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Formovie Tech is the latest projector brand to admit to publishing misleading brightness specs in a settlement with Epson, which sued the company for a deceptive advertising practices.

Under the terms of the settlement, Formovie Tech — a Mi Ecosystem company established by the Appotronics Corporation and Xiaomi Technology — agreed to significantly downgrade previously published white brightness specs for two of its projectors. The brightness spec for the Formovie Theater ultra-short-throw (UST) 4K laser projector ($3,499) was reduced from 2800 lumens to 1800 lumens and the brightness spec for the now discontinued Formovie P1 pocket laser projector ($399) was downgraded from 800 lumens to 250 lumens.

Moving forward, the company has agreed to use the internationally recognized ISO 21118 standard for measuring a projector’s white brightness.

The settlement is the latest in a string of lawsuits Epson has filed against projector brands in recent years; the legal actions are central to its ongoing crusade championing internationally accepted standards for measuring brightness in an effort to level the playing field and help consumers make apples-to-apples comparisons when shopping for a projector. All eight companies revised misleading brightness specs and, in the case of Auking, paid a $500,000 fine. The brands, all Chinese, are Dangbei, AuKing, XGIMI, Wemax, Anker, Acrojoy, Vava, and now Formovie.

“When projector brands use the same, internationally developed and published standards, it protects consumers and establishes trust within the industry,” said Mike Isgrig, vice president, consumer sales and marketing for Epson America. “Formovie’s commitment to use internationally published and accepted standards — such as ISO 21118 for white brightness — moving forward for their entire product line will provide accurate white brightness information for consumers.”

Noting that there has been an influx of projector brands making misleading brightness claims, Isgrig cautioned shoppers to be wary of misleading metrics such as “Lux,” “LED lumens,” or “Lamp Brightness” that fail to follow standardized methodology for measuring brightness, especially when shopping on Amazon and other online marketplaces.

The industry-wide standards Epson is advocating include projection measurements defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Committee for Display Metrology (ICDM). The ISO standard that defines a methodology for white brightness projector measurement is ISO21118:2020, which was also recently adopted by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), underscoring its importance. The ICDM publishes the Information Display Measurement Standards (IDMS) methodology that defines color brightness and white brightness separately.

“When these standards are followed, there is zero ambiguity regarding how projector brightness is properly measured, advertised, and compared,” Epson said in its official press release. Epson America, based in Los Alamitos, California, is Epson’s regional headquarters for the U.S., Canada, and Latin America.

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Related:

Dangbei Corrects Projector-Brightness Spec in Settlement with Epson (posted 2/19/24)

AuKing Ordered to Pay $500,000 for Making Deceptive Projector-Brightness Claims (posted 2/5/24)

China’s XGIMI Corrects Misleading Projector Specs in Settlement with Epson (posted 9/18/23)

Epson Calls Out Wemax for Deceptive Brightness Spec (posted 7/14/23)

Epson vs. Vava vs. Lumens (posted 6/21/21)

Epson, Philips Agree on Industry Standard Projector Specs (posted 3/8/21)