "magic wavelength"
is just going to be insane. Contact by multiple hairs while shaving at a normal speed is not going to be feasible with shit being blown to carbon and blocking the "magic wavelength"
from even reaching the hair.  They are going to add a vacume now for the cut stubble to keep it from coming in contact with the head? STILL on a single 1.5v AAA battery?..

All on .. 1.1wh battery. 

They will make their millions on another solar roadways style scam because we do not fund critical thinking in our schools.   

I am so tired of the bad guys winning. I really am.

[EEVblog]

They will make their millions on another solar roadways style scam because we do not fund critical thinking in our schools.   

I'm always in two minds about blaming Joe Public about not being able to apply critical thinking to technical products like this.
But yeah, there should be a critical thinking class in schools. Start with teaching Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit.

[Marco]

Carbon has a very high refractive index, as I said before it's not unlikely that if they pulse the power that the thermal cycling will clean the fiber (and because of the small dimensions likely on small timescales as well).

[edy]

At last count, they are at $285,752 USD on IndieGogo. This is a fraction of where they got to on Kickstarter, so perhaps there is still hope that many people "backed out" and actually applied some critical thinking skills to this project. They got a second chance. But actually since the campaign hadn't ended officially on KS until they were banned, most people could have easily backed out from the Kickstarter up to just a few days ago and removed their pledge... well after many of us were already posting on the forums and weeks passed looking at demos and so on. Obviously it didn't phase most people from continuing to stick to the project on KS. So now they got the boot from KS and on IndieGogo (and with "flexible funding" no doubt, although it was pretty certain they would shoot over the $160,000 goal) they will definitely get funded now.

The question is, let's say they can get to $400,000... it is still well over their goal... Not $4 million but 1/10th the amount, they figured it was enough when they set their goal so let's hope they didn't count on the $4 million happening again.

[Solion]

 I might agree to a point , but it is not just the carbon from the cut , it is the rest of the hair falling onto the blade/shaver. it is dead skin, it is the occasional blackhead and dirt
 
The thing I and so many want to know is how much radiant energy / time is needed to cut a single hair.  it needs to cut cleanly , The videos they posted is BS  because you can see it clearly burns it.
and that is no good. If you burn 25 hairs at once, don't you risk burning the skin? The cut has to carbonize/cut the hair in every color on the uS scale this includes white/clear.

But we need a number here to plug in.   because the formula is going to be dependant the exposure time of the hair to the laser emission  The Razor head looks to be about 3cm in width.
On average a persons beard hair is 100uM to 150uM (as High as 180 )  in diameter,  and has a density of 40 hairs per square cm on average (cheek) and 80 hairs per CM on chin  , If we move the laser razor 6cm in one second for a total of 18 sqcm  (seems reasonable)  the Skarp razor has to effectively cut 720 hairs per second low and 1440 high.. .

Cit for density of facial hair (https://books.google.com/books?id=J6_SBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA403&lpg=PA403&dq=beard+hairs+per+square+CM&source=bl&ots=aA_2TgG2ZO&sig=Ir1l5FxgOeOrOVuhjoIM3bhprxU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CEUQ6AEwBmoVChMI8dK1v4HIyAIVyigeCh2vcAP1#v=onepage&q=beard%20hairs%20per%20square%20CM&f=false

Am i nutz here to say. that the power needed to do that is asinine? As in impossible for a single AAA battery across all beard colors?   And clear the head of carbon and debris

You would have to cut 25 hairs at the same time at a rate of 35ms per contacting the bade at the same time  to make it through a normal shaving swipe , and 50 hairs per 35ms in higher density..   
 

[AF6LJ]

They will make their millions on another solar roadways style scam because we do not fund critical thinking in our schools.   

I'm always in two minds about blaming Joe Public about not being able to apply critical thinking to technical products like this.
But yeah, there should be a critical thinking class in schools. Start with teaching Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit.

That is all well, and good Dave but Industry and Government want proletarians.
They don't want people who can think, because that poses a threat to their status and potentially their existence.

[crispy_tofu]

But yeah, there should be a critical thinking class in schools.

Our school has it!  Not sure what they teach, though...

