Tag: CO2

Categories
Food and Beverage

The Sippy portable espresso maker offers a caffeine fix anywhere

The experience of enjoying a rich, creamy espresso is one usually regulated to the home or to the swanky cafe down the street, to the chagrin of anyone on the go. While powdered coffee solutions exist, they’re really no substitute for the real thing.

Fikra Design’s Sippy espresso maker was designed precisely for this reason. A lightweight, machine grade aluminium tube houses all the machinery necessary to make espressos anywhere, no battery necessary. By combining a CO2 cartridge with an espresso cartridge from Nespresso or Duck Coffee along with some hot water, a 25-35ml espresso can be made within a minute or two.

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Categories
Sensors/IoT

Plant OS garden sensor and app gives your green thumb something else to do

Even if the exact scientific knowledge behind the processes behind gardening were unknown for thousands of years, deep human intuition would’ve figured it out anyway. As our understanding of the natural world continues to evolve, it’s been made clear how much the process is not only an art, but a science as well.

There’s a very intricate dance that plays out between light, temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide that contributes to a plant’s growth. High Tech’s Plant OS uses a family of sensors and controllers to keep an eye on all of these factors. Every minute, the THC unit records levels of each variable and sends that information back to a user’s smartphone. This works together with the Plant Tachometer camera to provide a high-resolution photosynthesis reading to use as reference for the environment.

What good is all this information if a user can’t act on it? The Plant OS Power Controller allows just that, providing a space where appliances like air conditioners, CO2 machines, and dehumidifiers can all be plugged in and controlled remotely using the companion app. The app gives users a space to check out and share all their data, something High Tech encourages as a way to gain more understanding of the intricacies of plant growth. An $899 Plant OS Starter Kit is suitable for a small garden, comes with a THC meter, a Plant Tachometer, and a Power Controller. The Deluxe version supports two and goes for $1,999. Backers can expect their kit in March 2015 should the campaign reach its $50,000 goal.

Technology has creeped into every part of our lives, and gardening is one of the few areas where this isn’t true. Others in the gardening space, like the Blossom Wi-Fi, Sprinkl, and Eve provide ways to remotely water a few plants or even a small yard, but no other product is as fully featured, covers as much space, or is as exhaustingly detailed as the Plant OS. High Tech wants the Plant OS to be the premier consumer-grade gardening system and it shows.

Categories
Connected Objects Health and Wellness Sensors/IoT

uHoo monitors your air, doesn’t taste like chocolatey chemicals

Every single second of our lives, we breathe. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale: it is this unconscious rhythm that keeps us going, but seldom do we stop to think about the quality of the air around us. We can only do so much about the air outside, but there’s no excuse to being ill-informed about the air in our own homes. The company behind the uHoo is looking to make it easy to know what’s lingering in our own bedrooms, kitchens, and bathrooms so we can take the actions necessary to protect our health.

Bad quality air can be the cause of all kinds of immediate respiratory issues like allergies, and chemicals and other pollutants can affect our health in the long term. That’s why the uHoo has five sensors that measure particulate matter, airborne chemicals, temperature, humidity, and CO2. It communicates this information to you through a companion app compatible with iOS using Wi-Fi, with an Android and Web-based app coming later. The sparse app gives you an overview of your home’s air quality and gives you details about specific sections of your home, sending alerts whenever it senses something out of the ordinary. Stay on top of your air with $129, and expect a uHoo in June of 2015. The campaign is looking for $30,000 to get uHoo out to backers.

uHoo is continuing the trend of arming users with lots and lots of information about the air, like the similar Table Air. But even if the information it provides is valuable, it isn’t doing enough. A device like this should serve not only as a data recorder but intelligently connect to and control other devices in a home to actively provide that cleaner, healthier environment while you go about your business. It was minimally designed to blend in with your home, but maybe it blends in a little too well.

Categories
Cycling

Cyclists will never be stranded on the road with a flat as long as they have a CrankPump

crankpumpWhether it’s a seasoned rider that’s prepared for the worst at all times or a casual cyclist who just likes to ride now and then, nothing sours the experience worse than a flat. CrankPump is a simple tire inflating system that is aerodynamic and easily accessed because it replaces a plastic axle cap found on Shimano brand cranks. Unscrewing that cap and replacing it with a CrankPump gives riders access to a CO2 pump that will get the ride going in just a couple short minutes. This is a great idea for bike-lovers, but because it’s limited to Shimano cranks only, anyone that prefers other models won’t be able to enjoy this product. CrankPump hits the road in February 2015 for £15.