Author: Nicholas Echevarria

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Chargers/Batteries Smart Home

The Plugzr outlet add-on puts you in charge of your charging

Year and year, more devices are making their way into the homes of the general populace — and all of them need sweet electricity to make them work. The problem lies in the myriad of chargers and cables that soon become difficult to keep track of, eventually being misplaced altogether.

To help manage the increasing amount of clutter these smart devices generate, a team out of Germany developed the Plugzr smart wall outlet. While Plugzr may look like an ordinary wall outlet, it’s Wi-Fi connectivity and built-in charging docks and rapid charging USB ports make it anything but. With the former, users can do everything from remotely turn on or turn off plugged in devices to gauge the amount of power each device is sucking up or also set devices to a schedule and even set scenes using the Plugzr companion smartphone app.

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Connected Objects

The iKeyp lets you keep valuables dry and safe

editors-choice-300x96For some reason, staying on top of medication is so much harder than anyone gives it credit for. Pill boxes
and smartphone reminders may help but at the end of the day, they’re still not good enough. When the medicine in question is essential to one’s health, it’s important to go the extra mile to ensure adherence.

The iKeyp is a lightweight, portable smart safe that includes a wide range of features that makes it more versatile than it seems at first blush. It works together with a companion smartphone app to make sure authorized users are reminded when its moisture-sealed compartment isn’t opened at the scheduled time for medication. In addition, a motion detector, three-axis gyroscope, and shock detector to determine when the iKeyp is being tampered with, sending alerts directly to authorized users while also letting loose a siren to deter would-be thieves.

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Categories
Cell Phone Accessories Networking

Lack of coverage can’t stop the goTenna Mesh

The problem of communication in a foreign country or during an emergency is a huge one, compounded by the usually prohibitive costs associated with it. And even then, when a system is finally in place, it usually isn’t as reliable as it needs to be.

So, after receiving countless awards for its inaugural product offering focused on the problem, the team behind the wildly successful goTenna is back at it again. This time, its goTenna Mesh not only connects people using a signal it generated on its own but also takes advantage of each users’ device to double or even triple its capable range. This allows users to send direct messages, establish message groups unencumbered by distance and download maps to be used offline, with the network growing stronger as more people use goTenna Mesh devices.

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Categories
Winter Sports

Don a WingJump and glide down a mountain with ease

Innovations in winter sports are few and far between, but when they happen they’re usually refreshing takes on a very established formula. Case in point: The WingJump, the result of an invigorating kitesurfing session inspiring a change in traditional skiing.

While it looks like a wingsuit, the WingJump is more designed to give skiers more control and stability through positioning. But its main draw lies in how it allows skiers to jump for longer distances and land more smoothly due to the way it was designed, offering the sensation of flying in full safety.

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Categories
Connected Objects Sleep

Say hello to better mornings with the Kello bedside companion

For most people, mornings are a drag because of a lack of sleep. This leads to haphazrd, rushed mornings with barely any time to take a sip of coffee let alone wake up appropriately. And with more and more people dozing off to the drama of late-night Netflix binges or the glow of a smartphone, they’re experiencing more difficulty getting the kind of sound, restful sleep crucial to a successful day.

With the prevalence of this problem comes a glut of products designed to address it. Kello Labs’ Kello is a bedside companion not designed to be an alarm clock but rather a sleep trainer to help people achieve the kind of restorative sleep they need. Kello boasts a wide range of sleep programs in its tiny frame. Together, they can help users do everything from fall asleep faster (with a program that asks users to match their breath to a pattern of lights to more easily relax), snooze less (offering users just three chances a week to snooze), wake up earlier (by shaving minutes off each morning until users naturally wake up earlier), and even take better power naps. 

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Categories
Nutrition/Hydration Sensors/IoT

The One X biosensor lets you pick up on your body’s vibes

Everyone is generally aware of the elements that contribute to a healthy lifestyle: nutrition-dense foods, ample water, some exercise and plenty of sleep, just to name a few. But the one issue most people have is actually quantifying the kind of lifestyle being led with something other than that vague sense of ‘feeling bad’. Luckily, the One X does exactly that.