Critical thinking involves analytical thinking which underlies all rational discourse and
enquiry. This course will help students prepare for senior study across a range of
disciplines.
Students will learn to examine knowledge and beliefs critically; recognise and evaluate
assumptions; make judgements and evaluate evidence; evaluate reasoning of different
kinds; make connections and synthesise information and arguments and generate their
own arguments and express them clearly.
Students will deal with a variety of texts taken from the media as well as academic texts
across all disciplines. Topics to be covered include:
? Introduction to Arguments
? Credibility
? Analysis of Arguments
? Evaluating Arguments
? Developing Arguments
? Ethical Reasoning
? Evaluation of Source Materials
? Dilemmas and Decision Making
? Developing Complex Arguments

[EEVblog]

Our school has it!  Not sure what they teach, though...

Critical thinking involves analytical thinking which underlies all rational discourse and
enquiry. This course will help students prepare for senior study across a range of
disciplines.
Students will learn to examine knowledge and beliefs critically; recognise and evaluate
assumptions; make judgements and evaluate evidence; evaluate reasoning of different
kinds; make connections and synthesise information and arguments and generate their
own arguments and express them clearly.
Students will deal with a variety of texts taken from the media as well as academic texts
across all disciplines. Topics to be covered include:
? Introduction to Arguments
? Credibility
? Analysis of Arguments
? Evaluating Arguments
? Developing Arguments
? Ethical Reasoning
? Evaluation of Source Materials
? Dilemmas and Decision Making
? Developing Complex Arguments

Woah, really?
The religious nutters must hate that.

[crispy_tofu]

Woah, really?
The religious nutters must hate that.

It's only an elective, though - I hear only about 10 people are doing it in my grade. I sprang for electronics 

[coppice]

Woah, really?
The religious nutters must hate that.

It's only an elective, though - I hear only about 10 people are doing it in my grade. I sprang for electronics 

I guess the others just didn't think through the merits of the course very clearly. 

[crispy_tofu]

I guess the others just didn't think through the merits of the course very clearly. 

I don't have anything against this, but there are more people doing drama than critical thinking... 

[Solion]

Found their patent, ... tell me the the USPTO did not give them a patent for this. 

Yes yes they did. read through the abstract.. good god. 

http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?PageNum=0&docid=09017322&IDKey=61A80973A3B3&HomeUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fpatft.uspto.gov%2Fnetacgi%2Fnph-Parser%3FSect1%3DPTO2%2526Sect2%3DHITOFF%2526p%3D1%2526u%3D%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsearch-bool.html%2526r%3D1%2526f%3DG%2526l%3D50%2526co1%3DAND%2526d%3DPTXT%2526s1%3Dshaving.ABTX.%2526s2%3Dlaser.ABTX.%2526OS%3DABST%2Fshaving%252BAND%252BABST%2Flaser%2526RS%3DABST%2Fshaving%252BAND%252BABST%2Flaser

[tec5c]

Critical Thinking is also an introductory to philosophy subject at (some?) Universities.

As part of all degrees at my University, we are required to take two subjects which are outside the faculty and department of our degrees.
I chose to do critical thinking... it was the easiest high distinction I have ever received.  O0

[edy]

Here is the patent downloaded off the web (I had problems loading the site listed a few posts ago).

[coppice]

Found their patent, ... tell me the the USPTO did not give them a patent for this. 

Yes yes they did. read through the abstract.. good god. 

http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?PageNum=0&docid=09017322&IDKey=61A80973A3B3&HomeUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fpatft.uspto.gov%2Fnetacgi%2Fnph-Parser%3FSect1%3DPTO2%2526Sect2%3DHITOFF%2526p%3D1%2526u%3D%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsearch-bool.html%2526r%3D1%2526f%3DG%2526l%3D50%2526co1%3DAND%2526d%3DPTXT%2526s1%3Dshaving.ABTX.%2526s2%3Dlaser.ABTX.%2526OS%3DABST%2Fshaving%252BAND%252BABST%2Flaser%2526RS%3DABST%2Fshaving%252BAND%252BABST%2Flaser

Why would you read the abstract if you want to know what a patent is about? You need to read the claims. Everything else is window dressing.

[Solion]

The claims are attached to it if you just page flip through the images section

[Nerull]

I'm not sure why you would be surprised. Just because you have a patent on an idea doesn't mean its a good idea. Determining that is not the USPTOs job. You're paying for the exclusive right to build a type of device, not validation that your invention is some brilliant innovation.

