Welcome to another week in Kickstarterland. The trend this week is the Nespresso model – campaigns that sell you the hardware but tie you in to buying content from them. Add to that we have connected umbrellas, coding for kids and dual SIM iPhones. But the news (and my mind) this week was dominated by the Tesla 3 launch.
Kick of the Week
Tesla Model 3 – This is cheating a little bit but Tesla has pulled off 250k+ orders to raise $250m cash on back-orders of $10bn+. This is the greatest Kickstarter of all time.
Regular Kicks
Olo – Insanely cheap 3D printer which uses your phone for the heavy lifting. Another insanely popular 3D printer project.
Ekko Hub – Wireless headphone jacks for up to four people at once. Bloody well thought out product.
Kaptivo – Whiteboard image capture system for online realtime collaboration.
FlipFlic – Automated, solar powered blind winder.
Kuvée – Connected wine bottle which keeps wine fresh for 30 days and provides digital drinking notes. Sadly requires you to buy your wine in canisters from them.
Juicero – A ludicrously expensive connected fruit press with subscription juice packs.
Tovala – Another smart oven that requires you to purchase food pods from them.
Artbrew – Kickstart loves automatic beer brewing machines. Yet another subscription service for ingredients.
Davek and Oombrella – Bluetooth connected umbrellas that alert you if you walk too far from it.
Codeybot – Robots that teach kids to code.
Dodock – A multidevice dock which looks ok but I can’t handle when they pay voice-over artists to read terrible english.
A-Speaker – I like the concept of directional speakers but I haven’t seen a good application for the technology.
Anyware Smart Adapter – Put this between your bulb and its socket and you have yet another smart home adapter. It’s yet another product that is disabled if someone flips the light switch.
DoBox – An odd but somewhat wonderful combination of add-on wireless device connectivity for your Apple devices. Card reader, access point, battery/charger, audio out, Airplay, keyboards, printers, mouse/trackpad, etc.
Krimston TWO – Live SIM adapter (backpack) for the iPhone. It’s big and ugly but really looks functional and useful … if only it supported 4G.
Protonet Zoe – Amazon Echo for the paranoid?
Ossic X – Headphones are something best bought in a store. These look great but I need to know how it sounds.
Left Fielders
Hush – Connected butt plug. Something every couple should have.
Remoji – A whole set of connected sex toys that dance to music.
Nervana – Music player that tickles your pleasure centers via your ears. The video indicates it puts people to sleep too.
Tmouse – “Deformable” mouse. Use your mouse in a gripping position to reduce strain.
iBrush365 – How these people crap on for 6 minutes about a toothbrush, I don’t know.
Shitstarters
Triton – Another “ambitious” project that will never deliver, they claim it’s an artificial gills but there is little proof.
Stream Cheese – This creator isn’t sure what decade he is in. Devices like this have been around for decades.
This week in Kickstarterland 