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Whirling Dervish offers a different spin on the wind turbine

Those who use alternative energy swear by it, and those who don’t wish they did. Out of the many alternatives available, wind is at a point where it should be more utilized but it isn’t due to technical constraints. The creator behind the Whirling Dervish claims to have addressed the majority of the issues with traditional wind turbines by making designing a blade that decreases the minimum amount of wind required to spin, thereby making it more efficient. Along with claiming that the product can meet 55% of a home’s energy needs, he also made this Turkish product silent to boot.

The Whirling Dervish is notable because it doesn’t only power devices, much like the Trinity or the Drill Turbine do, but rather attempts to address the problems in the space, giving it much potential should the creator achieve his $50,000 goal. If potential backers are OK with receiving a prototype, they can pledge $150 or more to receive their very own by February 2015.

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Wearables

KUFF is tough, lets you wear your files where you flex

With mounting concerns about privacy in the cloud, many people are going back to hard, physical storage to make sure their information is safe. While traditional USB sticks are portable, most of the time they’re flimsy. While hard drives can store tons of data, they usually aren’t portable and are prone to breaking down sooner or later. The creator behind KUFF is looking to perfect a product that features the best of both worlds.

Kuff is a wearable solid state storage that is worn around the wrist and features capacities from 16GB all the way to a whopping 1TB. An LED is planned for presenting custom information with the help of a developer SDK,. Although the Kickstarter campaign isn’t addressing the product’s clunkiness, it aims to fund the display along with wireless charging. Other features on the docket include connectivity with Bluetooth 4.0, iOS and Android companion apps, USB 3.0, and waterproofing using a nanocoating.

If the creator can put KUFF on a diet, get wireless connectivity and charging down, and continue marketing to media professionals and the DJ circuit, he may have a winner — he’ll just need to hit his goal of $21,000 to find out. One of these wearable storage devices will set backers back $110 with estimated delivery in December 2014.

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Camping Furniture

The Lounger fits seating for a small party in a roller bag

A entire six seater sofa in a bag: that’s what the folks behind The Lounger are peddling. It may sound too good to be true, but there is indeed a Kickstarter campaign with a video that shows this real, working product. Although they’re marketing the Lounger to the camping crowd, its modern, contemporary design can pretty much fit anywhere a sofa would come in handy — and when wouldn’t a sofa come in handy?

The product is weatherproof for those who want to live luxuriously in the wild outdoors and easy to set up, requiring no tools to do so. Nothing in the campaign addresses how the cushions are actually expected to fit in bag without having to inflate them first. If that’s the case, it would be a bit disengenious to claim that the product is fully portable without mentioning the air pump you’ll have to lug around as well. The creator is looking for a hefty €79,999 to mass produce The Lounger; interested backers can get their very own for €319, almost half the retail price.

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Home

MotionSeat automatic toilet seat is happy to show you what’s up

Going to the restroom is a pretty crappy experience for most people. If you think about, there are a ton of germs pretty much everywhere and the ways in which we interact with toilet elements don’t necessarily lend themselves to hygiene. With women constantly in danger of sitting on wet sets and men forced to handle the seat to avoid that from happening, both genders are always under fire from unsavory particles that linger there.

MotionSeat is an automatic toilet seat that instantly opens up when it senses your squirming presence. It takes only five minutes to install and contains a battery that lasts at least two months with the capability of being charged either in the seat or separately. By being so straightforward, the product manages to address an issue that’s often considered but that hasn’t really been addressed in an simple manner —  and that’s where it gets all of its appeal. Backers who pledge €65 or more can get grab their very own MotionSeat and help Affinis VOF reach their funding goal of €12,500.

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Cell Phone Accessories Imaging

DotLens microscopic lens lets your iPhone see it’s the little things that matter

With our noses inside our phones, we neglect to remember the existence of the wondrous, microscopic world that exists around us teeming with unfamiliar life.

Now Dotlens wants to create a bridge for us in the form of a 15x or 120x pebble-sized lens attachment for smartphone cameras. Its resolution of one micron gives any smartphone the ability to take laboratory quality photos of all manner of objects and specimen, from the rocks strewn outside your door to the house ant crawling on your kitchen floor. When you’re done, share them instantly using social media or attach the smartphone to a computer or projector for real-time collaboration or teaching.

Smartphone microscope attachments have been a thing for quite some time. Products like MicrobeScope and Skylight represent what most of these products are like, transforming smartphones into bulky, stationary microscopes. You even have the choice to create a DIY version for around $10 if you were so inclined, but what none of these have is the ability to be attached and removed simply from a smartphone, expanding the range of subjects because of the increased portability. The price is similarly light: $25 will get you the 120x version, a pledge that will go far towards their $12,o00 funding goal.

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Sensors/IoT Wearables

Tempi beats out your weatherman by giving you the exact temperature

Wearable devices come in all shapes and size, doing all kinds of interesting and novel things. The problem is that most of these functions are simply not that interesting. Introducing Tempi, the smart wearable thermostat. The product is similar to others like Thermodo and CliMate in that it tracks temperature, but that’s where the similarities end. CliMate offers more versatility in that it can be clipped onto clothing and left in predetermined places. It also offers more information such as sunscreen alerts, things Tempi does not.

The company is looking to beef up the app by adding multiple Tempi monitoring, social networking features, as well as map integration — but will you really want to share how hot or cold it is on your hike? Seems like although the product’s idea is usable in very certain scenarios, for the most part, it’s a novelty. With that said, if you’re as much of a temperature enthusiast as the product’s creators, then a Tempi can be had for just $25. However, without a more robust feature set, this product may face a few hurdles towards it $50,000 goal.