[kalleboo]

A writer for CNet got a hands on with the prototype: http://www.cnet.com/products/skarp-laser-razor/

But when I lifted the razor to my arm and placed the fiber against a hair, it cut right through. The laser actually worked. We tried it with light hairs and dark hairs, over and over again. Twice, we accidentally broke the fiber by getting the cheese-wire style blade caught on several hairs at a time, which definitely gave me pause

Skarp co-founder Binun says that with a mass-produced fiber and a AAA battery, the razor should have enough power to cut through five hairs at any given moment and keep cutting through more as soon as the previous ones fall away

What DiGiovanni didn't understand: why Skarp didn't just ask an optical fiber company like OFS to help produce a better prototype to begin with. He told me a demo might cost a few tens of thousands of dollars.

[AF6LJ]

This thing is an expensive toy.

[edy]

A writer for CNet got a hands on with the prototype: http://www.cnet.com/products/skarp-laser-razor/

Yes, I saw the videos... there were actually 2 CNET videos showing the Skarp, each slightly different. It is pretty horrible, honestly. The hair just bends, very few get cut. The glass fiber is so fragile it broke during testing. I know they say they are going to fix this all, but....   

[EEVblog]

A writer for CNet got a hands on with the prototype: http://www.cnet.com/products/skarp-laser-razor/

But when I lifted the razor to my arm and placed the fiber against a hair, it cut right through. The laser actually worked. We tried it with light hairs and dark hairs, over and over again. Twice, we accidentally broke the fiber by getting the cheese-wire style blade caught on several hairs at a time, which definitely gave me pause

Skarp co-founder Binun says that with a mass-produced fiber and a AAA battery, the razor should have enough power to cut through five hairs at any given moment and keep cutting through more as soon as the previous ones fall away

Wow, so even the final design will only be able to cut through 5 hairs at a time! 
Newsflash - people are hairy, razors are required to cut through hundred of hairs at a time!
The average mans beard contains thousands to 10's of thousands of hairs.

Yet another stupid impractical product idea.

[coppice]

A writer for CNet got a hands on with the prototype: http://www.cnet.com/products/skarp-laser-razor/

But when I lifted the razor to my arm and placed the fiber against a hair, it cut right through. The laser actually worked. We tried it with light hairs and dark hairs, over and over again. Twice, we accidentally broke the fiber by getting the cheese-wire style blade caught on several hairs at a time, which definitely gave me pause

Skarp co-founder Binun says that with a mass-produced fiber and a AAA battery, the razor should have enough power to cut through five hairs at any given moment and keep cutting through more as soon as the previous ones fall away

Wow, so even the final design will only be able to cut through 5 hairs at a time! 
Newsflash - people are hairy, razors are required to cut through hundred of hairs at a time!
The average mans beard contains thousands to 10's of thousands of hairs.

Yet another stupid impractical product idea.

Now you are just making up straw man arguments. They say nothing about the time to cut 5 hairs. If they could cut those 5 hairs in a millisecond a whole face could be shaved very quickly. Try to attack ACTUAL problems with what is being said.

[m98]

Now you are just making up straw man arguments. They say nothing about the time to cut 5 hairs. If they could cut those 5 hairs in a millisecond a whole face could be shaved very quickly. Try to attack ACTUAL problems with what is being said.

No, he's right. How would you get the blade to only touch maximum 5 hairs? If it touches only a few more, then there wouldn't be enough power for any hair to be cut.

[Marco]

Presumably the first hair gets almost all the power.

[Gobi]

Aaaand kickstarter just suspended funding 

[matseng]

Aaaand kickstarter just suspended funding 

You must be living in another timezone - or actually another datezone.  It was suspended October 12, almost 8 weeks ago 

[crispy_tofu]

Yeah, they moved to Indiegogo because they didn't have a working prototype.
Source: http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/13/9518163/laser-razor-kickstarter-banned-indiegogo

[mariush]

So as a summary... 

They got "kicked off" Kickstarter becaus they didn't have a prototype and what they showed to Kickstarter (when they sort of contested the "kick") was not prototyping looking enough.

Based on the cnet article (they tested the "prototype") : http://www.cnet.com/products/skarp-laser-razor/

They have a custom fiber "wire" and a laser which works at power low enough to make it possible to power the laser from batteries.
The current custom fiber wire must be stretched between the razor sides but it's also very fragile - it's so thin and fragile that if you press it on the skin it will break, in fact it's so fragile just pressing it against more than a few hair strands it will break 

They wanted the money so they could invest more than $100k into developing a less fragile fiber and they were hoping to glue somehow this fiber to the edge of the razor so that the instrument would take the burden, as in the hair strands would no longer put pressure on the fiber and it won't break so easily.

