Trying to learn proper technique in racketsports such as tennis and badminton can be tough. Having an aid like the strangely named Holy Pie Smart Racket, though, can help curb a newcomer’s mistakes or refine a more seasoned player. A microsensor in the handle tracks stats like hitting position and power. The product then connects with a PC or a smartphone to display 3D-models of your performance for your scrutiny. Whether the racket will also analyze that data to give you tips remains to be The raw data could be helpful, but it seems as though the product could benefit from some expert interpretation of the data. That would be particularly welcome considering the badminton version is expected at $240 and the tennis version is expected at $600. Those who know the flow and have cash to blow can improve their chances of bashing a birdie with units shipped in November 2014.
Author: Nicholas Echevarria
Although iPads are renown for impeccable design, it can be a chore to hold for long periods of time. To address the issue, Swiss-based design firm sillber created YOHANN. The iPad stand’s minimal aesthetic offers users 3 positions to display and comfortably use the tablet. YOHANN works on everything from tables to the billowy folds of a duvet, setting it apart from other competitors. The sturdy one-piece design commands a similarly sturdy price, sacrificing true portability for sleek European construction, but that may not be3 enough to go beyond a discerning audience in a crowded field. Sillber hopes to raise $40,000 to have YOHANN in homes by November 2014.
The Premise. Even as the tools safeguarding our precious data continue to evolve, backing up remains a headache for some and a mystery to everyone else. A few things will always stay constant: the need to backup our data, and that crushing feeling when your smartphone [insert traumatic event here] while realizing you don’t have a backup.
The Product. bleep is a hybrid smartphone cable that can charge your iOS or Android phone and back it up at the same time. By condensing the charging cable with USB storage, bleep backs up your data every single time you plug it in without affecting charge time. With the data securely stored right on the cable, you’ll be able to recover relevant data to any smartphone even after losing your own. Its physicality also allows you to do all of this even without an internet connection or computer. In addition, bleep has created a mobile app on which you can manage your backups and set your own security parameters, giving users full control over how exactly their data is protected.
The Pitch. The company’s charmingly animated video does a thorough job in clearly explaining the basic ideas behind bleep, with the only downside being the lack of an actual product in action. Bright diagrams and charts both dissecting and discussing the benefits of bleep round out the rest of the campaign, which is aiming for a $50,000 goal by October 24th, 2014.
The Perks. All bleeps come in the “Luxury Green” color and there are three capacities available. Interested backers can grab the 16GB version for $40, the 32GB version for $55, and the 64GB version for $78, along with larger packages if you have lots of clumsy friends or family.
The Potential. The bleep is an innovative take on the humble charging cable. Similar products focus solely on on-the-go charging, like Lifelink or the popular Mophie cases. bleep intelligently adds utility to the charging cable while remaining unobtrusive. It would be nice to see more color choices and there’s some legitimate concern that a cable is often easier to lose than a phone itself. But the extra premium that bleep commands seems with it in terms of convenience and piece of mind.
The Premise. Over the last 100 years, the baseball cap has become an icon. From its humble origins on the diamond to its current place in almost every facet of popular culture, its countless iterations have proven its staying power. Unlike most other classics that eventually adapt to a new era, there aren’t very many examples of a hi-tech baseball cap.
The Product. Live Lids is swinging for a home run with its modern take on the classic cap. Its version flaunts an embedded 2.8 inch LCD screen on the front panel. Although the screen can display any image, the company is banking on the wide variety of athletes and team logos available thanks to deals struck with the MLB, the NBA, and the NFL. These images can be downloaded online from Live Lids’ own Web site for a reasonable 69 cents each and synced to the cap the using CapSync software. The hat holds up to 100 images which can be displayed one at a time or as a slideshow for up to 11 hours on a full charge.
The underside of the brim looks more like the sides of an MP3 player, including a microUSB port for transferring and charging duties sit opposite controls to turn the product on or off, move to the next image, toggle hat modes, or explore files.
The Pitch. Live Lids’ campaign page is chock full of information, high quality photos modeling some of the many cap combinations, and a few videos. Understandably, the videos are all about the fashion appeal and show off the product’s LCD screen in all its slideshow glory. Live Lids is seeking an influx of $50,000 from the Kickstarter community to begin mass production.
The Perks. $75 nabs you a Live Lids cap while $99 gets you one with personalized stitching, which is at most $44 cheaper than the listed price on Live Lids’ Web site. Bigger pledges offer you the opportunity to buy up to 10 Live Lids caps with a discount.
