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DURING THE DOG days of the pandemic, a friend shared photos of her family watching a movie with Anker’s Nebula Capsule projector. They were gathered on the living room couch on a hot summer’s evening — the windows open, curtains blowing in a breeze. It was the kind of quiet togetherness that I dream of.
Without a television or projector, my household’s movie viewing lacks the cozy unity that I found so appealing in my friend’s setup. My son watches on a tablet tucked in my bed — well past bedtime. My daughter watches on her laptop from the comfort of her room, narrating the film to her best friend over the phone. I like to watch movies I’ve already seen on my too-small MacBook or on the computer monitor I typically write from, but none of these arrangements conjures the movie-viewing nostalgia I crave.
About a year after I saw my friend’s photo, when I began to open the doors of my upstate New York home to guests, the image was still with me, so I bought the Capsule.
Anker’s Nebula Capsule line offers different projectors with varying levels of audio-output power and light quality. Some models offer more USB ports and audio jacks, and the newer iterations have crisper visuals and playful designs (see the Transformers special edition projector, if you want to know what I mean by playful). All of the projectors in the Capsule collection are roughly the size of a soda can.
The Nebula Capsule uses the Android TV system, which allows you to toggle between Hulu, Netflix, YouTube, and Amazon accounts. The experience of having 360-degree sound (even outside!) is uncanny. There’s also an in-app remote for those of us who lose our controllers and a built-in rechargeable battery for those of us who refuse to change out the old ones. Before I purchased the Capsule, I took a quiz on Anker’s website to see which device worked best for my needs by indicating how portable I wanted my projector to be, what time of day I like to watch, and what I’m watching.
For me, the portability was the selling point. My family brings the Capsule with us as we migrate between Brooklyn and upstate every month, and we can move easily between the living room, kitchen, or den, or even into the backyard for a movie night. Adventurous movie watchers can bring their Capsule to the beach or camping.
The Nebula Capsule projector is as reliable as it gets, and perhaps high-quality enough to stop me from watching reruns and finally screen something new.
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Our Contributors
LaTonya Yvette Writer
LaTonya Yvette is a contributing editor for Departures and a multi-media storyteller. She founded LY, a highly trafficked lifestyle blog, in 2011, and produced visual and written content for a decade. During that time, she published her first book, “Woman of Color” (Abrams, 2019). She also co-authored “The Hair Book” (Union Square, 2022), an illustrated children’s book, with Amanda Jane Jones. Her third book, “Stand In My Window” (Dial Press), hits shelves Spring 2024. LaTonya is the owner and steward of The Mae House, an upstate New York rental property and the home of Rest as Residency, which offers BIPOC (primarily geared towards families) a no-cost place for rest and focus. Yvette resides in Brooklyn with her two children, where she writes the newsletter “With Love, L.”
Lisa Lok
Lisa Lok is the visuals director of Departures. A Brooklyn-based creative, she enjoys collaborating with photographers and illustrators from around the world.
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