Category: Connected Objects

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Connected Objects Wearables

Magnet provides a touch of reassurance to remote lovers

While we can’t be with our loved ones all the time, we can still say hi to them through e-mail, text or phone calls. We can see them with the help of Skype, Google Hangout or FaceTime. However, we can’t touch them when separated. Magnet offers the next best thing. Worn as either a wristband or necklace, Magnet lets you communicate with your partner through touch. Each person wears their Magnet and connects to the accompanying app. Using Bluetooth LE technology, you can touch your Magnet in a certain pattern, say three short taps. That same pattern is then transmitted to its partner, lighting up and vibrating in the same sequence.

With Magnet, you can send little coded messages to whomever you’d like and it’s just like you’re touching them. This product comes in four different colors with the choice of different kinds of necklaces or wristbands to go with it. While Magnet seems like one of those sentimental items that some of us may scoff at, it’s actually a very sweet idea, capturing the beauty of an intimate relationship from far away. For $138, any couple can get a pair of Magnets for estimated delivery in July 2015, provided the creators reach their $60,000 goal on Kickstarter.

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Connected Objects Displays

Ovoid HomePod projects entertainment onto wall

Entertainment and technology are evolving hand in hand, and yet the common experience tends to continue to revolve around a stationary rectangle (or curved rectangle), placed or mounted within the home in various rooms.

The HomePod by KEECKER is the newest way to enjoy multimedia entertainment. KEECKER is a projector that can broadcast any music, TV, game, or Internet content using full-room audio and project visuals onto any surface, indoor or outdoor. Additionally, KEECKER is remote controlled through its smartphone app and can drive to meet users wherever they might be. With Wi-Fi, a terabyte of storage, an Android OS, a panoramic camera, and 90 degrees of movement on its projector, KEECKER is flexible enough to handle any media task.

Additionally, KEECKER can be used to monitor multiple aspects of the home, driving around as a mobile security camera, and using sensors to track motion, noise, temperature, humidity, air quaility, and light. All of these combine to make KEECKER useful in ways beyond entertainment, though it still excels at that. KEECKER needs $100,000 for production and testing costs. The unit costs backers $2,490 and will be available in May 2015.

Consumers may have a hard time grasping exactly what a HomePod entails, but know that KEECKER is essentially somewhere between R2-D2 and DJ Roomba. The wealth of features and possibilities for this device are exciting, but the sticker shock of the price can be a wet blanket for that hype. It’s a very well thought-out device and one that’s capable of replacing several home electronics along with entertaining the dog, but dedicated A/V snobs may find the fidelity lacking.

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Connected Objects Television

Puck plucks all your remote controls, controls your TV setup with your smartphone

Remote controls should be considered litter with the way so many of them end up all over our living rooms. Constantly evolving home entertainment setups force us to have three to five different ones, confusing us every time we just want to turn on the TV or pop in a Blu-Ray. Since when did merely entertaining ourselves become so confusing?

That’s the question the people behind the PUCK have asked, and their solution comes in the form of a tiny attachment that acts a bridge between any component of an entertainment system and a smartphone or tablet. Once attached, its companion app will allow you to control every aspect of your entertainment system from up to 100 feet away and through walls, thanks to Bluetooth LE. Create shortcuts and make turning on your TV, lowering the volume, and starting up your Blu-Ray player a one tap process. Puck also makes channel listings searchable, and learns which ones are your favorite for easier access and with a three year battery life, there’ll be a lot to learn. The campaign is currently going for $50,000. It should attract a fair amount of attention with its lean $25 price.

Similar products now on the market have been introduced without much fanfare, probably because of the inflated price point for what essentially is simple tech. Logitech’s $99 Harmony Hub does everything a Puck can do with the addition of Wi-Fi functionality too, but does so without Harmony Smart Remote Compatibility. Another one on the market is the Griffin Beacon which rings up at a paltry $10, but the price reflects its quality: it runs on batteries, constantly needs to be coupled with your smartphone, and the software has been reviewed to be a joke. If Puck’s software can be consistent and smooth, it’ll be able to undercut competition without much issue.

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Connected Objects Cooking

MAID smart oven trades in a cookbook for digital display and an app

Burnt brownies? Melted macaroni? Catastrophic couscous? Fear not, intrepid culinary explorer, as the MAID Oven is here to guide you towards gastronomic glory. Let the smart oven be your personal kitchen assistant with its touchscreen display and ability to recognize both gestures and voice to tell you exactly what ingredients to use and how to prepare a dish from a database of crowdsourced recipes.

Don your apron with pride when you expand your talents by discovering little-known recipes from around the world, and share yours with the world when you feel experimental. Don’t get lazy though, and make sure that apron continues to fit with the dietary and exercise suggestions provided by the companion iOS/Android app which interfaces with your smartphone to track your activity during the day and suggests appropriate foods. These recommendations are tailored to your culinary habits and caloric needs over time, factoring in the adjustments you personally make to recipes as well to make them all your own. Throughout all of this, you still retain control over every part of the process , but when the MAID Oven can automatically set time and temperature during cooking, why would you care? The MAID Oven can be had for a donation of $449 for delivery in November 2015. The campaign is seeking to raise $50,000.

Having been in production for about two and half years now, the time and effort put into this product shines through. It’s incredibly robust and fully featured, offering a full oven that can make sizable amounts of food. Here’s hoping the build quality is something that will last. The box is mighty big, too, and finding space for it in smaller places might pose a challenge. To be honest, the only thing the MAID Oven is missing a 3D printer capable of creating the food itself, but we’ll wait around to see where subsequent versions lead before getting ahead of ourselves.

 

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Connected Objects Imaging

Fireside seeks to rekindle interest in the digital photo frame

With smartphones, tablets, and all of our other devices containing cameras both portable and capable enough to take quality photos and video anywhere we’d like, we’ve amassed a glut of media that we may enjoy having, but unfortunately don’t get to enjoy. As much as we’d like to go down memory lane more often than we do, finding, organizing, and displaying all of our media is a time-consuming process. Digital picture frames do exist, but they’re usually of shoddy construction and the user still has to upload everything manually.

Fireside combines smarts and beauty in order to organize, curate, and display all of your photos from disparate devices all on one slickly-designed, HD frame. The product does this by backing up photos and videos taken normally on any iOS or Android device connected with the Fireside app. Once cloud-side, they are made searchable with auto-tagging and filtering based on criteria like time, date, and age. After, algorithms and personal input are applied to show users contextually relevant content, like the birthday of a friend or family member.

Celebrating a holiday? Fireside will display previous holiday festivities.) Similar to Pandora, users can create stations based on keywords to add an element of pleasant unpredictability, giving all your content the chance to be enjoyed. Constructed from materials like chrome and glass, its minimal design can be mounted on a wall and multiples can be kept at other people’s homes to easily keep them up-to-date with users and their families. A black or white Fireside is going for $399 and includes one year of cloud service. It has an expected delivery date of June 2015 provided it hits its funding goal of $100,000.

The Fireside really backs other digital photo frames on the market into a corner. If the intelligent cloud service that supports the product doesn’t turn out to be a bust, then the Fireside will have a leg up against other frames like the Flink, Famatic, and most notably the Nixplay. Although the Nixplay can interface with every social network and also receive emails of photos from friends and family, its still manual at its core. Ultimately, the Fireside’s automation claims along with its sleek design will be impossible to ignore.

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Connected Objects Music

Bullet-like Archt One wireless speaker system spreads sound around consistently

When it comes to home audio, gone are the days of complex stereo equipment, speakers mounted and positioned just so all over the room, and the treaded jungle known as “the A/V closet.” Now, people want a simple, aesthetic, solitary device to handle it all.

The ARCHT One offers just that. Despite looking more like a coffee brewer or a lava lamp, the ARCHT One delivers room-filling stereo sound despite being a single device. With compact, omnidirectional surround sound speakers, a proprietary digital signal processor and digital analog converter, and intuitive one-touch controls, the ARCHT One just needs to go where it looks best, and the speakers take care of the rest. With support for Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, AirPlay, USB, and auxiliary cables, the ARCHT One is perfect for any situation. ARCHT Audio’s fundraising goal is set at $70,000 to handle production and shipping, and those who want one can get an ARCHT One for $349, delivered in February 2015.

With a sense of style all its own and enough power to handle all but the most demanding home audio needs, the ARCHT One is great for entertaining guests, removing cluttering audio devices and speakers, or just enjoying sound from anywhere in the house.

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Connected Objects Food and Beverage

B4RM4N connected cocktail market uses its smarts to make others stupid

Although a bartender’s tricks and talents can seem pretty easy to us inebriated folk, the truth is that it takes quite a long time to perfect the skills necessary to mix drinks that won’t make us grimace while we sip them. Worse yet, when most of us try our hand at making a drink or two for family or friends, the end result is a drink that doesn’t look great and the realization that we really don’t know what we’re doing at all.

To become presentable to the public again, you could buy a bunch of books or plunk down the cash for a mixology course, or you could grab a B4RM4N and let it do all the work. The device is a modern mixologist in a three-piece shaker, comprised of a stainless steel that encloses a Bluetooth LE antenna, an accelerometer, and LED lights all in a one, high-tech package. Pair it with your smartphone, select a recipe with the B4rm4m companion app, the number of servings, and it will lead you step by step in the process of creating the perfect pour. It even tells you how long to pour ingredients and shake them all together. With over 110 recipes and counting, there will never be a lack of ideas. You can even have the app suggest recipes to you based on what’s currently in your fridge, and if that egg vodka mint actually ends up tasting good, you can share it with the B4rm4m community so that anyone can make it. The B4rm4m is currently going for an early bird price of $99, jumping up to $199 upon release. Backers can expect theirs in July 2015 if the campaign achieves it funding goal of $100,000.

The similarly titled Barman is a campaign in the past that is very similar to the B4RM4N. Both have similar features, but the B4RM4N goes about things in a more compact way, while the Barman uses an external scale to help you create your drink. All in all, the B4RM4N is a svelte device that will look good in many scenarios and its social features make it not only useful but very fun, too.

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Connected Objects Food and Beverage

Connected Bruvelo brewer is a coffee snob’s best friend

Pour over coffee has become all the rage, probably because it’s easy to make at home without the coffee machine. The idea is to place the coffee grounds directly above the mug and pour hot water through the coffee to brew. Bruvelo is a smart, amped up pour over coffee machine. It filters the water, controls flow, adjusts temperature, and weighs and grinds the beans. Best of all, it connects via Wi-Fi to an accompanying app which holds information about different types of coffee you like. This way, you can balance flavor profiles and choose the best way to brew any particular kind of coffee. If you’re not that finicky with your coffee, skip the app because it’s optional. This is a truly all in one coffee machine that thinks no detail is too small in preparing your morning caffeine fix. Bruvelo’s ease of use and convenience will certainly make it a contender with other smart coffee makers. One will cost backers $350 for delivery in June 2015. Bruvelo is looking to raise $150,000 on Kickstarter.

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Connected Objects

Amiloom is a digital token to build a circle of friends’ friends

It’s true, we tend to focus more on screens than face-to-face interactions. Amiloom is a product that tries to get people to meet using a small round device that connects to an accompanying app. The idea is to create a group and each member must pass around the Amiloom while inviting new people into the group. In this way, friends can meet friends and maybe future wives, like the creator did. In the video, he speaks in rhymes and talks about how Amiloom could help you meet your future spouse too. Bit of a stretch maybe. While the idea behind this product is noble, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense that it connects to your phone. Yes, everyone uses phones so it’s a good way to reach people, but it’s also encouraging more phone use at the same time. It’s also unclear what the actual puck-like object that’s passed around is for. Still, if backers would like to build their social network face-to-face, they can pick up one for $29 for estimated delivery in May 2015. Amiloom hopes to meet a random $108,127 goal on Kickstarter.

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Connected Objects Music

Wayit combines an app and gadget to let you listen to others’ jams

We’re in an age where sharing pretty much anything is a possibility, giving rise to an entirely new class of devices taking advantage of the technology that allows us to do so. With that in mind, Wayit is letting users share not only music playlists like other services but also exactly what they’re listening to at the moment. The iOS/Android app itself works by syncing to whatever you’re listening to at the moment, making it available to others wanting to jump into the groove with you.

Their Indiegogo campaign is not about the app, though. What Wayit is looking to do is raise $250,000 to complete the production of a companion wearable device that allows users to benefit from proximity to other Wayit users. GPS and proximity sensors would allow friends or strangers to be alerted to other users in their presence, let them listen in to their music, and even have those tunes be influenced by the emotional status of the person listening, possibly facilitating some spontaneous friendships in the process.

The device’s retail price will be $45, but for now backers can grab one for $30. And while that low price may convince some to ignore needing to buy a separate device solely for this feature, it ultimately won’t fly as an extra device on top of everything else we carry has to really be something special and Wayit isn’t that device. Backers can expect their Wayit in April of 2015.