Categories
Chargers/Batteries

Voltower towers above other power strips and surge protectors

Surge protectors have long been among the most important electronic accessories to own. They not only provide consumers with the ability to power multiple devices at the same time, but also ensure those devices aren’t damaged if there’s a power surge.

patent-claimedOne common problem with them, however, is that it’s often hard to get devices of different sizes to reach the same power strip, at least without causing an unsightly mess of cables. Voltower is a patented and vertically-oriented, height-adjustable power strip that makes the task easier. It can be adjusted to stand from 25 to 36 inches tall and has the capacity to plug in up to 10 devices, with six 110-volt standard power outlets and four USB ports. The grounded and surge-protected strip also offers multiple mounting options.

Voltower ships in November at $129 in black, silver and black-on-silver SKUs. But early bird Kickstarter backers can get one for a pledge starting at $69. Its makers are looking to raise $188,888 by April 3. The device is clearly a handy one to have in a home or office. But it lacks the portability of typical power strips and surge protectors. It also lacks the original, eye-catching design of the similar TwistVolt.

Categories
Connected Objects Displays

Z4 Aurora punches above its weight for portable projectors

The typical portable LED projector offers consumers a pretty good way to display video and other content on any flat surface wherever they are. But most aren’t designed to offer a complete entertainment experience including good-quality sound.

Z4 Aurora, however, is a smart, portable LED projector that features integrated Android functionality and stereo sound from audio company Harmon/Kardon. The projector can turn any surface into a 300-inch screen. Apps and games can be wirelessly streamed onto the projector, which also supports active-shutter, stereoscopic 3D video, as well as MP4, 4K and Blu-ray video. It uses an energy-conserving bulb and has a projected lifetime of 30,000 hours, more than the average expected lifetime of several rival projectors.

Categories
Connected Objects Food and Beverage

Behold, Starbucks junkies: the age of RoboJoe is nigh

Will machines eventually take on every job? Maybe. Toward that end, one campaign is tackling the soul-numbing line waiting of Starbucks lines.

The answer is RoboJoe. Well, at least that’s what the Johnson family is envisioning with their robotic barista prototype. The RoboJoe takes all that is good with a standard coffee shop and condenses it all in a 4X4X7 space in which cups of black gold are created using a proprietary brewing method. The result? A ‘coffee drink’ — a concoction containing all the caffeine of a standard coffee without the bitterness or the upset stomach that can occasionally mess up an afternoon all in 60 seconds.

Categories
Kids/Babies Maker/Development Robots/Drones

The Kamibot papercraft robot combines coloring and coding

Even among coders, it’s been said that the act of coding can be endlessly boring. Imagine trying to get a kid to pick it up — let alone stick with it! The key with anything worth learning is to make it fun, and that’s doubly true for little ones. The three-man team at 3.14 is trying to do just that with its Kamibot.

The Kamibot is a LED-equipped puck-like robot designed to take on a number of different papercraft costumes for a revolving door of new personalities. For adults, that’s a gimmick. For little ones, it’s like getting a brand new toy every time they print out another skin from the company’s website. Kamibot is based on an open-source Arduino technology, allowing kids to dip their toes into wirelessly coding their Dracula or robot-skinned, well, robot with the MIT-developed Scratch language — all while keeping them entertained in the process.

Categories
Chargers/Batteries Smart Home

The YOUMO modular power strip makes supplying power electrifying

While smartphones and laptops continue to slim down and offer more powerful specs, the humble strip keeps on chugging along in all its practical, drab glory, doling out power and taking names. Most of the time, though, it doesn’t offer much in the way of functionality.

The YOUMO is a smart modular power strip offering users a wide range of plug-and-go modules for a custom power solution for any situation.  Good Gadgets, the three-man team behind the Kickstarter campaign, has designed YOUMO modules to be lightweight for travel and aesthetically pleasing, a far cry from most dollar store varieties. It all starts with a base cord in three different lengths and seven different colors. From there, six modules can connect in any combination to each other.

