Author: Julio Bermudez

Categories
Automotive Cell Phone Accessories Organization

MOS Spring, MOS Menos attack car cable chaos

editors-choiceThe Premise.  You have a cable connecting your music player to your car’s stereo.  The fear that it will somehow manage to electrocute you has become intolerable, yet you refuse to replace it because the amount of dough you’ve coughed up for aux cables has already reached unacceptable levels.  No more shall be spent on another just for it to become lost or ruined like those before it!  Just jiggle it a little, sound quality be damned!

The Product.  The MOS Spring is a high-quality audio cable meant to be a permanent replacement to all those cheap cables.  It has woven cotton­ shrouding, and a coiled metal wire where the cable meets the jack, just like you would find on a pro-grade audio cable.  The MOS Menos is a discreet base for keeping your Mos Spring cable safe and at hand.  It mounts to your car, and employs strong magnets to keep any wayward cables in check.

 The Pitch.  The combined practicality of the Spring and MOS Menos are demonstrated with a video depicting the standard cable drama: cable lost in car, guy damages cable while retrieving, guy plugs in his phone to hear music, music rendered inaudible by cable’s crappiness.  The day is saved by the Spring, with its woven cotton, anodized aluminum and electroplated steel construction, its black, red, or teal color options, and its lifetime warranty.  The MOS Menos lends its super strong neodymium magnet,  satin body, and options of permanent adhesive, or semi-permanent suction mountings to the fray. It is also worth mentioning that the MOS Menos is the scaled-down version of the original MOS, which Kickstarted in Winter ’12 and is now selling in Apple stores.

 The Perks.  The Spring and Mos Menos are slated for availability in late March ‘14.  Sold individually, they are moderately priced at 10 dollars, or a mere 15 bucks (just 11 for early backers!) for the combo.

 The Potential.  While there are other woven cables out there for as little as 99 cents, they can also range as high as $40.  Moreover, one is hard pressed to find cables that have the Spring’s coiled wire joint reinforcement.  So combined, the Mos Spring and Menos can relieve all your electrical apprehensions, musical frustrations, and organizational headaches, for what you might spend on any other decent-quality cable.  Take the Spring’s lifetime warranty into account, and you find a sound audio investment.

Categories
Winter Sports

Frostbite turns your limbs, lard into a human sled in five easy pieces

editors-choiceThe Premise.  Lots of folks want the fun of sledding, but not the lack of control over your sled’s downhill course or having to schlep said sled back up said hill, just to submit to gravity’s indifferent mercy once again. For those who don’t mind looking a little silly to alleviate this tradeoff, the ultimate sled may be themselves.

The Product.  The Frostbite is a collection of flexible sheets of plastic that strap to your hands, heels and hindquarters, allowing you to sled down a hill in a seated position, steer ( probably more just influence) your descent, and finally spring to your feet and run back up the hill without having to pick or carry a sled back up, or ever worry about falling off of it again, as you and the sled are united in perfect snow-strewn harmony.

The Pitch. The Frostbite’s creators demonstrate their product with what is mostly just a narrated product slide show interspersed with random graphics.  Claims are made that jumps tricks and spins can be done with the Frostbite, and are backed up with snippets of semi-trailers jumping dirt mounds and jets breaking the sound barrier; the latter one shall not achieve with Frostbite.  Although it does depict a smooth and fun sled run, after which the inventor seemed to have no problem popping right back up and running directly back up the slope, the one clip of the product in action is short and repeated about four times. The rest of the campaign page shows off design photos are literally snapshots of hand-drawn sketches and discusses things like die creation and pressing convex plastic in an extrusion process.

The Perks.  $25 gets a Frostbite, or $45 for a limited run that glows in the dark, for your night-time, glowing-butt sledding needs.  The inventor will throw his signature on most of the perks for an extra five bucks, just in case the Frostbite becomes the next pet rock, and he’s the next…guy that invented the pet rock.

