Author: Joe Tschudi

Author info: CEO - Tschudi Software Technology GmbH

FIRST IMPRESSIONS AND HANDS-ON WITH MYIRO

The personal handover of the device with exact adherence to the 2 meter distance due to the Swiss COVID-19 regulations leaves a good foretaste. The package is handy and limited to the essentials, even if the ambient light adapter is still missing at the moment. Since MYIRO-1comes without a measurement base, I had done the measurement tests on the large electrostatic plate from Barbieri. The device is well designed for right-handed people, you put it horizontally to the chest on the rail and can move in both directions, i.e. from left to right or from right to left. MYIRO-1 detects the scan direction thanks to the integrated motion sensor. But one has to be careful not to move the device unintentionally slightly in the opposite direction at the respective starting position, as otherwise the sensor will not determine the moving direction correctly. The scanning itself is very smooth, as MYIRO-1 rests and moves on the plastic rail. Surprisingly, the automatic patch change detection is very solid even on lightly structured cotton or flag fabric - surprisingly, because no additional ruler is used to measure the position during scan measurement, similar to X-Rite's i1Pro2. I have not tested whether the patch change detection works well on strongly structured materials like carpet. But you should use larger apertures anyway, at least 8mm, if not even bigger.

My evaluation device with a fully charged battery allowed to measure 4000-5000 patches in scan mode. The measured charts had 18 patches per row, which gave me roughly 200-250 rows with a full charge. If the battery is low or empty, you can still measure with MYIRO-1 via USB cable.

The measurement quality on the tested cotton and polyester flag fabrics is comparable to the i1Pro2. Therewith, I do not refer to the absolute colour values but to the statistical differences between the measurements of the individual print copies respectively the repeatability of a single print copy.

Even if the measurement base is missing and I have to take the Barbieri electrostatic plate with me when visiting customers or need to think of another OBA-free, white-point neutral and handy alternative, I will gladly continue to use the device.