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Input

Neo Smartpen N2 sends your scribbles to your smartphone

Only a select few smart pens have really stood out as serious contenders in the digital marketplace. The N2 by NeoLAB intends to follow in the footsteps of heavyweights like LiveScribe and Equil by offering the syncing features we’re all used to, but with a few extras to set itself apart. The pen’s versatility comes from its compatibility with industry standard D1 ink, the ability to import anything created into Photoshop or Illustrator for further tweaking, voice recording, and PDF editing and annotation to round it all out.

The Mimoto pen has also tried to break the mold by moonlighting as a stylus for touch screens, but in the end most smart pens are entirely too similar. The N2 does a valiant job differentiating itself with its feature set and the ability for users to print their own proprietary paper rather than be stuck if they’re out. If it’s up your alley, the basic package goes for $99 and comes with one N2 and a notebook.

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Smart Home

Campoint brings your home security footage into a central point

Over the past decade, home monitoring and security systems have been reduced from elaborate systems requiring hundreds of dollars of start-up and maintenance costs to just a few in-home, Internet-connected cameras requiring less money to maintain. Problems still abound, though, namely in the form of monthly service fees to store and view a user’s own video, false alarms, and privacy.

CamPoint’s in-home monitoring system is looking to address those problems. The device connects via Wi-fi to up to three HD cameras, allowing a user to enjoy the features of a monitoring system without a monthly fee. What’s more, CamPoint uses an algorithm that constantly learns what’s important by sending alerts to a user’s smartphone for review. Once decided, CamPoint will never send another alarm about the event again. CamPoint also liberates users of the worry associated with streaming video to unknown places for review by unknown people with both local and cloud storage depending on the user’s location. Even then, it doesn’t eat up all your bandwidth with the capacity to schedule your day into the system. Potential backers can go all in with a pledge of $279, which nets them a CamPoint with three cameras. If the cameras are unnecessary, a CamPoint solo can be had for just $149. The company is looking for $50,000 for mass production and assembly.

The elephant in the room when speaking about home monitoring is certainly Dropcam and all of the privacy issues the company has spurred. Addressing privacy concerns with smart design is good business sense, and CamPoint has hit the nail on the head. Although users of the system will appreciate that, the included seven days of cloud storage and its three camera maximum might be problematic. CamPoint has potential, but the company will need to keep innovating: the features they present can easily be copied.

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Cell Phone Accessories Connected Objects

Salt locks your phone when you get up to grab some condiments

The seemingly innocuous act of unlocking our devices is suddenly not so when we lose almost three days a year doing just that. Most people have caught on to this, disabling their security as a result, leaving them vulnerable should they lose it. The choice between not having a lock screen or enjoying instant access to our devices is a tough one, but many opt for the latter out of sheer convenience.

SALT is a durable plastic card embedded with Bluetooth technology allowing users to enjoy the best of both worlds. As long as the user is within 10 feet the card, it will let you access your Android or iOS device instantly. The second you’re out range, the phone locks: either the entire phone or certain apps in response, protecting you in the unfortunate scenario of losing it or having someone rummage through your personal texts and e-mails.

If the opposite occurs and you lose the wallet or purse the card was in, the SALT app can help you locate it instead. With a custom battery estimated to last for over a year, users can enjoy keyless entry to their devices while still maintaining a high level of security. Although the company behind SALT has already hit their funding goal of $50,000, interested parties can grab themselves their very own with just a $15 pledge.

There aren’t very many solutions to this small yet time-consuming problem. SALT is one of the first that manages to be more versatile than just a card in your pocket. Many people are obviously interested, but one wonders if this could have worked without a battery to avoid the inevitable purchase of another. They’ve also admitted the possibility of the iOS version eventually lacking its star feature by blocking out an entire smartphone eco-system in the process. Solving these two issues will propel this from a maybe to easy impulse purchase territory.

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Running Wearables

Zoi wearable helps you run better and safer

From the neon-colored, spandex laced marathoners to those simply seeking to keep fit, poor technique is the main cause of running injuries. Avoiding these injuries while working towards a stride and pace that is challenging yet suitable for the body takes consistent feedback and patient coaching. Unfortunately, employing a coach can be cost prohibitive, running apps only telling you how much you run, and technical gait analyses only give you a snapshot of your technique for too much money.

Runteq is positioning their biometric running system, Zoi, as your personal coach. Comprising of a chest and foot sensor, runners can enjoy vocal feedback with the included wireless earbuds about very specific aspects of their technique, all in real time. Feedback takes the form of cheering and gentle encouragement advising you on things like pronation, ground contact time, and overall body motion, all of which can be used to create shareable personal training plans for review on the Zoi smartphone app. There a number of perks available, each offering Zoi for discounted prices ranging from €69 to €119, all contributing to the company’s funding goal of €50,000.

Another company has taken a stab at the same issue of runner education with runScribe, a pedometer sized device that attaches to your foot. Compared to Zoi, though, it has a much narrower focus — limited to collecting information that’s manually uploaded rather than actively feeding it back to the user.

Zoi is coming along at a time where interest in wearable tech is at an all-time high, but where the expectations at what they can do are similarly high. Applications and wearables are saturated with heart rate and blood pressure monitors which provide disjointed information, so Zoi pushes the envelope with their novel, smart feedback system. While the MSRP may be a bit pricey at €149, it will surely come out cheaper than other, more expensive alternatives.