The Potential. Live Lids injects some modern flair into a sports staple, but perhaps not quite modern enough. Bluetooth support would allow updating the hat on the fly, which could be a great way to honor an athlete who just made a great play — that is, if you can see it. LCDs are notoriously tough to see in the kind of sunshine that ideally accompanies a baseball game. On the other hand, it could be distracting at indoor sports such as baseball and basketball.
While it’s great that Live Lids is seeking officially licensed logos and other graphics, community-generated content could also be fun to display. The product embodies some good ideas, but needs better connectivity and display technology.
In places like South Africa, Mexico, and Hawaii, the pleasant experience of basking in the sun and surf is made unpleasant by the fear of shark attacks. The Sharkstopper wants to ensure open-water safety with an acoustically-based ankle device that repels sharks with the cries of their natural predator, the killer whale. The company eventually aims to market this technology to the commercial fishing industry to prevent the unnecessary deaths of sharks attracted by the big catches made by fishing rigs. For now, beach bums can protect themselves with their own in January 2015 for a cool $225, with the project’s creator looking to raise $48,000 by the end of the campaign.
The Premise. Although New York City winters can’t compare to those further up the eastern seaboard, they still pack quite a punch. For those with poorly heated apartments, they can be downright brutal. Although avenues exist with which to report heating violations, they are often too unreliable to truly make a difference — literally leaving people out in the cold.
The Product. The team behind Heat Seek is proposing a tech-centric solution to reduce the inefficiency. The initiative uses a set of connected devices relaying temperature information back to a central hub in an Internet-connected apartment. (Only one hub is needed, reducing the barrier of entry for those without a connection.) All this information is then sent to a server where it can be accessed by tenants, advocates, and lawyers using a Web app.
The company hopes this information will allow timely resolutions to violations. Tenants coming home to a toasty apartment are not the only beneficiaries, though: Heatseek NYC wants to partner with responsible landlords to help them stay compliant by figuring out how best to avoid heat loss, maximize heating efficiency, and potentially save thousands. (How many responsible landlords there are in NYC remains to be seen.)
The Pitch. Their Kickstarter campaign has a lot going for it. Its simple and clear video tells the real story of a current NYC resident living in an improperly heated apartment. By telling her story and showing how the company’s sensors would help, the video presents a compelling issue and a solid call-to-action. Although the team is looking for $10,000 to begin manufacturing, it is ideally seeking $50,000 by campaign’s end to put 1,000 sensors in the hands of New Yorkers who need it most.
The Perks. You can gift a temperature hub for a New Yorker in need for $30, or pay $60 to do the same and receive one yourself. Conversely, you can gift a hub while receiving one yourself with a backing of $120 or more. No matter what option you choose, every perk has an estimated delivery date of February 2015.
The Potential. Any serious attempt to revamp bureaucracy can be messy (here’s looking at you, health.gov.), but Heat Seek NYC’s solution to a persistent problem is simple, elegant, and easily applicable to a wide range of situations. Heat Seek has attracted a lot of attention via a back of a string of wins in app competitions However, it faces a long journey in the real world if it seeks to become a standard in New York or beyond.
The Premise. Although the flexibility of 3D printing has birthed many novel ideas for the private and government sectors, it has ultimately proven to be cost-prohibitive for the consumer. This has slowed down the average person’s entry into this space, especially with regards to the many benefits promised by 3D-printed food.
The Product. Candy aims to be one of the first affordable 3D printers focused solely on food of the sweeter (and guiltier) kind. Candy uses dispensers filled with any semi-solid to create perfectly shaped cookies, flawless cake details, or a variety of other designs for both professional confectioners looking to save time and home bakers looking to impress. Its sleek fiberglass build capable of reading SD cards loaded with pre-made and custom designs fits into many kitchens.
The Pitch. London-based 3D Venture’s campaign video does a neat and tidy job of explaining how Candy works, showing off its confectionery talents in a variety of environments used by a variety of people. Simple and to the point, the accompanying material provides information about the device’s specs and and the risks involved with the campaign. The company is shooting for a goal of about $100,000 in order to begin mass production.
The Perks. With the majority of Candy printers shipping in April 2015 for $499 ($100 off the eventual retail model), those who can’t wait to satisfy their sweet tooth can score one a bit earlier in March 2015 for $799, along with two extruders. All perks give you the option of choosing any available color.
The Potential. Candy looks simple, clean, and effortless. While its printing quality is lower than that of higher-end 3D printers, it is making things that are ephemeral. The printer should find an early audience with chefs looking to add new and interesting designs to their cuisine. Candy costs half the price of another 3D food printer vying for your gastronomical attention. And at $499, Candy will be seen as a pretty sweet deal in a market still known for its exuberant prices.