The Potential.  The Frostbite is cleverly designed, reasonably priced, and made with safety and practicality, those best of intentions, in mind. But, snow tubes are almost free, regular sleds as low as $8, and steerable sleds start at $50­.  Also, none of these are named after painful potential side effects of winter exposure. Still, it’s one of the few sledding contrivances that one can pack away in a carry-on bag on route to your next destination for sliding snow fun.

Categories
Music

For guitar solo acts, the BeatBuddy goes on

editors-choiceThe Premise. You’ve practiced your scales, know a few chords, can play a song or two, and are ready to start jamming with other musicians, but you’re still too shy about your guitar prowess. Or maybe you’re a working musician, and need something to help compose your masterpieces when the band isn’t around, or something to accompany you on solo gigs.

The Product. The BeatBuddy is a drum machine that functions like a guitar effects pedal. For those of you who haven’t become lost in the vast deserts of musical gadgetry and their jargon, this is a device that will accompany your playing with a drum beat, is foot-operated, leaving hands free to shred, and splices your guitar and amp, allowing both backbeat and axe to play over the same speaker, keeping gear (and headache) to a minimum.

The Pitch. A no-nonsense approach to presentation of the BeatBuddy is well-suited to the seasoned musician. Product specs are succinctly presented, benefits are simply and comprehensively listed, not “pitched,” and concerns are well-anticipated and addressed. These guys thought of everything, from possible shipping issues, to potential backlash from unemployed drummers. The video and audio production of both the sales and drum-sampling films are extremely high quality, demonstrating that the people behind this product know their stuff, even if their delivery of the dialogue makes it clear that they’re pro musicians and not infomercial MC’s.

The Perks. While the early bird tier for the new rhythm section ($179), has sold out, the standard backer pricing of $219 is still around, but incentives to contribute beyond that are minimal, considering how much more one is expected to give. $399 sweetens the deal with a t-shirt and dibs on the first BeatBuddies off the line, and $1,000 gets a song/beat you can choose and name yourself produced and uploaded into the product.

The Potential. With features like the ability to transition between beats to accommodate song sections (verses, choruses, bridges, etc), software that lets you create your own beats, pro-studio quality samples, and a $200 price tag, the Beatbuddy makes for a sound purchase which will continually benefit any level of musician and grow with you as you shred your way up the ranks to rock god.

Categories
Camping Chargers/Batteries

PowerPot X cooks soup, generates juice

The Premise. Every campsite should have a piece of cookware, every camper/outdoorsman should have a receptacle in which to boil water, every home should have an alternate power source in case of emergency and everybody could use an extra method to keep their electronics charged.

The Product. It sounds like someone’s tenth attempt at creating a new strain of super-hemp, but the the PowerPot X is actually the latest in outdoor gear. Its promise of charging modern devices using a must-have piece of equipment for any camper, potentially makes it one of the most practical and ingenious pieces of kit to come along in ages. It’s an aluminum pot that doubles as an electric generator, using thermoelectric technology to convert the heat used to cook or boil water into usable electricity.

The Pitch. The PowerPot X’s marketing may alarm the skeptical consumer. The video production has campy, home-spun feel that, while endearing and aligned with the spirit of the product and its intended consumers, falls slightly short of effective advertising. The product pictures are crisp and clear enough to display its quality. Its technical aspects are comprehensively explained, its production plan seems on-point, and one’s incentives for buying are plentiful, including two sizes, built-in power regulator, dual-USB charging-cord, carrying case, and the confidence of having such a practical and versatile product with no moving parts.

The Perks. Early backing of $165 or $175 earn the 2.3-liter PowerPot X or 3.8-liter PowerPot XL, respectively. Five bucks will get you a sticker that, by the producers’ own admission, might get you pulled over and questioned if placed on your bumper. And for those people of means who are worried about confusion over ownership, a pledge of $249 will rustle up their choice of the PowerPot X or XL with custom laser-engraving.

The Potential. There may be better camping-pots out there. The Lodge LCC3 Logic combo-cooker, perhaps, which sports heavier construction and a lid that doubles as a frying pan, but will it charge the kids’ iPads? And there may be more powerful solar generators available, but they’d never work at night, let alone cook your dinner.