Tag: safety

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Connected Objects Safety

RoboRanger serves as your personal safety device

Portable safety devices can come in really handy when there is an emergency. But many of them require being tethered to another device or Bluetooth connection to a smartphone, which a lot of consumers –- especially senior citizens – don’t often have.

RoboRanger is a water-resistant personal safety device that features a loud, 130-decibel alarm, around-the-clock monitoring, and friends/family notification. It also has a standalone connection to 911 and provides 24/7 coverage virtually anywhere in the world, its makers say. Plus, it connects directly to GSM and GPS without a smartphone or other device. It requires one simple motion to activate during an emergency situation: users just have to pull its pin and that will activate the alarm and transmit the user’s exact location to a professional 911 response team.

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Categories
Music

Ear3 headphone amp opens your ears for safety

More people than ever seem to be tuning out the world around them, listening to music as they walk, run or bike in public while listening to loud music on their mobile devices. In doing so, they are risking serious harm and injury.

Ear3 is a headphone amp that’s designed to make listening to music in public while on the move much safer than it is now. The amp’s built-in microphone picks up sounds around the user and mixes it with music being listened to at the volume level users want, according to its Indiegogo campaign. Turning the microphone mode off, Ear3 becomes a high-fidelity amp that enhances the quality of the music source, adding stronger full bass, according to the campaign.

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Connected Objects Cycling

SmartHalo keeps your bike on track and your eyes on the road

There’s no shortage of bike computers and mounts to have your smartphone take on a wide range of tasks while affixed to a bike’s handlebars. But both can be a bit overwhelming, or at least distracting, when trying to glean information at a glance.

Consisting of a ring of LEDs surrounding a central light, SmartHalo takes on a more symbol-driven approach to a range of bike-related tasks. By lighting up the different parts of its circular display’s edge, it can cue the rider to turn left, right or make a u-turn while a center dot turns on for a call notification. As soon as one starts pedaling, its companion app starts tracking a range of metrics, including time, distance, average speed and calories burned.

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Uncategorized

Bikiros bike safety device watches over kids in three ways

Learning to ride a bike is often a childhood rite of passage. And once kids get it, they’re usually good to go. But sometimes little ones lack the best judgement — or the tallest height — to avoid accidents.

Inspired by an accident that left the inventor temporarily paralyzed, Bikiros (“bye-KEY-ros) is a two-part bicycle add-on that can help young cyclists in a number of ways similar to how various smart car products can report on driver safety.

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Connected Objects Cycling

LIVALL connected bike helmet blings out your ride

For far too long, bike helmets have been left in the closets and basements of homes all across the United States despite how effective they are stopping at preventing all types of injuries. The reason? Most would mention how bike helmets much besides make them look silly, a sorry excuse now that the LIVALL Bling Helmet is here.

The LIVALL Bling Helmet is a bicycle helmet that features Bluetooth connectivity alongside a two sets of LEDs and a three-axis gyroscope, all in an effort to improve communication and safety for cyclists everywhere. Bluetooth connectivity in conjunction with a built-in mic gives riders the option to to walkie-talkie other members of the group, take calls from others, or just ride along to music from the smartphones.

A dual set of LEDs, up top and on the back, ensure other members of the riding group, pedestrians, and motorists all have a good idea of where the cyclist is, while the three-axis gyroscope sets off an SOS alert and contacts help when the cyclist is thrown off due to an accident. All of these features are facilitated with the Bling Jet handlebar controller working in tandem with the LIVALL app on iOS or Android.

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Automotive Connected Objects

Caruma captures your drive, watches your car when parked

The rise of dash cams to record potential incidents drives home how important ti is to protect cars and the people who drive them. Most of the connected car products today do a good job of capturing statistics about mileage and short stops, but there’s a lot behind the numbers.

Caruma is a connected car add-on that uses cellular, GPS and camera technologies to capture a car’s status whether it’s being driven or parked.  It mounts to either the windshield or dashboard. Like dash cams, it can record the road ahead, but also what’s going on inside the car. More significantly for anyone who has ever returned to find their car scraped, dented or towed, it can alert the owner via smartphone any time the cameras or its sensors detect any funny business such as another car backing into it or a tow truck approaching. An Indiegogo special price of $299 (a $100 discount off the expected retail price) will net backers a Caruma in April 2016. Caruma hopes to raise $100,000 in its flexible funding Indiegogo campaign by July 15th.

