About
Luna Display
$645,393
7,766
Luna Display seamlessly extends your Mac desktop to your iPad, creating a wireless second monitor with stunning image quality. Available for Mini DisplayPort or USB-C, Luna sets up in seconds and instantly works with your existing Wi-Fi.
Luna is a true display that fits in the palm of your hand. Simply plug Luna in your Mac, launch the free app, and you’re off and running. It's the quickest and easiest way to setup a second screen with your iPad.
Powered by our unique LIQUID technology, Luna was designed from the very beginning to work wirelessly. However if Wi-Fi is not available, USB is also a great reliable alternative.
Luna Display acts as a complete extension to your Mac, allowing you to use it directly from your iPad with full support for external keyboards, Apple Pencil, and touch interactions. It literally turns your Mac into a touchable device, allowing pinching, panning and tapping… making it much more than just a second screen.
Watch our team talk about the key aspects of Luna: our goals, the technology behind it, our design process, and Luna's energy & battery use.
Luna fully integrates with our award-winning drawing software Astropad. Luna extends both Astropad Standard and Astropad Studio to provide the ultimate drawing experience with the best second screen solution for iPad. If you are a creative professional, Luna has been designed with you in mind.
Works with any modern Mac - Luna requires a Mac running macOS 10.10, Yosemite (or later). For optimal performance we recommend these configurations: MacBook Air (2012 and later), MacBook Pro (2012 and later), Mac mini (2012 and later), iMac (2012 and later), Mac Pro (Late 2013).
Works with any modern iPad - Luna requires an iPad running iOS 9.1 (or later): iPad 2 (or later), any iPad Mini and any iPad Pro.
Using the iPad as a second display allows you to more easily get your work done anywhere — so you can be productive whether you’re at the office, in the studio, or on the go. Luna is the perfect companion for...
Spreadsheets & Data - Luna gives you the freedom and flexibility to give your data and spreadsheets the room it deserves. It's the perfect partner for Excel, Numbers, or any of your other favorite spreadsheet apps.
Presentations & Keynotes - Take advantage of dual monitor presentation modes to make your power point and Keynote presentation more fluid and precise.
Development & Coding - Use your iPad as a preview window for a flexible and portable way to see and share code previews.
Audio and Music - Give plugins and additional editing windows their own place to live while utilizing touch interactions to bring creative executions to a whole new level.
We developed Luna because we knew there was a better solution than relying on software to turn an iPad into a second display.
Software apps literally hack your graphics card, delivering a glitchy and unreliable picture. Software tricks your Mac into thinking a display is attached, when in fact they get no benefit of graphics acceleration or Metal GPU support. It's like buying a car and only using half the engine.
So unlike software apps, Luna harnesses the raw power of your graphics card, giving you the full benefit of its graphics acceleration — delivering a stunning second monitor that’s 100% wire free.
When developing the product design, we wanted Luna to stand out and feel like a creative accessory to the computer hardware. We purposefully avoided making it look like another Apple-like, copy cat accessory.
A great amount of time was put into the angular, crystal like design to be as aesthetically pleasing to the eye as well as the hand.
Our proprietary LIQUID Technology was originally built for creative professionals and is now available to everyone.
Using LIQUID, Luna Display provides crystal clear image quality, reliable performance, and wireless flexibility. We realized it’s not just artists that value these things and that’s why we are bringing our LIQUID technology to our latest product — Luna Display.
Our LIQUID technology provides:
- Uncompromised image quality
- Lightning fast speeds
- Lag-free performance at 60 frames per second
- GPU acceleration, so your Mac stays fast and optimized
- Hand optimized ARM assembly to maximize battery life
- Velocity Control, which analyzes network conditions dozens of times per second
Founded by ex-Apple engineers
Astro HQ — the company behind Luna — was founded by two ex-Apple engineers: Matt Ronge & Giovanni Donelli. In 2015 we launched a tool designed for creative professionals called Astropad. Astropad has been a smash hit that is now used by tens of thousands of creative pros and some of the largest animation studios in the world. We are now using our experience with Astropad to create Luna Display.
We are hiring
Join our creative team, apply at: jobs@astro-hq.com. We are looking for creative individuals for the following positions, remote or in Minneapolis:
- iOS/Mac Software Engineer
- Windows Software Engineer
- Mac/iOS UI Designer (send portfolio)
- Video Codec Engineer
- Logistics & experience with China
Luna Display Timeline
- Nov 2013 Development begins on Liquid
- Feb 2015 Astropad 1.0 released
- Jan 2016 Luna concepting
- May 2016 Working DisplayPort prototypes
- Feb 2017 USB-C development boards work
- May 2017 Working USB-C prototypes
- Aug 2017 Kickstarter!
- Nov 2017 Order components
- Dec 2017 Create molds
- Jan 2018 Finalize firmware & software
- Feb 2018 Components arrive
- Mar 2018 Test production
- Apr 2018 Manufacturing
- May 2018 Shipment of Luna
Setting up Luna Display
Press Kit
Risks and challenges
Developing innovative hardware always carries risks, from design problems to unexpected costs. That's why from the very beginning it's been our priority to eliminate as many risks as possible. We've spent the last 12 months developing the hardware to make sure it is robust and reliable. We've also produced 100 USB-C units and 100 Mini DisplayPort units to flush out any remaining production problems.
Our team has a strong background in product design and engineering. Our team has shipped products at some of the leading technology companies in the world. We are also the team behind the award winning creative tool, Astropad, that's now in use by some of the largest design and animation firms in the world. We have significant experiencing building products for the Apple ecosystem. We do not anticipate any compliance problems with Apple as we are building on a widely used protocol (DisplayPort) and we've previously submitted apps using our technology to the App Store (see Astropad).
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Funding period
- (58 days)