Tag: audio

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Tech Accessories

Btunes plays music; wirelessly plugs into headphones eliminating tangles for good

There are tons of products devoted to the untangling and organization of earbud and headphone wires. BTunes would rather focus on making headphones wireless, so tangling is no longer an issue.

BTunes is an attachment for your headphones. Fitting into headphones where the wire can be removed, it connects to your smartphone so that you can listen to hifi music, make calls and talk to Siri. In addition, it’ll fit into any auxiliary jack in a car to listen to music wirelessly. With NFC, connecting to NFC-enabled devices is simple. The product is black and looks a bit like a Bluetooth.

BTunes is an excellent way to stay wirelessly connected to your smartphone. It’s unclear if there’s any type of button to answer calls with, however. Still, for music, Skype, Siri and countless other options, Btunes is the way to go. One with a pair of headphones in your choice of color will cost backers $49 for estimated delivery in May 2015. BTunes is looking to raise $40,000 on Kickstarter.

Categories
Connected Objects Winter Sports

Shredz audio helmet kit lets you jam out on the mountain

Skiing and snowboarding are two activities that make winter bearable. There’s nothing like careening down a hill in a sea of white.

Now, you can listen to music or talk on the phone while on the mountain. Shredz is an audio kit for ski or snowboard helmets that affixes earbuds to the riders ears. It works with any helmet that comes with space for headphones already. Coming in either wireless Bluetooth or connected, Shredz is a great way to jam out or keep in touch with loved ones.

This Canadian product is great for habitual skiers and snowboarders. Some may argue that it may be dangerous to listen to music on the mountain, but for experienced riders, it’s probably okay. The only thing is that not everyone wears helmets, so it would be interesting to see if Shredz could develop a version that works well with toques or goggles. The Bluetooth enabled version of this Canadian product is going for $109 CAD (~$95 USD) for estimated delivery in March 2015. Shredz is hoping to raise $20,000 CAD (~$18,300 USD) on Kickstarter.

Categories
Health and Wellness Music

RealLoud heaphones protect your ear from cranked-up tunes

Our parents always warned us about listening to our music too loudly, but the rebels within all of us never listened, preferring to instead crank it up to the max to enjoy our music. Loud music that crackles in your ear and almost hurts is good after all, right? Well, as much as we might have enjoyed the albums of yesteryear, the increased use of earphones due to the MP3 revolution has clearly shown the auditory consequences of these practices. Unfortunately, the headphone industry has responded to this criticism with larger, louder, and bassier headphones that compound the problem.

The increasing number of both teens and adults with mild to severe hearing loss caught audio legend Stephen D. Ambrose’s attention and he, along with his company Asius Technologies, has created RealLoud Technology as a result. The product reduces harmful pressure experienced by wearing ordinary headphones using bio-mimicry, or the imitation of nature through technology, to include a built-in secondary eardrum to absorb them for you. As a result, louder, more complete sound is produced by eliminating the pressures associated with unnecessary noise, even if actual volume is technically quieter overall. This is the crux of the RealLoud Technology, and the key behind the entire series of 1964|Adel headphones.

Three lines of headphones incorporate the RealLoud Technology. The Ambient line is for casual audiophiles and features up to 12 drivers, the U-Series is an over-the-ear headphone with up to eight drivers, and the A-Series feature up to 12 drivers and are custom to your own ear impressions. With price points ranging from $100 to $1,600, there are options for everyone, all estimated to be delivered between February and May of 2015. The campaign has a funding goal of $200,000.

It’s about time solutions are created for the problems caused by the consumer market itself, and although the 1964|Adel headphones have a pretty high cost of entry, their development is a sign that the technology is being thought about. Soon, they’ll trickle down and hopefully become standard across the board. The cheek is too often turned in the name of profits, and although here profits are still had, at least it’s propped up by actual innovation.

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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.

Categories
Smart Home

Smoke Audio smoke alarm sends alerts around home with Bluetooth

It’s a given that everyone reading this has a combination carbon monoxide/smoke alarm in their home. Likewise, it’s also a given that most of the time it does nothing at all. Does its potentially life-saving capability give it a pass? That’s the question the team over at Smoke Audio asked themselves, and, as a result, have set out to give the humble smoke alarm a makeover.

Smoke Audio’s take on the nondescript alarm combines it with Bluetooth audio capabilities so that user can stream audio from smartphones, tablets, and PCs. The product can work with existing wiring or already installed alarms, allowing it to be easily placed in any home. To all those who think a music-playing carbon monoxide/smoke alarm jumps out as irresponsible, the team made sure that all music functionality is switched off the moment anything strange is detected, ensuring users will hear the alarm when they need to. All those interested in the product can grab one for $90, 30% off the retail price. Smoke Audio is looking for $50,000 by November 2014.

