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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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Fitness Health and Wellness

MOBO is ready to roll with muscle relief wherever you are

As an athlete, it’s important to take care of your muscles and joints. Not everyone can afford professional massages, so other methods must be used. However, rubbing your back against a door jamb just for some relief isn’t ideal. The MOBO System is the self-proclaimed Swiss Army Knife of massage. This product transforms into many different shapes, textures and densities to deliver a custom massage to any part of your body, from your neck to your feet. It’s easily transportable and has lots of possibilities for assembly. One will cost sore backers $109 on Kickstarter, or $99 if they’re early enough with higher tiers offering more elaborate versions of MOBO. MOBO hopes to raise $50,000.

This product’s flexibility in use is pretty cool. The campaign does a good job of showing all the different ways it can be morphed and how many parts of the body benefit. However, assembly does look a little finicky to break down and rebuild. Also, MOBO should warn users that it can’t cure serious injury. Nevertheless, for the typical mostly-healthy athlete, MOBO is a great accessory to have on the field.

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Connected Objects Fitness

Yoga SmartMat provides guidance to make you a perfect poser

Yoga is all about balance. Unfortunately, our bodies are alarmingly lopsided. A pose that we can do perfectly on one side of our bodies is surprisingly difficult on the other side. Yoga teachers are constantly adjusting their students to maintain balance in their poses. The SmartMat does the exact same thing. By connecting with your tablet or smartphone via Bluetooth, the SmartMat collects data about your posture, balance and alignment to assist you with becoming a yogi master. It first adjusts your alignment, telling you, for example, to move your right foot forward. Then, it tells you to shift your weight so there is equal pressure on both sides of the body, a very important aspect of yoga. The app lets you monitor your progress over time and even gives you new yoga moves to try out. Powered by battery, this mat boasts up to six hours of life. For a mat and the Android/iOS compatible app, backers will have to shell out $347, $100 less than the retail price, for estimated delivery in September 2015. SmartMat is hoping to raise $110,000 during its campaign on Indiegogo.

By all accounts, SmartMat looks like a super cool way to get your yoga on. Most fitness monitoring devices focus on higher impact sports, like the runScribe. SmartMat, while expensive, provides a ton of useful information since the entire mat is collecting data from the entire body, pretty cool. Looking like a traditional yoga mat and made out of most of the same materials, it’s a little concerning how long this mat will last. Some mats wear out over time, but with such an expensive investment, it’ll be important for SmartMat to prove its functional longevity. Also, it’s only water and sweat resistant and not proof. Big sweaters and hot yoga practitioners will have to protect the SmartMat with an extra towel. Still, this super cool product is a great tool for yoga enthusiasts looking to perfect their practice.

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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

Evrst and Aspyn clear the air of bad stuff to breathe

Scrubbing, mopping and dusting your house can only do so much. There’s lots of bacteria that live in the air that are nearly impossible to eradicate. In addition, tons of gunk can build up in your HVAC systems which then turns them into spreaders of ickiness instead convenient home fixtures.

Introducing two products that work for you to clean your house: Evrst and Aspyn. Evrst is a standalone product that sits visibly in your house to kill germs. It plugs in and cleans up to 1,500 sq ft of space. Evrst uses a two-stage filtration system: the first to squash odors and the second to catch teeny tiny particles. To operate, use the touchscreen where you can power it on or off, change the fan speed, set a timer or choose auto mode. The filters are good for three to six years. Aspyn is the same type of product, but gets placed directly in your HVAC system, cleaning your house from the inside out. One Evrst will cost backers $449 while the Aspyn goes for $650. These products have a huge, ridiculous campaign goal of $370,000 on Kickstarter.

Despite these products’ distaste for traditional vowels, they do like a clean house, which is important. While the campaign explains how they work, it’s difficult to prove that they actually do work without some proof. These aren’t the only air purifiers of their kind. Others target more specific irritants like allergens, smoke and mold. However, most of these are quite expensive, reaching into thousands of dollars like the Amaircare Whole House Air Purifier. For what they claim to do, Aspyn and Evrst are a good price, but their huge campaign goal may hold them back.

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Apparel Organization

Runband lets you take your essentials as you exercise

Lots of pockets are essential for storing all the important little things in life. Runband lets active and busy people have what they need right at their fingertips: pens and pencils, pocket knife, small flashlight, even a small water bottle that can be stowed right on the user’s arm! Black netting with elasticity helps keep essentials secure during even the most extreme activities – whether that’s a party where a blended dance genre of hip-hop- break dancing is the hot activity or extreme sporting activities. The product seems to offer a great deal of convenience whether in an urban, suburban or rural setting, and nothing particularly bulky or larger than what fits in a 5.5” pouch is going to be necessary for one’s outing. The pouches are made of cotton, so while they will offer some breathability, they will also retain sweat longer than a polyester-spandex blend. For $40, backers get one product with an expected delivery of March 2015.

 

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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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Health and Wellness Sensors/IoT

Darma smart seat cushion reminds you to take a stand

Back pain, poor posture and lots of lazing around are realities for many folks. Each one of these problems feeds into the other, so it’s hard to break the cycle of discomfort. Darma is a smart seat cushion that doubles as your posture coach. It monitors your sitting habits, posture, breath, and heart rate to give you helpful tips. If you’re slouching, Darma tells you to sit up straight through a smartphone alert. When your heart rate is high indicating stress, it suggests taking a walk to calm down. Similarly, if you’ve been sitting too long, Darma advises taking standing breaks.

Best of all, by collecting data about you specifically, it can give you customized stretches that will alleviate the pain present in different parts of your body. Designed with sleek black leather, it’s unobtrusive and will blend in well with your office chair. One will cost backers a $189 donation on Kickstarter.

Darma is an interesting new take on the type smartphone-powered health assistance we’ve seen a lot of recently. Most of these devices are wearables in the form of clip-ons or bracelets. While we’ve seen previous products aimed at improving posture, Darma blends into its surroundings. The constant alerts may prove to be annoying at first, like a nagging mother telling you to sit up straight. However, the long term health benefits will likely be worth the hassle. All in all, Darma is a great solution for the sedentary and actually one of the least obtrusive solutions to too much sitting.

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Chargers/Batteries Imaging

Jolt wirelessly charges your GoPro camera

There’s nothing like being able to share an adventure with friends and family. And when the excursions are considered to be extreme in nature, sometimes they prefer to live vicariously through the one taking the adventure through video.

Jolt offers a way to make sure that each visual story told through GoPro is always captured with a fully charged and ready to go camera. The Jolt system is made up of two parts: Jolt transmitter pad and jolt battery. The pad gets plugged into a standard outlet. Then replace the GoPro battery with a Jolt battery, place on the pad, and GoPro wirelessly charges. The pad is big enough to support charging two cameras or a camera and battery.

Though Jolt is only compatible with GoPro® Hero3 or Hero3+ or Hero4, this seems like a product that will be appreciated by GoPro users. For $89, backers get one Jolt pad and two Jolt batteries with an expected delivery of March 2015.