Constant laptop and computer use force people to hunch in unpleasant ways while they’re working. A more upright posture is necessary for avoiding that dreaded hunchback look during old age. Pillar is a laptop holder that keeps your laptop up while also maintaining your straight spine. It is extremely lightweight and folds up for optimum portability, but you’ll have to tote along a second keyboard to maintain good ergonomics. Ventilation measures are taken with this stand and a pleasing angle is used to make laptop work even more comfortable. This Icelandic product costs backers $18 at an early price or $20 regularly. Pillar hopes to raise $22,000 in a 30-day Kickstarter campaign.
Tag: stand
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nflight entertainment often leaves much to be desired. Those with smartphones will often opt out of watching Spiderman 3 for the eighth time in the air and instead watch something on their own device, but holding a phone during a long flight isn’t comfortable. Standmio is a cardboard stand designed to hold your smartphone up. It folds into tray tables, car seat headrests or acts as a simple stand anywhere. Standmio comes with several different odd design options like a picture of a woman or crabs on a beach. This product costs backers only $3, making it a no-brainer. This phone stand hopes to raise $3,750 on Indiegogo.
Increasingly there has been a push for office employees to work standing up instead of sitting down. This is supposed to increase health as well as productivity and we’ve already seen a number of products aimed at this goal, like the Stand Desk and ChairBot. Similarly, the StorkStand is a mobile desk that easily attaches to the back of any office chair. It provides a sturdy surface to work from that can hold up to 50 pounds. The wooden stand features a mobile phone holder and also folds up, making it extremely portable. One StorkStand costs early backers $129 or $149 at a regular price of $179 with estimated delivery in October 2014. This mobile desk hopes to raise $50,000 in a 35-day Kickstarter campaign.
We’re constantly attached to our iPhones and use them as cameras, recipe books, GPS’s and a million other things. The Fritzframe makes the iPhone even more versatile acting as a case, stand, video stabilizer and more. The case folds out so that it holds up the phone on any surface or hangs from a hook. Much like the Casio TRYX Digital Camera of yore, the Fritzframe makes it easy to take photos or videos from any angle. The lightweight aluminum Fritzframe only works with the iPhone 5 and costs backers $71 with an estimated delivery date of June 2014. This product has a modest $1,000 goal in its 45-day Indiegogo campaign.
Tablet stands by their nature don’t have to be special, but in order to crowdfund one, there has to be something attractive about it. The F2 is an iPad or general tablet stand that is made to be super-light and handcrafted so that no two are necessarily alike. The trade-off is that while the viewing angle is adjustable through the stand leg, the stand itself is rather large and is more suited for a desktop than a carrying case. It doesn’t have do any flashy folding like the Plinth, and won’t elevate a phone like MUST, but its sturdy metal design and human anomalies hope to set it apart. The basic F2 will arrive in September for a $69 minimum pledge.
From eBay to Etsy, people are making money by selling small or unique items,. But when sellers have a whole catalog to choose from, taking quality, consistent photos can be challenging. Similar in concept to the Foldio, the Lightcase is a fold-out housing that can be used to take quality, well-lit pictures from above or in front, and then can be folded down into something size of a sheet of paper. Using frosted polypropylene, the Light Case takes natural light and diffuses it evenly, resulting in a sharp, clear photo. The hole at the top of the Lightcase is lined up with a smartphone camera so the phone can lay flat and take the picture with stability. Online sellers and everyone else can get a Lightcase in June 2014 for $36.
Using a mobile device gets difficult when we need two hands to do all the cool things a phone can do. SmartBandStand combines the handsfree nature of a wrist mount with the ease of a regular mount. This spider-like product clips onto your phone and either hangs out on your wrist or sits on a surface. The screen can be tilted up to make viewing easier. The SmartBandStand goes for $30 on Indiegogo, but oddly doesn’t get backers a stand itself, just a coupon for one by September 2014. This clawing mount/wrist accessory will need a staggering and apparently random $209,000 to compete with the other tons of phone mounts and wrist attachments out on the market.
More and more accessories for tablets seem to come out everyday, each one fancier than the last. LapTape is a strap that holds a tablet when the user is sitting down with their knees up. The strap loops around the front of the knees and then holds the tablet’s bottom corners. While a different approach from many products that are designed to prop up a tablet on a flat surface, LapTape is so basic that asking early-birds for £13 and regular backers for £15 seems like a lot of money. In any case, those looking to give their iPads a suspended sentence can help the product’s creator raise £10,000 in his 30-day Kickstarter campaign with an estimated delivery date of July 2014.
For those who have decided that a tablet is much easier to tote around than their laptop, Léaf Mount makes a gadget stand that allows your device to function like a PC monitor. It’s primarily compatible with iPad (the mini, at least), Android phones, iPhones and smartphones with a flat back. The mount is made of aerospace-grade aluminum with micro suction pads at the base to keep the mount stable. It’s also collapsible and comes with its own case for easy transport. While there are a plethora of tablet stands available, Léaf Mount might have the classiest ring to it. Léaf also had a campaign last year that was a success. For at least $45, backers get a complete Léaf Mount product with an estimated delivery of July 2014.
The Premise. These days everybody’s making the switch to tablets. The simple touch screen controls and mobile computing make any quarterly presentation, Skype call, or homework assignment a snap if the commercials are to be believed. But what they don’t show is each user endlessly fumbling, adjusting, and hunching over their tablet just to be able to type and see what they’re doing at the same time.
The Product. The Plinth looks to take all the guesswork out of buying a stand for a tablet. This pocket-sized stand (roughly the size of an iPhone) unfolds with a push of a button and is ready for immediate use. With rubber-padded feet, the Plinth seats the iPad, Nexus, Kindle Fire, or Galaxy tablets firmly in place at one of three adjustable viewing angles. The simple design boasts compatibility with any protective case on the market and even small-to-medium sized hard cover books. When the job is done, the Plinth folds up in a matter of seconds and fits right back in the pocket.
The Pitch. UK Inventor John Bull has a lot of tablets, and he shows off just how quickly setting up a Plinth is with any one of them. It’s hard not to be impressed as each tablet he has on his desk fits firmly in any of the Plinth’s 3 viewing angles. £21,000 (~$35,261) is what Bull needs to cover injection moulding, patents, marketing, and design.
The Perks. For £15 (just more than $25 American), backers can put a Plinth in their pocket in May 2014 without worrying about international shipping. Personalization comes at a roughly $15 jump in cost, whether it’s a name, personal message, or late Valentine’s gift.
The Potential. Universal stands on their own already litter the market by the thousands, but the Plinth’s compact size and clever opening mechanism make for a winning combination. Plinth already has interest from a distributor in the UK and companies that sell through Amazon, but any electronics store would be wise to keep plenty in stock, and the price tag is reasonable enough to make it a companion purchase with any tablet on the market.