Smoke Audio’s basic premise is an intelligent, if simplistic, one. By just adding Bluetooth audio capabilities, something that is required in all our homes becomes that much more engaging. The fact that it’s also attracts as you’ll never have to change out the battery. Smoke Audio also bills their device as a low cost alternative to multi-room wireless systems. While installation is probably much easier than those systems, its cost might still prohibitive for many. With each unit flaunting a retail a price of about $130 each, even having to purchase two for a product that isn’t portable by nature will be a hard sell. Its one talent may end up being a one trick pony, too, something Smoke Audio is sure to address with future iterations. We’ll see if their campaign will need their own alarm come mid-November.

 

Categories
Connected Objects Music

mBox turns Bluetooth speakers into a Sonos competitor

With their ease of use and portability, Bluetooth speakers are all the rage these days. If you try to take the same utility into the home, you quickly find that isn’t the case. Before, wires all over your home tied your speakers down. Now, there are wireless multi-room systems that lock you into proprietary technology so that companies can squeeze as much money as they can out of you. The mBox is looking to liberate music lovers from this predicament by offering a Bluetooth music hub capable of receiving audio and sending it out to up to six separate Bluetooth speakers of any kind.

If you happen to have enough Bluetooth speakers in your house, the mBox mini turns any speakers into one, making sure you’re never without. The versatility this product provides by opening up the multi-room setup is unmatched. This is a killer provided it can produce audio worthy of listening to and for $195, it better. The project’s creator is looking for $40,000AUD by the end of his 30 day campaign.

Categories
Music

Sprout is a simple amplifier focused on audio quality

sproutEven though audio technology has taken leaps and bounds over the past half-century, it seems to move more towards convenience and away from the pure listening experience. Audiophiles are all too commonly putting on their boxy retro headphones and dropping the needle on a vinyl record to get the sound they want. Sprout is a simply designed, intuitive stereo amplifier that features all the necessary inputs in the back, but just two dials and a headphone jack in the front. Working with both home audio systems or simple headphones, Sprout is designed to bring back powerful audio fidelity into homes around the world. Sprout takes the stage in October 2014 for $499.

Categories
Music

Geek Wave offers portable high-quality audio without sacrificing storage

geekwaveThe iPod made portable music players accessible to the masses and really launched the mass market for portable computing products. Unfortunately, most of them focus more on storage than on sound quality. Like PonoMusic and the Astell&Kern AK100, the Geek Wave places a much larger emphasis on sound quality than most other commercial portable music players. With up to 2 TB of storage space and compatible with every file type from 32 bit MP3 to DSD 128, the Geek Wave can deliver music any way users want it, from millions of tracks to thousands of the best-sounding audio around. The Geek Wave 64 player is expected out in March 2015 and is available for $269.

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Video Games

Vibro Vest is a wearable subwoofer to enhance entertainment

vibrovestImmersion in media is something consumers want more of, from VR headsets to high-definition visuals. The Vibro Vest is a wearable subwoofer that can be worn while watching movies, playing video games, or listening to music to create a more immersive experience. Devices like this have been sold in the past, and Vibro Vest offers an almost identical experience aside from using eight different motors to power its vibrations.  In the video the creator of the Vibro Vest, Alex Varfolomeyev, explains in detail how wearing such a vest can make entertainment more exciting. The Vibro Vest will launch in August 2014 and can be purchased for $50 plus shipping.

Categories
Music

PonoMusic aims to set new audiophile listening standards with device, digital distribution

The Premise. Audiophiles and musicians alike have bemoaned the digital era for ripping all the humanity and natural sound away from listening to music. Despite a dedicated community who still swears by vinyl, the rest of the music-listening population has merely accepted these imperfections as something that comes with the territory.

The Product. Named for the Hawaiian word for “righteous,” PonoMusic makes it clear that it is not a new file format or audio standard, and yet what it does is revolutionizes the digital music store. Using FLAC as means to distribute sound  at a bitrate well above CD quality and without any compression, Pono wants to deliver users music the way it was meant to be heard. The player itself looks like an early MP3 player but has a unique, triangular shape and a LCD touch screen making control as easy as other personal music players.

The Pitch. With a lengthy campaign promo video, viewers are shown a parade of legendary music acts ranging from David Crosby and James Taylor to My Morning Jacket and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Each of these mega-stars talk about Pono as if it were the best thing that’s happened to home audio, a telling endorsement if nothing else. The rest of the campaign helps explain what makes Pono’s audio playback unique, and how it stands above other existing digital distribution models, making it more like the digital equivalent of a record album. Pono’s goal is to raise $800,000 to help establish the format for the consumer market.

The Perks. A first edition PonoPlayer can be had in yellow or black for a pledge of $300, with an expected release date of October 2014. For $100 extra, backers can get their hands on a limited-run chrome version with a laser-engraved signature from a variety of different artists supporting Pono.

The Potential. Even if the glowing praise from all of the high-profile rock stars in the video have more to do with how well Pono sounds versus trying to be respectful toward Neil Young’s vision, it is difficult to see Pono taking much momentum from smartphones and existing streaming services. Not only is the price high, but the campaign is built around the notion that hearing is believing; it will be some time before most folks can experience he triangular player versus lesser alternativs.