A new kind of instrument company

The invisible world, made visible.

Beautiful instruments that let anyone hold the world's quiet magic. Ink that remembers. Air that speaks.

right now · in this room

You are surrounded by things you cannot see.

Ink that holds a photograph with no power. Air that carries a pilot's voice through your walls. We build instruments that put them in your hands.

why we exist

Technology stopped feeling like magic.
We build instruments that bring it back.

We build instruments for people who never got the engineering degree, but never stopped asking how.

Lead with wonder

You should feel something before you understand it.

Hook with magic

A tap of your phone rearranges real ink. It has to feel like a trick.

Earn trust with science

The magic is real, so we show you exactly why it works.

who is building this

The person in the lab.

Still exists because I wanted a photograph on my desk that did not glow, did not need charging every night, and could still change when someone I love sent me a new one. Nothing I could find did all three, so in May 2026 I started building one.

The first attempt ran on NFC alone and it was not good. Your phone had to sit exactly over the coil and stay there without being knocked, or the picture arrived half transferred. The panel was lower resolution too, and four inks instead of six. Prototype 01 answers all of that, and it is sitting on a bench in Sydney right now holding a picture with the power off.

Everything on this site is either that prototype photographed as it is, or a render of where it is going, and each one says which it is.

What is left is not the physics. It is getting the manufacturing cost down far enough, and finding enough backing to do a production run worth doing. Those are the two things standing between this and your hands, and I would rather tell you that than promise you a date.

Josh ChanFounder, Luminal Labs

Anything you want to ask before joining, write to luminallabs@gmail.com. It comes straight to me.