There’s nothing more annoying than realizing mosquitoes will be joining you while you try to enjoy a cool summer’s night. All we’ve ever had to protect ourselves thus far are unreliable, environmentally damaging chemicals. The DEET-free Invisaband, however, promises the holy grail of mosquito repellent with a geraniol-infused, adjustable microfiber strap that claims 120 hours of reusable mosquito avoidance. It’s a lot less bulky than the Off Clip and doesn’t need batteries. Backers can obtain their very own pack of 5 for $19 USD to avoid ever having to wake up looking like a pepperoni pizza again. The campaign is aiming for $10,000 by September 13th, 2014.
The Premise. Internet streaming devices such as Roku and Amazon’s Fire TV offer convenient streaming of movies and music on demand to your living room. Some streaming devices can play back media on a hard drive, but they’re not optimized for large personal libraries of video files and other media.
The Product. Slice is a hard drive-based media player designed to be snappy and easy to use. It’s a minimally designed black box outfitted with an array of usual ports along with a customizable LED ring that changes color depending on its current action. This adds a unique aesthetic twist to an otherwise unassuming design. It also ships with a custom-made RF remote, giving you the flexibility to be anywhere in your home and still command Slice.
The Pitch. The team behind Slice, Five Ninjas, does a great job concisely explaining such a versatile product. The campaign features a general overview video and a video walkthrough of Slice’s interface. Easy-to-digest lists and diagrams explain the nuances of the product, and there’s a pretty robust FAQ section that actually answers many common questions. Stretch goals have included Wi-Fi, an app to control the LEDs, a bigger hard drive, a thinner design with an extra USB port, and color options.
The Perks. Slice comes in two flavors. A diskless version is expected to ship in November 2014 with a contribution of £129 . A fully loaded version requires a contribution of £169 and should ship in December.
The Potential. The market has voted in favor of less expensive media streamers that deliver movies from services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime. Indeed Five Ninjas’ Web site laments the loss of the original Apple TV, which stored movies on a hard drive. Western Digital has probably had the most success with its hard drive-focused living room media player since then — including one that had a built-in hard drive — but that hasn’t seen an update for a while. One of the the product’s biggest draws besides its simplicity is its openness. Since it’s built atop a Raspberry Pi and uses the XMBC software, Slice is open and hackable, allowing more creative technical individuals to do pretty much whatever they’d like that’s within the device’s capabilities. Slice will have the most appeal to those who have large collections of movies that lack copy protection or who like a bit of a light show with their home video entertainment.
The Premise. Kids get tired of even the most engrossing toys, forcing parents to spend money on video games, smartphone applications, or even more toys to keep them entertained. Most of these options become expensive quickly and lack the tactile benefits attached to interacting with real-world objects.
The Product. Droidles are small, spry little robot toys with tons of personality and charm for both kids and adults. Each Droidle has its own social media page detailing the evolving exploits of its everyday life. Each robot learns on its own through interaction with the environment around it, whatever behaviors you choose to program it with using the free companion iOS/Android app, or even other Droidles. Absolutely no programming language is needed to make a Droidle sing, dance around, follow other Droidles, or simply wander around.
For those among us who are more technologically inclined, the 100% open platform allows for much creative freedom in creating behaviors for these playthings that will ultimately be shareable on the the company’s Web site. The fun doesn’t stop there, though:
The Pitch. Hurley Research is eager to push Droidles to the masses to take advantage of the rich amount of information each will be able to sponge up from the world around them. To convince would-be backers, its pitch video talks up Droidles’ openness as a platform, versatility as a robot, and sheer uniqueness as one of the first internet connected toys along with a detailed list of all the Droidles’ components so you know exactly what you’re getting. $50,000 is the magic number for Droidles to go into production and continuing growing as a platform.
The Perks. Owing to their penchant for swarm intelligence, Droidles are meant to be used in crowds and the campaign’s perks reflect that. You can grab one Droidle for $89
The Potential. Most other robotic toys are either solely focused on entertainment or education. Droidles, on the other hand, manages to bridge that gap by encouraging active participation, a novel form of engagement, and plenty of imagination from all age ranges. Its open platform is compelling for all kinds of tinkerers as well, opening up many doors to experiment with computer intelligence on a much larger scale. Provided Droidles can charm its way into the many homes it will need to be in, we may very well have one of the first Internet of Things phenomenon on our hands.