At What Hi-Fi?, my colleagues and I are in the privileged position of being able to review all sorts of TV and AV kit in our dedicated testing rooms. That ranges from cheap soundbars to state-of-the-art 8K projectors that cost tens of thousands.
More and more these days, though, projector manufacturers appear to be offering first-party accessories to upgrade the home cinema experience (for an increased price, of course).
Xgimi's newest portable projector, the MoGo 4, is the latest example to catch my eye when it comes to this trend.
On its own, the projector costs £509 / $499 / AU$1299. If you want a way to keep its built-in battery running longer, though, Xgimi offers an add-on 'PowerBase Stand'.
This apparently allows it to run for up to five hours compared to the usual two-and-a-half hours of the projector alone.
What does this optional extra cost? A cool £109 / $129 / AU$100 – over 20 per cent of the cost of the projector in most territories.
Xgimi is far from the only company to offer this kind of thing.
Buyers of the Nebula X1 4K projector (£2200 / $2999) are offered the opportunity to add two optional wireless satellite speakers, a carry case and two wireless microphones for an extra £500 / $999.
While it may mean that customers have the option to buy the main product without necessarily needing all the extras, I can't help but wonder how far these accessories will go.
Now, these examples from Xgimi and Nebula are far from being egregious cases of companies keeping core features behind a paywall, but I do worry that this could be the tip of the iceberg.
We certainly don't want our industry to end up in the place the car industry finds itself, with core performance and infotainment features locked behind expensive trim levels and even paid-for software updates.
The Xgimi and Nebula above are, of course, examples where accessories expand upon and upgrade the core devices, rather than unlock performance or features that are expected of the devices alone, but will future examples be similarly innocuous?
Could we see features such as Dolby Atmos locked behind a subscription service for soundbars? Or certain connectivity options deemed an 'extra' that will cost more?
I really hope we don't see the day where core features for TV and AV kit are not truly locked away or ransomed off to unsuspecting buyers.
MORE:
Here is our review of the Nebula X1
Check out what we thought of the Xgimi MoGo 4
And these are 5 mistakes to avoid with your projector