Categories
Connected Objects Imaging

Panoporter camera lets you see the whole room when video calling

Video calling is convenient because it allows people to easily see their kids and other loved ones while they are at work or traveling. It also makes work conference calls more productive because those doing it can not only hear their co-workers speak, but also see important charts and documents. But it’s hard to see the entire room with most cameras used for such calls.

patent-claimedPanoporter is a 360-degree 1080p HD camera for video calls that allows users to get a 360- or 180-degree view of the room it’s placed in, whether the device is on a table or mounted on a wall. It is controlled via an Android and iOS app. Unlike many 360-degree cameras, like CENTR,  that require multiple image sensors to stitch together a panoramic image, the patent-pending Panoporter uses just a single lens and there’s no trade-off in resolution.

Categories
Connected Objects Music

The Mighty music player lets you enjoy Spotify without a smartphone

editors-choiceThe days of small, lightweight MP3 players — a la the iPod Shuffle — are gone. For active types everywhere, their demise was a huge loss only compounded by the rise of streaming music and the increasingly larger smartphones needed for it.

Mighty Audio’s Mighty streaming music player is the only device on the market that can locally play Spotify playlists without an Internet connection by downloading music before you go. The 1.5 square inch Mighty player connects with iOS or Android devices over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi to transfer up to 4GB of Spotify Premium tunes for up to five hours of playback.

Categories
Smart Home

Kasia smart home system lures mainstream home owners

While the smart home segment runs rife with activity, it doesn’t stop companies from coming up with their version of a “revolutionary” system. It makes sense that there are still companies looking for that breakthrough: being able to control everything in the home from anywhere some sort of data connection is too powerful to ignore. The problem is packaging the capabilities to a wider, mainstream audience.

The Kasia smart home system pairs a brightly colored interface with ease of use in an attempt to get at the heart of the solution. Everything stems from its always-on Hub where up to 149 Kasia modules can connect with it and each other using mesh networking for more stable, longer-reaching connections. This family of modules lets users monitor and control anything in the home. The Kasia Plug covers the majority of gadgets and appliances so that users can turn them on or off while the Kasia Switch looks exactly like a normal wall switch but communicates with the Hub as well. A Kasia Remote is also available and features customizable buttons for individual devices, groups of devices, or entire scenes.

Categories
Cycling Personal Transportation

Slim down your electric ride with the Sondors THIN

The holy grail of lightweight and electric personal transportation is still a long way off. Fortunately, crowdfunding websites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo are incubators of tomorrow’s designs, with many having been fully supported and brought to market — which means all these products should be overrunning the street, right? Well, not entirely. For a lot of people, price and size are still huge barriers making a truly affordable, lightweight electric vehicle something to be integrated into daily lifestyles.

Claiming to have developed the most lightweight and affordable option on the market, the Sondors THIN Electric Bike is now on Indiegogo. Coming in at just 38 pounds, the Sondors THIN features a Panasonic Single-Cell Battery — the same technology used in Tesla’s Model S — to power a 350W motor for a top speed of 20mph and max distance of 50 miles.

Categories
Smart Home

PlantSitter babysits your plants when you can’t

Plants are easier to take care of than most pets, but they too must be fed -– something that’s not always easy. After all, people can’t always be home and, even when they are, they sometimes forget to feed their plants. Unlike dogs, plants of course don’t bark when they’re hungry. (At least, they shouldn’t.)

PlantSipatent-claimedtter is a soil-mounted, smart plant monitoring system that uses sensors to help owners care for their plants. If a plant doesn’t have enough water, PlantSitter will detect that and send the user a message immediately. The device also measures the nutrition levels in the soil of a plant by measuring the soil’s electrical conductivity (EC). By measuring the soil’s EC, along with its levels of moisture, PlantSitter can make an estimate of the soil’s nutrition levels.

The patent-pending device works in conjunction with a MiGrow app for Android and iOS mobile devices. PlantSitter gets connected through Bluetooth to a nearby smart device equipped with the app. The app monitors a plant by interpreting the received data and making sure the values are within limits prescribed for that specific plant. Data collected from PlantSitter are stored on the device maker’s servers and users can browse the info by hours, days and weeks.