Author: Nicholas Echevarria

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Aquatics Chargers/Batteries

Estream uses running water to keep your devices running

Reconnecting with the great outdoors is a wonderful thing, but sharing those experiences with family and friends makes it even more memorable. But keeping the devices used to document these adventures can be pretty difficult without access to electricity. That’s why Enomad developed its Estream portable hydroelectric generator.

Small and compact enough for a backpack, the Estream sports a modular design that lets users easily ready it for power generation. Users need only to snap off its cover, unfold its turbines and lock them, hook it in with its base, then throw into the water. There, a run ning current will spin its turbines, powering the 6400 mAh battery in its base.

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Connected Objects Cooking

The Toasteroid heralds the era of connected heated bread

By now, pretty much everything in the home can be found on the market in both non-connected and connected versions — save for the toaster. This humble little kitchen companion is a mainstay in many a morning routine and is now undergoing a connected transformation into the Toasteroid.

The Toasteroid is exactly that: a smart toaster. It uses microfilament heating to toast intricate designs and messages onto bread that can be customized through a companion iOS/Android app. With it, it can also toast everything from the weather for the day to emojis for a little fun, or simply control the brownness of the toast with more specificity.

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Categories
Connected Objects Music

The Kombos modular MIDI keyboard puts a full keyboard in your backpack

Aspiring producers, DJs, and musicians are between a rock and a hard place: either buy a full-size keyboard and have logistical issues, or get a smaller one and be stuck with not enough keys. In 2016, the team behind the Kombos modular keyboard thought it was about time to do something about it.

With its wireless, modular design, the Kombos USB-MIDI/MIDI keyboard can either be set to a 25-, 37-, 49-, or 61-key configurations depending on what’s needed at the moment. And since its pin system lets it disconnect easily, it can fit into a book bag, letting maestros jam out pretty much anywhere. It’s Bluetooth enabled, as well, so it connects to pretty much any device and functions with everything from the lowest cost music creation app to the very high-end stuff like Ableton Live and Logic.

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Connected Objects Imaging

The FRAME connected home camera keeps your life in focus

The notion of connected home cameras usually focus on the security benefits they provide. For the team at LifeSmart, its FRAME lifestyle camera is looking to buck that trend by making it the core of your connected home experience.

With FRAME, LifeSmart looked to design something that looked good but fit into a user’s life as more than a security camera. To do this, it developed a software platform that can be expanded on later on. So, while FRAME right now features night vision and motion detection capabilities, it will feature many more as time goes on using the same set of 1080p lens, mic, and speaker hardware.

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Imaging Robots/Drones

Use your smartphone with the PadBot T1 and keep in touch

Telepresence technologies are usually marketed for business purposes, but also has huge potential for the home, connecting friends and family that may otherwise be separated. In this vein, a few telepresence robots that combine mobility and video chat capability have recently been seen in the crowdfunding circuit, all of which offer pretty similar functionality along with security monitoring.

What’s different about the PadBot T1 is that it connects to a smartphone using Bluetooth 4.0 in order to cut down on size and make it portable. This makes it a true telepresence machine for both home and work. The PadBot T1 itself features treads to make moving smooth, an anti-collision to avoid damage to it and to others, an anti-fall system to stay in one piece, and a built-in charger to keep the connected smartphone topped up.

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Imaging Robots/Drones

The Moorebot robotic assistant leaves you wanting more

The applications for robots at home, work, and business make the idea of having robotic assistants compelling, but none thus far have been truly capable of combining a truly responsive interface with personality. The closest thus far may be Amazon’s Echo, but it doesn’t get across the illusion of emotion quite like most would like it to.

The team behind the Moorebot made sure that was its main priority, designing a small, charming robot with a single, blinking eye that learns quickly and can engage in light conversation with users. It was created to work in a variety of settings with customizable, upgradeable behavior. In a shop, it can serve as a greeter and customer service agent that can answer questions about inventory, a store layout, specials, and promotions. At work, it can send messages and remind users of important events, read notes and reports, keep track of the home from afar, record video emails, and even entertain in times of boredom. At home, it’s the consummate entertainer, singing, dancing and playing with kids.

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Connected Objects Music

DJs and recording artists can finally let loose thanks to the ETHER Transmitter

Ask any DJ, and the biggest hassle they’ll complain about is having to be tethered to their equipment when mixing, something that can’t necessarily be addressed since most Bluetooth adapters on the market aren’t capable f processing audio as quickly as needed. Being wired can lead to embarrassing situations where headphones can become disconnected, and trying to disconnect means wearing cumbersome packs to cut down latency.

ETHER Electronics thought it was time for something new. Its ETHER Transmitter can connect to any pro audio device and be paired with Bluetooth earbuds, headphones, or speakers for the lowest latency audio on the market. It brings down latency to acceptable levels ranging between 10.5ms to 40ms max, making the wireless DJing dream a reality with 15 meters of roaming territory.

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Categories
Input Virtual Reality

The PowerClaw brings back Nintendo cool, snaps at more immersive VR

While the leaps made with the virtual reality experiences provided by the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive are impressive, true virtual reality won’t be accomplished without the ability to feel what’s in these worlds. For this, a lot of work will need to be done, but luckily the first tentative steps are being taken now with the help of crowdfunding campaigns.

One of these campaigns is currently going on now and is called the PowerClaw, a device that promises to add a tactile experience to the currently flat VR out now. Strapping it on lets users feel everything from the heat to cold to textures such as roughness, topping it all off with vibrations fro that extra sense of touch. The PowerClaw does all this through actuators located on the fingertips that simulate exactly what the skin is feeling.

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Categories
Cell Phone Accessories

Do the Hustle again with the Phone Disco ball

The death of disco back in the late 70’s was a tragedy that many still have yet to get over. The days of bell-bottomed jeans and ABBA still ring clearly in many minds, which is probably why inventor Colby Homec decided to create the Phone Disco.

The Phone Disco is a very simple accessory: attach it to a smartphone, and it filters the powerful smartphone camera light through a small disco ball to create the iconic light show central to all the best Saturday Night Fever dance-offs of the day. 

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Categories
Connected Objects Furniture

The Gaze desk sets its sights beyond other standing desks

The unnatural requirement for most office-bound workers to sit for eight hours a day is not only an exercise in boredom but unhealthy to boot. Not being active enough throughout the day because reports need to be typed up and emails need to be replied to is harmful to one’s health in a myriad of ways, something that has prompted many inventors and small companies to remedy the situation.

From wearables to standing desk, every team has a solution. The GAZELAB team’s? Its Gaze Desk, a connected standing desk with a few tricks up its sleeve. For one, both of its sections — front and back — can be independently controlled so that the monitor and keyboard are at different heights, something that helps avoid awkward and sometimes painful positioning of the elbow and neck. This all happens automatically after inputting height and weight into the Gaze Desk’s companion app so that it calculates the optimal height for itself.

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