Smartphones always seem to run out of juice at the worst moments. And as we become increasingly dependent on them, it will continue to happen more and more frequently. TravelBuddy makes sure that when you’re caught with a dead battery and no cord, you’ll be just fine. This small battery plugs into the wall and into your iPhone, without a cord. It provides fast charging on the go. The best part is that it’s a keychain, so you’ll always have it on hand. Coming in five different colors, one TravelBuddy will cost backers $30 at an early price or $35 regularly. This product hopes to raise $10,100 on Kickstarter. Hopefully, TravelBuddy will be compatible with other types of smartphones in the future. Another drawback of the TravelBuddy is that you’d still need an outlet in order for it to work, unlike the similar Buckle Charger. Still, outlets usually aren’t too hard to find and if it charges the phone fast, then all the better.
Tag: smartphone
Google, Apple, Samsung, and other tech giants may not always agree on much, but if their product lines are any indication, they all seem to agree that the smartwatch is the next big thing that people won’t be able to live without.
Add Epic to that list of companies. This new startup has developed working prototypes of “watchphones” that can be worn on the wrist or on a necklace or lanyard. Unlike some smartwatches, the Epic Mini Pendant Phone and the Epic Signature Edition watchphone function completely independently of any other devices, with touch-screen displays, activity tracking, and a 74-hour battery with 6 hours of talk time. Team Epic has set a curious goal of $300 to begin production. Backers can pick up an Epic Signature Edition watchphone for $249 or the Mini Pendant Phone for $200 in February 2015.
The rise of smartphones was predicated on giving people PC functionality on a portable, powerful device. While wearable tech is a great step in the next direction, consumers may not be willing to scale back those functions in the name of being able to wear their devices. While it’s great that Epic watchphones are independent of other devices, people would still likely keep phones in their pockets for the heavier tasks.
At the top of many holiday wish lists this year will be VR headsets. However, many of the devices that are already household names are not ready to go to market just yet and almost all of them will be rather expensive. shareVR is an interesting new way to make VR possible with head-tracking functions by connecting a smartphone to a PC. With just a micro USB cable, a head mount, and the software that communicates with the PC, shareVR can give a consumer a functioning VR headset for less than $50.
The device works with any game using DirectX 9, 10, or 11, and head-tracking through an Inertial Measurement Unit. With only 30ms of latency, the time between the action on the main screen and what’s happening in the goggles is minimal for most kinds of applications. shareVR inventor Marcin Grygiel is raising £50,000 (~$78,250) to complete the software. For backers, the program will cost only £9 (~$14) and they can use their head mount of choice. shareVR offers an interesting DIY way of bringing VR home, and will be a great entry point for many customers. However, the specific compatibility requirements and technical limitations may be off-putting to purists.
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.
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.
With our noses inside our phones, we neglect to remember the existence of the wondrous, microscopic world that exists around us teeming with unfamiliar life.
Now Dotlens wants to create a bridge for us in the form of a 15x or 120x pebble-sized lens attachment for smartphone cameras. Its resolution of one micron gives any smartphone the ability to take laboratory quality photos of all manner of objects and specimen, from the rocks strewn outside your door to the house ant crawling on your kitchen floor. When you’re done, share them instantly using social media or attach the smartphone to a computer or projector for real-time collaboration or teaching.
Smartphone microscope attachments have been a thing for quite some time. Products like MicrobeScope and Skylight represent what most of these products are like, transforming smartphones into bulky, stationary microscopes. You even have the choice to create a DIY version for around $10 if you were so inclined, but what none of these have is the ability to be attached and removed simply from a smartphone, expanding the range of subjects because of the increased portability. The price is similarly light: $25 will get you the 120x version, a pledge that will go far towards their $12,o00 funding goal.
In a world where humans are expected to multitask, it only seems fair that there are gadgets available that allow for gadgets to multitask as well.
Vox makes multitasking more effective in our fast paced world. Oh, let tech lovers count the ways! Six ways, to be exact. These include a rechargeable LED desk lamp, USB and laptop charger, Bluetooth speakers, video recording camera, classical clock, smartphone, and tablet dock. At the touch of a button, answer the phone while using a charging laptop, enjoying Bluetooth, and driving the caller crazy. It’s the ultimate multitasking experience with each side of the pyramid having its own unique multitask enhancing purpose!
The fun is available to those who own iPhone 6/6+, as well as owners of Apple, HP, Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo, Samsung, Sony, LG, Asus, Acer, and Fujitsu laptops. Early bird backers who want the six-feature premium version product can get theirs for $95 with an expected delivery of December 2014.
Over the past decade, home monitoring and security systems have been reduced from elaborate systems requiring hundreds of dollars of start-up and maintenance costs to just a few in-home, Internet-connected cameras requiring less money to maintain. Problems still abound, though, namely in the form of monthly service fees to store and view a user’s own video, false alarms, and privacy.
