Have you ever seen a fish swimming through water droplets in the air? Today I learned that Panasonic has cleverly repurposed an outdoor air conditioner to achieve such effects.
Panasonic calls it “Silky Fine Mist,” and the company sells it primarily as a way to beat the heat. The company claims its nozzles use a combination of pressurized water and compressed air to spray mist so fine (six to ten microns) that it doesn't feel wet to the touch. Panasonic says the system has been used “in train stations and public facilities across the country” since its debut in Japan in 2019.
But like Disney and other projection mapping engineers for decades, Panasonic quickly realized it could also use the fog for art installations, which it has been testing since 2018. And recently, the company has been bringing a single hidden fog dispenser and projector to a handful of technology exhibitions to show how great it could look as a digital advertising tool.
One note: Panasonic's system doesn't seem to be particularly portable—the only spray system apparently sold in North America is three feet wide, three feet tall, weighs nearly 420 pounds, and uses 2.4 kilowatts of electricity alone.
Here are a few more examples:
And here is a video from Panasonic showing how it works: