Categories
Smart Home Television

SmartEgg cracks a smart remote control system and timer for your home

Universal remote controls still offer a pretty good way to reduce the number of remotes needed to power all the electronic devices in a room.

patent-claimedBut SmartEgg takes the concept of a universal remote a few steps further. The egg-shaped universal remote control center works in conjunction with Android and iOS mobile devices to automate one’s home. It can control any infrared device using Bluetooth 4.0, according to its Kickstarter campaign.

SmartEgg has an internal timer to switch electronics on and off — even when the user is not home. It also has a self-learning capability to adapt to old or new devices, and will interact with devices if certain conditions are met. For example, it will mute the TV if the phone rings. SmartEgg also supports iBeacon technology.

Categories
Music

Ear3 headphone amp opens your ears for safety

More people than ever seem to be tuning out the world around them, listening to music as they walk, run or bike in public while listening to loud music on their mobile devices. In doing so, they are risking serious harm and injury.

Ear3 is a headphone amp that’s designed to make listening to music in public while on the move much safer than it is now. The amp’s built-in microphone picks up sounds around the user and mixes it with music being listened to at the volume level users want, according to its Indiegogo campaign. Turning the microphone mode off, Ear3 becomes a high-fidelity amp that enhances the quality of the music source, adding stronger full bass, according to the campaign.

Categories
Lighting Television

AmbiScreen lights up the backs of your screens and more

Ambient TV backlighting technology has so far failed to find a major audience in the U.S. despite several attempts by companies including Philips and its Ambilight. More recently, the makers of Project-Pyxis failed to reach their funding goals for that device.

AmbiScree is a new, LED-based backlighting device with somewhat more ambitious functionality than some prior products. It is controlled wirelessly via iOS (and later Android) mobile devices, and provides ambient lighting for TVs or any other display, as well as videogame consoles and any other device in the home, according to its Indiegogo campaign. AmbiScreen can also be used as an autonomous mood light system. So, in addition to creating light behind a TV, it can also be used to create ambient lighting in bathrooms and other rooms.

Categories
Connected Objects Food and Beverage

Auroma One offers a smart solution for waking up to aroma of fresh coffee

Many coffee machines do a pretty good of making it easy to brew some java each morning.

Auroma One, however, is a modern take on the coffee machine –- a smart, single-serve coffee maker that brews the beverage based on each user’s preferences. The device learns how users prefer their coffee based on feedback from the accompanying Android and iOS app for mobile devices. Auroma One provides control over the brewing process that includes how finely the coffee beans are chopped and the coffee’s exact temperature. It also informs users when coffee beans are running low. Any coffee beans can be used with the device, according to its Kickstarter campaign.

Categories
Technology

TableTalk assistive listening device helps you hear through the chatter

Even for younger people, conversations in crowded, noisy environments can be difficult. So imagine how older members of the family must feel in a bustling restaurant or even sitting in the backseat of a car? Assisted listening devices on the market now are limited, mainly dealing with single two-way conversations or a broadcast from one person to many.

Kilteron’s TableTalk advances the concept of an assistive listening device by making it more of a conference call. A single TableTalk device acts as a hub for up to 6 Bluetooth headsets, normalizing volume and cancelling out all extraneous sound from them all. The result is a conversational experience that’s better for everyone involved.

Categories
Automotive Connected Objects Imaging

Fenderhawk keeps an eye out for fender benders

Cars are all too often banged and scratched by other cars even when they are parked. It would be nice for drivers to know when such accidents happen –- and how they happened — when they’re not around.

patent-claimedFenderhawk does exactly that. It’s a smart license plate frame for the front and rear of a vehicle that features a full HD camera with a wide-angle lens, as well as a built-in accelerometer and flash storage. Fenderhawk is controlled via an app on Android and iOS mobile devices. It assists users while parking a car and continues recording video after leaving the vehicle.

If there is a collision, Fenderhawk sends the user video footage recorded on it immediately, according to its Kickstarter campaign. Fenderhawk ships in October at $199.99. Its makers hope to raise $450,000 by Dec. 24.