Caruma is very similar to LyfeLens, which is still accepting preorders. It has the same disc-based shape, two HD cameras, 4G hotspot feature, and remote alerts that allow the owner to peek into the car or its surroundings while away. It also shares the problem of staying charged and monitoring while the vehicle’s ignition for an extended time when the vehicle is turned off. One of Caruma’s nice additions is a panic button for emergencies. LyfeLens, however, is offering preorders at $199.

Categories
Smart Home

Presence home security system keeps the sensors, skips the fees

Everyone wants to keep their home safe. Not everyone wants to pay the sometimes steep monitoring fees associated with doing so. The result? Houses everywhere essentially are left unprotected.

The Presence home security system gives both renters and homeowners peace of mind without taking a piece of their wallet with it.  It uses the cameras and Wi-Fi connectivity of the spare smartphones and tablets most people already have, and puts them to use alongside a variety of sensors, like motion and temperature, to keep any household safe from intruders, flooding, and a variety of other problems.

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Categories
Home Safety

Saver could be a lifesaver if a fire starts in your home

editors-choiceMany consumers classify the smoke detector as a must-have product for their homes. But just because a smoke detector goes off and everybody hears it doesn’t necessarily mean that they will be able to get out of their homes before inhaling smoke, which is the cause of death in many home fires.

patent-claimedThe Saver Emergency Breath System is a small, personal device that enables users to breathe clean air in the event of a fire. The device can be activated in less than five seconds, according to its Indiegogo campaign. It was designed with a triple filter system that its maker says removes toxic gases for up to five minutes.

Each Saver costs $69. For another $30, consumers can opt for a version that includes a flashlight to help see through smoke and a built-in alarm for others to know where the person wearing it is. Each will ship in July. Saver’s maker is hoping to raise $50,000 by June 26.

It’s hard to tell from the campaign video exactly how simple it is to operate a Saver. It could be too hard for some people, especially young kids, to operate it, especially when they are frightened as a fire is raging near them. In that case, the airline rule of having adults put on their own device before equipping others would likely prevail. But certainly such a device will come in handy for many consumers and could indeed be a lifesaver for at least some of those people if it indeed works as effectively as its maker claims.

 

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Home

The Nanda Pivoting Gutter System rains gutter gunk down upon you with nature’s mushy fury

Cleaning out gutters is one of the most tedious tasks that homeowners face. Not only is it disgusting seeing what gets scooped up, but it can also be quite dangerous.

In order to combat safety hazards, the Nanda Pivoting Gutter System offers a clever solution. Instead of forcing homeowners to climb up to the gutters, Nanda works with hinges and a pole to bring the gunk down with gravity’s help. The gutters remain upright until they’re tugged on by the accompanying pole. When the pole, which can reach up to two stories, is used the gutters flip, pouring their contents down.

All in all, Nanda provides a clever solution to a common problem, which is all a backer can really ask for. It’s great for older people who don’t want to climb up ladders to clean out their gutters. The campaign provides a helpful photo story of an old man getting hurt on his quest up a ladder, which is actually a little bit more comical than educational. The only question left is: Will the pole be long enough to avoid a gutter contents shower?

For their own, backers can donate $3,000 which will get them the system for a house 2,500 sq ft or under in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virgina only. Estimated delivery is currently set for December 2016 and Nanda is looking to raise $50,000 on Kickstarter.

Categories
Automotive Connected Objects Imaging Sensors/IoT

LyfeLens dash cam keeps watch over your car, steers incident video to phones

Dash cams are slowly becoming more popular in the U.S. as a way to record evidence of what may have happened should there be a collision involving the front of the car while driving. But automobiles are vulnerable from all their sides even when they’re parked.

LyfeLens strives to create greater accountability to those who would harm your vehicle. The aerodynamic car sentinel can record  video using its windshield-facing or interior-facing camera, track the car’s location via GPS, and alert a smartphone when it detects a break-in. It can record video on a microSD card or send it up to the cloud and on to a smartphone. During less urgent times, it can take advantage of its 4G cellular connection to create a mobile hotspot in the car. LyfeLens costs $199 and is expected to ship in fall 2015.

Anyone who has ever experienced a hit-and-run would appreciate the value of having LylfeLens on the job. Clearly, though, the biggest technical challenge is keeping it powered while it passively monitors its surroundings, records video and  serves up Internet access. The company claims the product has a high-capacity internal battery that can power a few days of active and standby use, but is looking into methods such as wired installation and solar.