VANILLA CINEMA

There are campervans with televisions. 📺 There are campervans with little screens bolted above cupboards.

And then there’s Vanilla. 🚐✨

My VW T6.1 doesn’t really do “little television”.

She has a laser cinema. 😎🍿

📽️ Nebula Capsule 3 Laser 🔥 Amazon Fire TV Stick 📡 ZTE MU5120 5G Wi-Fi 🔊 Sonos Roam speakers 🔋 Jackery portable power ☀️ 200W solar on the roof 🚐 One very upgraded VW Transporter

Put all of that together and Vanilla doesn’t just have entertainment.

She has NIX CINEMA. 🎬🔥

At the heart of the whole setup is my Nebula Capsule 3 Laser.

It’s tiny.

Almost suspiciously tiny.

Then the lights go down. 🌙 The laser fires up. ⚡ And suddenly there’s a huge Full HD picture appearing inside the van.

The Capsule produces a native 1080p image, uses a laser light source and can throw a picture far bigger than anything I actually need inside Vanilla.

A 50, 60 or 70-inch image inside a SWB campervan already feels enormous. 🍿🤯

From a few feet away it completely fills your field of vision.

This isn’t really watching television.

It’s sitting inside the film.

That little black cylinder is doing a ridiculous amount of work.

Projector. Battery. Speaker. Streaming device. Cinema.

And it can disappear into a cupboard when I’m finished.

Perfect campervan technology.

The next piece of the puzzle was beautifully simple.

Amazon Fire TV Stick.

Plug it straight into the Nebula’s HDMI socket and suddenly the projector becomes a proper travelling smart television.

📺 Netflix 🎬 Prime Video 🏰 Disney+ 📡 BBC iPlayer 📺 ITVX ▶️ YouTube 🎵 Music ⚽ Sport 🍿 Films

The Nebula concentrates on being the projector.

The Fire Stick concentrates on being the television.

Perfect division of labour.

No permanently mounted screen.

No big black rectangle taking over the furniture.

No complicated campervan installation.

Just HDMI, power and Wi-Fi.

🔥 + 📽️ = job done.

For Vanilla it makes even more sense because I already have the internet side sorted.

The ZTE MU5120 5G router effectively gives Vanilla her own broadband connection. 📡⚡

So the cinema chain is gloriously simple:

📡 5G NETWORK ⬇️ 📶 ZTE ROUTER ⬇️ 🔥 FIRE TV STICK ⬇️ 📽️ NEBULA CAPSULE 3 LASER ⬇️ 🎬 GIANT MOVIE

There is something magnificently excessive about sitting in a VW Transporter in the middle of nowhere streaming a movie over 5G onto a laser projector.

Which is precisely why I love it. 😂🚐

The Capsule has its own speaker, and for something that small it does a remarkably respectable job.

But Vanilla also carries my Sonos Roams. 🔊🎶

That’s when things start getting properly cinematic.

Big picture. 📽️ Good sound. 🔊 Lights down. 🌙 Feet up. 🦶 Cold drink nearby. 🍺

Suddenly it feels less like watching television in a van and more like having a private little cinema that happens to have wheels.

Not exactly the traditional campervan television experience.

😂

This might be my favourite part.

Vanilla now has a 200W PV Logic solar panel feeding the leisure electrical system through the Victron SmartSolar MPPT.

There’s the leisure battery. 🔋 There’s Victron monitoring. 📊 There are the Jackery power stations. ⚡

So the electricity eventually producing my enormous projected movie can literally have started life as sunlight hitting Vanilla’s roof earlier that day.

☀️ SUNLIGHT ⬇️ 🔋 BATTERY ⬇️ 📽️ LASER ⬇️ 🔥 FIRE TV ⬇️ 🍿 MOVIE NIGHT

I’m reasonably sure this is what the pioneers of solar technology had in mind.

Probably. 😂

🔋 NO HOOK-UP? NO PROBLEM

This is where the whole system fits perfectly with the way I use Vanilla.

The Capsule has its own battery.

The Fire Stick uses very little power.

And if movie night turns into movie marathon, the Jackery power stations are sitting there waiting.

No aerial. ❌ No satellite dish. ❌ No fixed television. ❌ No massive installation. ❌

Everything packs away.

In a SWB campervan, where every centimetre eventually gets promoted to an important job, that matters.

This is when the Capsule really comes alive.

It isn’t meant to fight blazing midday sunshine.

And frankly, neither am I when I’m trying to watch a film.

Cinema begins when daylight clocks off. 🌅➡️🌙

Blinds closed. Interior lighting dimmed. Nebula on. Fire Stick awake.

Then the image suddenly pops. ✨

Colours deepen. Contrast improves. The screen seems to grow.

And Vanilla changes completely.

🏔️ Norway 🌊 Croatia 🌲 Scotland 🏕️ Northumberland 🌳 Cannock Chase 🌧️ or a British campsite being lashed sideways by weather that apparently arrived directly from the Atlantic.

Inside?

🎬 FILM NIGHT.

This is where the whole idea becomes gloriously ridiculous.

Because the Nebula is portable.

Which means NIX CINEMA doesn’t actually have to stay inside Vanilla.

Warm evening. 🌅 Gazebo up. ⛺ Chairs out. 🪑 Screen ready. 📽️ 5G running. 📡 Fire Stick plugged in. 🔥

Suddenly the campsite has a cinema.

Vanilla behind us. 🚐 Awning lights glowing. ✨ Drinks cold. 🍺 Friends gathered around. Stars overhead. 🌌 Movie rolling. 🎬

There are entire multiplexes with less atmosphere.

Now imagine that next to Vanilla on a warm evening.

That’s NIX CINEMA.

📺 WHY DIDN’T I JUST FIT A TV?

Because a television gives me one screen in one position.

The Nebula gives me possibilities.

🎬 Movies ▶️ YouTube ⚽ Football 📷 Photography 🚁 Drone footage 💻 MacBook display 🎵 Music 🏕️ Outdoor cinema 🗺️ Travel films 🎞️ Holiday footage

And the drone side of it might be my favourite.

Imagine spending the day somewhere spectacular, flying one of the drones, bringing the footage back to Vanilla and then watching that day’s adventure that evening on a screen several feet across.

The day’s adventure becomes the evening’s premiere.

That feels very NIX.

When I bought Vanilla, she was already much more than transport.

Since then she’s evolved.

🚐 Campervan 🏕️ Base camp 🔋 Charging station 💻 Mobile office 📷 Photography hub 🚁 Drone command centre ☀️ Solar experiment 🌍 Adventure machine 🏠 Home on wheels

🎬 CINEMA.

Not because she desperately needed one.

But because travelling for me has never just been about getting somewhere.

It’s about making wherever I happen to stop feel like somewhere I want to stay.

There’s something brilliant about finishing a day on the road, shutting Vanilla’s door, putting my feet up and watching a giant cinema screen appear where a few seconds earlier there was nothing.

📽️ NEBULA CAPSULE 3 LASER The picture.

🔥 AMAZON FIRE TV STICK The entertainment.

📡 ZTE 5G The connection.

🔊 SONOS ROAM The soundtrack.

☀️🔋 SOLAR + JACKERY The power.

🚐 VANILLA Everything else.

🚐 + ☀️ + 🔋 + 📡 + 🔥 + 📽️ = 🎬

Compact.

Clever.

Portable.

Slightly ridiculous.

Absolutely brilliant.

🎬 THE CINEMA CAN OPEN.

THE WORLD OUTSIDE.