The One X is a nutritional biosensor that can effectively measure the body’s antioxidant level, a reliable metric for understanding how well the body is able to cope with various lifestyle challenges along with the body’s reaction to elements like sun, alcohol, nutrition, exercise, pollution, stress and sleep. It’s able to do this through high-quality optic sensors that analyze critical skin antioxidants called carotenids with a 20-scan of the palm. Since carotenids absorb light in the blue spectrum, the One X pumps blue light into the palm and reads how much is absorbed for an accurate measurement of the body’s overall health. The worse the lifestyle, the lower the score: This gives up to five users (courtesy of a handy fingerprint sensor) clear incentive to make better decisions throughout the day.

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Categories
Aquatics Imaging

The Paralenz action camera is a breath of underwater air

The undersea wonders of the oceans house some incredible sights, which is why millions of scuba divers globally take the time to photograph, record and otherwise document their experiences in the deep blue. Unfortunately, clunky design and unimpressive depth tolerance have relegated the equipment now available to the not-quite-good-enough category.

A small team out of Delaware wants to change that. And with its Paralenz dedicated diving action camera, it has a very good chance of doing so. For one, the Paralenz looks like a creation born out of rapid prototyping principles: it oozes ruggedness with its tiny black anodized aluminum frame with a collection chunky and clicky magnetic switch buttons. This design is not only rugged and good looking but also practical, allowing the Paralenz to be used with any type of diving gloves. Another way the Paralenz was designed to be practical was through its attachments: it can be connected to any T-rail, an adapter can be used to attach it to other equipment, or a third-person viewer can float the Paralenz behind a diver sort of like an underwater drone for brand new underwater perspectives. 

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Connected Objects

The Sound Reactive Fire Pit dances the night away with you

The idea of a Ruben’s tube dates back to 1905, the year German physicist Heinrich Rubens invented. Flash forward 116 years, and the idea is experiencing a radical overhaul in the Sound-Reactive Fire Pit currently funding on Kickstarter.

Instead of being just an antique tool and cool conversation piece, Music Fire City Company’s invention is the first fire pit of its kind to add music to the mix. The result is a fire pit that reacts in real time to music played through its integrated, Bluetooth-connected 2.1 channel speaker system — and a fascinating addition to any home. Of course, it can engage other modes that are less intensive: a fire-and-music mode for a more relaxed environment, a music-only mode, and a fire-only mode. In addition, multiple Sound Reactive Fire Pits can be synced up for a grander experience.

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Smart Home

L.U.C.Y! brings digital assistants to the big screen

The effect of Amazon Echo’s voice-controlled versatility on the industry has led to consumers expecting competing products to offer as smooth of an experience — if not better. Creating that better experience is a tall order with how much the Echo can learn and do, but that’s not stopping the team behind L.U.C.Y. from trying.

While L.U.C.Y. is a digital assistant in the same vein as something like Amazon’s smart canister, the first and most obvious difference lies in its design: L.U.C.Y. boasts a large 17″ to 24″, tablet-like form factor with a Full HD, IPS-equipped display that sports a 1920 x 1080 resolution, an HD camera, a microphone, and facial recognition for different users.

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Categories
Kids/Babies Smartwatches/Bands

The BRILLAR kid’s watch gamifies the real world

The sedentary nature of today’s youth is well-documented, leading many to deride the role screen time contributes to the problem. With applications like Pokemon GO leading a change in mainstream attitudes about how screens can be a benefit rather than a nuisance, BRILLAR looks to capitalize on this renewed awareness with its own twist.

BRILLAR is a chimera of a kid’s smartwatch. It not only tells time but also boasts a micro-SIM slot for its phone function, the ability to store 11 pre-set contacts, a walkie-talkie, a GPS unit, and a pedometer. This forms the basis for the Roodymentary application, a challenge-based gaming experience that offers children real-life challenges that get them up and moving by completing scavenger hunts to workouts for digital rewards they can show off to friends.

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