Month: June 2015

This week in Kickstarterland – 2015-06-28

~ blindman2k ~ Leave a comment

Welcome to another week in Kickstarterland. This week we find a Spock documentary teetering on the precipice of funding, a lot of musical and audio projects, a hybrid quadcopter and a collection of shocking projects that should never see the light of day.

For the love of Spock – A documentary by Leonard Nimoy’s son about Spock. So close to their goal its painful to watch.
MikMe – An expensive Bluetooth microphone with built-in storage.
Instamic – This one has no storage but is half the price and size and is water proof.
Myle Tap – A wearable version of Amazon Echo. Record your thoughts into text and voice recordings.
Sound module – Add audio record and playback to your project with this module plus a microSD card.
AximAir Wifi Speaker – Not sure how different this is from all the existing players in this market, except having a Pi in each speaker. But it is sexy enough.
Square2 – I really do like the product but it’s definitely not the first and they still haven’t delivered on their previous campaign.
Saygus V SQUARED – A high specced, hackable Android phone. The only features that makes a big difference are waterproofness and Wireless HD. I don’t understand how they are able to “transfer” $800k of presales to Indiegogo.
Luzi – I am still waiting for my last smart-lamp project to deliver. This one is a bit fantastical, has way too much Photoshopping – I suspect will disappoint many.
Simplypark – It’s a pretty simple idea. Put an iBeacon in your car and mark location when you move apart from your car. I suspect they haven’t thought everything through.
GinzVelo – A powered reclining bike isn’t new. Puting a fibreglass cover over the driver is something. But claiming it is drivable in the snow is just stupid.
Plug-n-IoT – A modular sensor hub with drag-n-drop web interface and (only) GSM output.
uCharger – Sort-of good idea to adapt any USB cable into an iPhone cable. Hard to tell as the campaign information is child-like.
Space Case 1 – Another modern suitcase loaded with useful tech. As always they are a bit heavy but that is unavoidable.
Voltus – USB-C battery and hub in one. Charging your laptop from a USB battery has always been a dream.
Yeair – A hybrid electric petrol quadcopter for larger payloads (5kg), faster speed (100kmh) and longer flying time (60 minutes).
Decko circuit face watch – Cute watch, cute video.
Fahrenheit 2451 – A clever retail use for a commercial/industrial process. I can’t think of much I would want to preserve for eternity.
Owow – A new breed of midi instruments without all the theoretical mumbo jumbo.
Coin – Metawear’s latest build with BLE, gyro, accelerometer and temp sensor. At $69 per device, nobody is going to put these into production.
Aumi – A modern interpretation of the night light. What isn’t BLE enabled nowadays? I suppose the next version will be voice controlled.
Vufine – I can’t see a real use for a small wearable screen except for viewing porn privately. Can you?
Lilo – Grow plants indoors all year. Reminds me of the old tomato growing stations.
Bartesian – Another go at the automated cocktail machine. This one uses Nespresso-style pods for the non-alcoholic ingredients.

Left Fielders

Software Craftsmanship Calendar – A 2016 calendar for software nerds.
Oscilloscope Clock – Some of the readers of this blog will remember analog scopes.
Keyboardio – It’s a nice keyboard but are there really 1000+ people that would pay $300+ for a nice keyboard? Apparently so.
Tatura Hotel – So very Australian. So hard to do it justice in a comment. Watch the video.

Shitstarters

Airing – I am waiting for this scam to be pulled from Indiegogo but it hasn’t happened yet. Taking poor desperate suckers money and promising something in two years, which I suspect they will never deliver. that is what I call a scam.
ARC Reef controller – This poor guy thinks the reason he didn’t get funded last time was the category he chose.
UltraPi – 17 clustered PIs in a briefcase. The guy didn’t even have the sense to turn his smartphone into landscape mode when recording his video.
Residential Accoustics – Why the hell are these guys on Kickstarter? Go buy space in a homemaker catalog.
PAO – They claim this is the funniest game controller but its really the funniest campaign video.
T.brush – Reinventing things that don’t need to be reinvented. I wouldn’t want to take on Braun but if I did I would want to offer more than a USB charging port.

And remember, its only limited by your frigging imagination.

This week in Kickstarterland – 2015-06-14

~ blindman2k ~ Leave a comment

Welcome to another week in Kickstarterland. This week is a really solid week of crowd funded projects. We have some really clever new products, a bunch of new maker tools and a weird collection of “world first” smart bottles. Don’t forget to check out the left-fielders and our very special shitstarter Batteriser.

Here Active Listening – Adjust the real world sounds to suit your needs. Real-time noise cancelling, live EQ, sound effects, filters, etc.
Nikola Phone Case – Recapture the energy from your phone to charge its batteries. The science isn’t great on this one but they won TechCrunch Disrupt recently so it must be real.
Holus – A tabletop holographic projector. This is the stuff of science fiction. Could it deliver? I am not paying them $500 to find out.
Avakai – A gorgeous BLE connected wooden toy loaded with sensors.
June Oven – An connected oven that uses 192 GPU cores to identify your food. A bit over the top but the start of something great.
Vigek IoT Platform – Another small IoT gateway with a camara interface.
Switcheroo – A really simple BLE relay.
Pozyx – Super accurate indoor positioning. I can’t think of a good use but someone will.
Speech Recognition Kit – This guy is no marketing genius and his kit is pretty clumsy, but it would definitely be fun to play with.
Codex – Speech recognition commands for controlling your PC and home automation systems. Basically Amazon Echo. Another marketing genius in the making.
SnapPal – What if you could start a sentence with words other than “What if”?
Tric – Nice idea but too many restrictions, especally 1/30s shutter speed.
Autosteady – My crap detector is going off a bit but this looks like it could be a good solution. At the price however, I wouldn’t risk it.
Ola – Not the first fingerprint lock but still a nice one.
Hydra, HidrateMe, Trago, Yecup – Four new smart bottles, really?
Gloveone – A haptic feedback glove isn’t new but it will really comes down to content.
The Bottomless Bin – Soemtimes the simple things in life are the best. Proudly designed in Melbourne.
Mixfader – For the modern DJ who has everything.
iSwimBand – Monitors kids to alarm when they fall in the pool or spend too long underwater. A good idea but I am not sure it will do the job of saving lives when you least expect things to go wrong.

Left Fielders

Periodshare – Because if you share your period with your boss you might not get fired … but probably will.
Mr Henry – A custom car horn driven by a smartphone app? It sounds like a standard Bluetooth speaker to me.
Glowbowl – Make your butt glow while on the throne.
Veil – A 20th century hijab … still designed by men.
Whoop.dee.doo and Lovely – Indiegogo, the home of high tech vibrators for him, her and them.

Shitstarters

Batteriser – Don’t let the real world get in the way of a good sales pitch.

And never forget, its only limited by your frigging imagination.