The device may certainly appeal to some drivers, but its functionality seems somewhat limited when compared to driving assistance devices like CarVi. Avoiding accidents while driving, after all, seems much more important than guarding against fender benders while parked and there’s nobody in the car.

Categories
Smartwatches/Bands

Sunu uses ultrasonic waves to help place the blind out of harm’s way

Those who are blind often discover that much of the world is set up for the sighted. The ways in which infrastructure, entertainment, products, etc. are all set up reinforce this. While tools and systems have been set up to make more of the world accessible, there’s still so much that can be done.

The dedicated team behind the Sunu band is trying to fill a huge gap to empower blind people while they move. The sun is primarily a band fitted with a device that fires off ultrasonic waves, delivering haptic feedback of objects that are at torso and head level. This better informs them of incoming obstacles. In conjunction with a cane, this means that the entire height of the individual is protected.

Categories
Augmented Reality Wearables

You’d go mad thinking MAD Glass was Google’s

When Google Glass was first announced, it was an extremely cool idea. As time passed, though, the ethical concerns with the platforms use and the general societal discomfort associated with someone having a digital device plastered to their face during all aspects of the day soon became too much to overcome, leaving the idea to wither away to relative obscurity.

With its Mad Glass, Dragon Creative is reviving the idea of a glasses-styled interface to which a user can offload smartphone features. The company’s goal mirrors Google’s in that they’d like the use of augmented reality to keep important notifications and application in front of users so they can stay present in the world rather than keeping their eyes down to a screen. And in theory, offering features like video recording, GPS navigation, web browsing and even real-time translation should do the trick.

If history is any indication, though, it will most likely meet a similar fate as Google’s version of Glass. It’s certainly useful and will continue to be so with a proprietary app store so that users , but the general image of this interface has been set in the public consciousness — and it’s not a positive one. Still, those who truly believe in the idea of Glass can grab these for $652 with an expected ship date of September 2015. Mad Glass is looking for $72,500 by January 26th, 2015.

Categories
Television

AfterMaster TV improves the quality of your TV audio

Audio quality continues to be the weakest link in the TV viewing experience for many people. That has only been enhanced by the dominance of flat-panel TVs, which typically can’t fit quality speakers inside due to their thin designs. Even many sound bars and the best multi-channel speakers can overcome such issues as sudden changes in audio levels.

patent-claimedAfterMaster TV is designed to overcome such problems. It’s a small, set-top device that gets hooked up via HDMI cables to a TV and an audio/video source including a cable or satellite box. The device uses patent-pending technology originally developed for the music industry, according to its Kickstarter campaign. It features a proprietary Digital Signal Processing chip, co-developed with ON Semiconductor, that can master and remaster audio to professional standards in real-time and, unlike other audio enhancement technologies, makes any audio source sound much better throughout its entire frequency range.

Categories
Imaging Virtual Reality

LucidCam makes sensible use of 3D virtual reality

The number of virtual reality (VR) devices on the market and seeking funding via crowdsourcing continues to grow.

LucidCam is trying to help solve one problem for the emerging VR market: a lack of content. It’s a consumer stereoscopic 3D, 180-degree virtual reality camera that is portable and allows users to capture everything around them in full, 1080p HD per-eye video and 2K per-eye photo quality, according to its Indiegogo campaign. The content captured by LucidCam can then be used for VR headsets such as the Oculus Rift. LucidCam’s slim design allows it to fit right in the user’s pocket. LucidCam ships in July and its future retail price is about $500, although early bird backers can get one at pricing as low as $349. Its makers are looking to raise $100,000 by Dec. 26.

It’s still too early to say just how successful the VR product category will actually be. But LucidCam may have a bright future as long as the content captured with it can be viewed on whatever VR headset winds up being the most popular one. The inability of LucidCam to capture 360-degree video is a minus, but the addition of that functionality is a stretch goal of its makers. It also lacks the ability to shoot 4K like the recent Sphericam 2 can.