[helius]

Even if much of the stress was relieved by the handle, fiber optics still don't like to be bent. Many shaving operations are not on a flat surface because the body's surface is not uniformly flat. It has positive (Riemannian) curvature on the chin, the jaw, the legs, and the mons; and negative (Lobachevskyan) curvature on the lip margins, the armpit, and the neck.

[Marco]

The kind of bends a razorblade can make are not really a problem for a fiber either AFAICS.

[m98]

Even if much of the stress was relieved by the handle, fiber optics still don't like to be bent. Many shaving operations are not on a flat surface because the body's surface is not uniformly flat. It has positive (Riemannian) curvature on the chin, the jaw, the legs, and the mons; and negative (Lobachevskyan) curvature on the lip margins, the armpit, and the neck.

I don't see any problem there, normal razors are also rather inflexible, but body tissue is.

[firewalker]

Any news?   

Alexander.

[PA0PBZ]

Any news?   

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-skarp-laser-razor-21st-century-shaving#/updates/all

[Kjelt]

they need more power......

[Kean]

I can't believe they posted an update!   
And even worse there are still people that are still supportive in the comments... 

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-skarp-laser-razor-21st-century-shaving#/updates/all

SKARP 2022
posted by Morgan Gustavsson
Mar 15, 2022 • 9:56PM

Hello Skarpers !

As always - we are very sorry about the scarse updates. And again apologies for being five years late and counting on the perks.
This year will be dedicated to exploring alternative ways to reduce the art into practice, being  that everything to date in that respect has failed in practice in spite of internal assertions in the beginning. We sincerely really totally regeret that we won't be able to share any details on this at this pount, but hope to back in Q1 with positive results.

After six years of working full time on SKARP, and without compensation, I'm close to giving up, but  plan to give give it another year in hope of finally getting our wonderful lovely compationate patient backers their well deserved perks.

I wish we had better and more interrsting news to share, but this is the status today. In lack of current funding we also have no one to read or respond to comments. And yes "how dare we" ? The answer is easy: Its not out of choice.

Best ',

Morgan

[ebastler]

My favorite part of the "update" is:

This year will be dedicated to exploring alternative ways to reduce the art into practice, being  that everything to date in that respect has failed in practice in spite of internal assertions in the beginning.

"I will try something else now, since nothing has worked so far, despite my belief someone telling me that it would." 

[SiliconWizard]

This is definitely such a stupid application of technology, that's painfully funny.

Laser hair removal has been used for quite a while, but it's a procedure to be done with proper certified equipment by a trained professional, and especially if you're anywhere close to the face.
What could go wrong?

It's fortunate that the project didn't get through. And that's the good part of all those failed hype projects: they almost always fail, which makes them less dangerous.

[EEVblog]

I can't believe they posted an update!   
And even worse there are still people that are still supportive in the comments... 

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-skarp-laser-razor-21st-century-shaving#/updates/all

SKARP 2022
posted by Morgan Gustavsson
Mar 15, 2022 • 9:56PM

Hello Skarpers !

As always - we are very sorry about the scarse updates. And again apologies for being five years late and counting on the perks.
This year will be dedicated to exploring alternative ways to reduce the art into practice, being  that everything to date in that respect has failed in practice in spite of internal assertions in the beginning. We sincerely really totally regeret that we won't be able to share any details on this at this pount, but hope to back in Q1 with positive results.

After six years of working full time on SKARP, and without compensation, I'm close to giving up, but  plan to give give it another year in hope of finally getting our wonderful lovely compationate patient backers their well deserved perks.

I wish we had better and more interrsting news to share, but this is the status today. In lack of current funding we also have no one to read or respond to comments. And yes "how dare we" ? The answer is easy: Its not out of choice.

Best ',

Morgan

After 5 years! LOL
Well, you gotta hand it to him though, seems like it's his dream.

[Haenk]

"After six years of working full time on SKARP"...

I mean, that's thousands of hours of work done only to find out, this isn't going to work? (That shouldn't have taken longer than, say, 1 minute...)
Scam starting day one.