We’ve seen many innovative projects crash and burn in the crowdfunding stage, but the Photon Matrix is one of those that have successfully made it to market. According to the company’s last Indiegogo update, it has started mass production of the anti-mosquito device and expects to ship the first devices later this month. You can also now purchase the Photon Matrix Infrared and Blue Laser Mosquito Air Defense directly from its website, so you don’t have to be an early supporter to get one.

The Photon Matrix has been a long time coming, when it entered the crowdfunding stage in July last year. It promised to shoot down bugs within a six-meter radius across a 90-degree horizontal scanning plane. While it uses a laser beam to strike down mosquitos, it uses LiDAR, mmWave radar, and an AI vision module to detect targets between 2mm and 20 mm in size with a flight speed of less than or equal to 3.3 feet per second or 1 meter per second.

The manufacturer’s test videos show that it seems to be quite effective at shooting down these pesky bugs. Nevertheless, we want to see this product in the hands of independent reviewers and see how it will perform in the real world. If it works as intended, the Photon Matrix Laser Mosquito Air Defense unit would be a game changer for homes and hospitals, especially in places where mosquito-borne diseases are still major threats to public health.

This gadget costs a pretty penny, though. The infrared laser version, designed for homes, costs $988, while the blue laser version, which is ideal for industrial use, costs $100 more at $1,088. There also questions about the safety of using a laser device that can shoot down mosquitos in close proximity to humans (especially human eyes), but the Photon Matrix has passed stringent certifications to ensure that it will not harm people, pets, and even birds that happen to fly across the device’s target range.

People have been thinking of ways of controlling mosquitos for hundreds of years now, especially when it was discovered that they were vectors of certain diseases that have killed millions. While chemical-based pesticides were somewhat helpful in keeping their numbers down, they also have negative impacts on human and animal health. This makes the mosquito air defense system an excellent alternative, as it only protects the area where it is deployed and also doesn’t use noxious chemicals.

Another user has been building their own system using lasers, a DSLR, and an AI model to build their own mosquito zapper, although this is just a prototype and will likely take a few more years before it can compete against the Photon Matrix. We also saw an autonomous micro-drone that serves as a combat air patrol against mosquitos with a range of 26 feet. While this might sound like a fun and novel solution, it will also likely be noisy and quite disturbing, making the Photon Matrix a more practical solution for fixed deployments.

Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.

Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.