CamPoint’s in-home monitoring system is looking to address those problems. The device connects via Wi-fi to up to three HD cameras, allowing a user to enjoy the features of a monitoring system without a monthly fee. What’s more, CamPoint uses an algorithm that constantly learns what’s important by sending alerts to a user’s smartphone for review. Once decided, CamPoint will never send another alarm about the event again. CamPoint also liberates users of the worry associated with streaming video to unknown places for review by unknown people with both local and cloud storage depending on the user’s location. Even then, it doesn’t eat up all your bandwidth with the capacity to schedule your day into the system. Potential backers can go all in with a pledge of $279, which nets them a CamPoint with three cameras. If the cameras are unnecessary, a CamPoint solo can be had for just $149. The company is looking for $50,000 for mass production and assembly.
The elephant in the room when speaking about home monitoring is certainly Dropcam and all of the privacy issues the company has spurred. Addressing privacy concerns with smart design is good business sense, and CamPoint has hit the nail on the head. Although users of the system will appreciate that, the included seven days of cloud storage and its three camera maximum might be problematic. CamPoint has potential, but the company will need to keep innovating: the features they present can easily be copied.
The Premise. Motorcycle helmets are necessary for the safety of riders all over the world, but most don’t add much to the experience itself. Of utmost importance is keeping a rider’s eyes on the road, but not much has been done to satisfactorily address this issue outside of rear view cameras. Still, some feature lightweights carbon fiber construction where others feature Bluetooth integration, but there isn’t one complete package that tries to change the act of riding a motorcycle itself.
The Product. Skully’s AR-1 is the company’s inaugural attempt at creating the future of motorcycle helmets. Sporting ultra-modern, slim stylings, the aerodynamic polycarbonate shell houses some serious technology built atop the Android platform. This allows for a transparent heads-up display, a wide-angle rearview camera, and both online/offline turn-by-turn GPS navigation, along with future application support thanks to an open SDK. The helmet also includes a variety of connectivity options, including Bluetooth and smartphone-enabled Internet connection, both allowing for over-the-air updates.
Even with so much technology, safety is Skully’s number one aim. The heads-up display has been created so that it’s always in focus, meaning a rider won’t have to take their eyes off the road. Most importantly, the entire product is DOT/ECE certified, meaning it passes the Department of Transportation design requirements for helmets.
The Pitch. Skully’s entire campaign is one of the better ones you’ll come across, featuring top-notch production in each one of the videos. The first goes over what the Skully offers while the second video impresses with endorsements from prominent professional motorcycle riders and Amazon CTO Werner Vogel, amongst others. The campaign leaves you with no doubt as the FAQ answers all of the doubts that you may still have by its end.
The Perks. The introductory price for the Skully AR-1 is $1,399. If that’s too much to swallow, interested backers can reserve one for $499 while paying $949 later. Whatever you do, you can expect the helmet in July 2015 the latest.
The Potential. Each of Skully AR-1’s features have been offered before in helmets, like Reevu’s use of a 180° rear-view camera or BiLT’s super connected offerings featuring smartphone connection and GPS navigation, so in and of themselves they aren’t revolutionary. What Skully succeeds in doing is packaging it all up effectively while still surprising. As with any boundary-pushing product with lots of hype behind it, only time will tell if every component will indeed will work as advertised, especially that HUD they’re touting as so safe.
The Premise. Sitting is as harmful to our health as smoking is. Or so they say. Either way, it’s difficult for office workers to get the exercise they need in order to stay healthy. Some have the chance to take a walk at lunchtime, but busier bees are chained to their desks all day.
The Product. Glyder is a fitness device that lives underneath your office desk. Resembling a digital scale, it has two pedals on either side where your feet go and comes in red, gray or black. The motion is similar to that of an elliptical machine. A large digital screen on top shows the calories you’ve burned, the strides you’ve taken and how close you are to your daily exercise goal. This data can be stored and set with an accompanying smartphone app. The app stores your workout history and also allows you to adjust the resistance of Glyder and compete with other Glyder users.
The Pitch. Glyder’s campaign video shows an office worker trying and failing to workout at the office. There’s also a funny part where the Glyder user makes less noise while exercising than her coworker sitting in a rocking chair. The rest of the campaign goes through Glyder’s various features along with helpful gifs of the pedal width being adjusted as well as the product in use. This under-the-table fitness device hopes to raise $75,000 on Kickstarter.
The Perks. Early gliders can enjoy the Glyder for $99 at a regular price of $139. The top tier of $10,000 offers backers a trip to China to tour Glyder’s factories. Estimated delivery is currently set for January 2015.
The Potential. As with any office workout tool, there’s always the risk of looking unprofessional as your legs mysteriously gyrate under your desk. We’ve seen several of these types of products at Backerjack like Tao and Cubii, both of which stress at-desk workouts. Like Cubii, Glyder emphasizes that elliptical motion, but does so in a sleeker manner at a fraction of the cost. While it’s unclear how beneficial a Glyder workout really is, the price and lure of activity at the office may be irresistible for antsy executives.