The rise of the smartphone has been accompanied by the many useful — and not so useful — accessories. Whatever their value, people still scoop them all up, prompting half-hearted inventors and passionate pursuers of innovation to create new add-ons in the chase for profits.
An accessory that lands itself firmly in the former category is the Glowme, a silicon smartphone case outfitted with an RGB LED strip housing 20 individual lights. Using the Glowme app, these lights can be customized to light up in whatever way a user wants, from an incoming call, an upcoming turn while driving, or even the music being played. It can also be used as an RGB flashlight or a multi-LED flash for photos, all while using “minimal” battery life.
$30 gets anyone still reading this a Glowme of their very own for their Android phone. Good luck trying to figure what kind of Android phone, though, as the campaign is mysteriously cryptic about that. Glowme should ship in December 2016 should its $100,000 Indiegogo campaign be successful by July 2017.
There’s really nothing particularly imaginative or interesting about Glowme, the type of product you’d find in the tourist stalls of major South Asian cities versus being peddled online in a crowdfunding campaign. Then again, Indiegogo is a hit-or-miss kind of platform where these sorts of products are given a pass.