Welcome to another week in Kickstarterland. It was a generally solid week but without any massive campaigns and or shockers. This week I have added a new section where I highlight my very favourite campaign of the week.

A really good series of articles was published about LightFreq, a campaign I mentioned last week as concerning because they were launching their second campaign before delivering on their first. This is usually a sign that they have run out of money. This one was special as it was run by a con-artist with a criminal history.

Kick of the week

Skreens – Finally, an external signal multiplexer for your TV. This has been way too long on the wish list. Even my home theatre receiver can’t do this yet.

Regular Kicks

eora 3D – Adds 3D scanning capability to your phone. At that price, it is awesome value.
Voyo – Another OBD-II car monitor with some funky new features that I wouldn’t have expected through this device.
The Things Network – A crowd sourced IoT network using LoRaWAN.
BeeLine and Haize – Two almost identical cyclist navigation systems that are a clever hybrid between a turn-by-turn system and a compass.
Gest – A nice innovation on the gesture input but I think they are very wrong about keyboards and mice.
Ripple – This solar charging wristband for Pebble is cool but a bit bulky. I would like to see the tech used on the solar panels on my roof.
Wink – The sequel to Ringo and another cute educational critter robot.
Ion Belt – A USB waist belt. The ultimate wearable tech. The owner of the business making this is more interesting than the technology.
Airbolt – Great campaign video and nice looking product but a totally pointless product. Suitcases are totally insecure with or without a lock.
Makerarm – A robot that can 3D print, solder, drill, cut, pick and place, etc.
DC One – A pocket DC power supply controllable via Bluetooth
Warpfive Generator – This is the second time they have pitched this idea of a heat-generator-to-USB-power and they aren’t doing much better the second time.
Luna – Seven different sizes of moon lanterns. Nice product, cheezy campaign. I can’t quite understand the success.
Shammane – Another smart watch that claims it is unique. Are they deluding themselves?
Remi – A bedside clock which acts as a sleep trainer for young kids. I wouldn’t mind one for my wife too.
IndieVice – I really want to like this. I knew someone would build it eventually but now that I can see it first hand, I just feel I would prefer using my DSLR.
MiniBrew – I would love to brew my own beer but I would have to drink way more beer than I do to spend $2000 up front plus unknown ingredient costs.
Torch – Great campaign but not exactly an original product. As always, it doesn’t protect your kids when they are out of the home. I don’t object to products like this but I really think you should be teaching your kids to deal with the real world as early as possible.
Axis Gear – Another motorised controller for your window shares. I still like the product but at $150 per window is just too expensive when you have a large house.
ePint – I am so sure I have seen this concept before. Somewhere.
Mii Tab – I can’t imagine what he was expecting Kickstarter to do with it but it really is a good idea and easy to implement.
Shitstarters

Aeronbag – Airbag for your aircraft. Which is more shocking, that he thinks anyone would back him or that he is asking for $7m.

Left Fielders

Tantus Rumble – Apparently all other vibrators are a failure and this one is a revolution. The 10 minute campaign video is likely to be longer than most people use their product.
Tesla and Tezla – A pair of almost identical and useless products, with crappy campaign videos and exactly the same name.
Raymio – In Australia we have been taught that monitoring the UV is pointless – always protect yourself. But regardlessless, this could be a useful tool if it works. They are backed 3-to-1 by the Danish government … I smell an opportunity for fraud.
Rang – A really cheap wearable smart bracelet. Terrible campaign that is clearly targetting the Korean market yet is translated really badly into English.
Tribble – A lovely design but I have no idea why I would want one. I am getting really sick of campaigns claiming to be in the USA but they don’t understand English.

And remember, its only limited by your frigging imagination.

Welcome back to Kickstarterland. It’s been a crazy month with the launch of the Bud-e Fridge and school holidays. I have finally had a chance to sit down for an afternoon and trawl Kickstarterland. In return for your patience I have a massive edition for you. Heaps of robots, new mobile phones and smart watches. But don’t miss out on a great collection of weird and horrible projects at the end.

Rephone – Another first modular open source phone. Everyone is always the first, even when they are not.
Tyche – This looks less like a robot and more like a mobile phone stand. I think they are trying to make this character do too much and it’s hurting them. It has taken them 18 years to get here.
Robo Wunderkind – Another robotic blocks project. A direct copy of Cubelets.
Cell Robot – How about that, yet ANOTHER robotic blocks project. At least these ones are spherical instead of cubes!
Cannybots Toys 2.0 – At least this robotic toy isn’t made of blocks. It’s made of cars. A bit expensive but pretty cool.
Eyecatcher smart bracelet – I am still waiting to see any smart bracelet project delivered. It’s real cheek to make a black and white video to play down the fact that the epaper display is black and white.
Jabber – A talking throwable soft toy with built-in interactive games. This time with a well used name.
Mogees – A bit like the Makey Makey which turns real-world devices into digital inputs, but for adults. This uses a microphone instead of capacitance.
Referee Ralph – Silly product but one of the funniest campaign videos ever.
Waylens Car Camera – An over-engineered car camera with OBD-II data overlayed packed with sensors.
Aegis Pro Volume Limiting Headphones – Charismatic kid, great looking product at a fair price. I have been waiting for this for a long time.
Skybuds – A clever solution for charging wireless ear buds at the same time as your phone.
Monkey – Upgrade your intercom to make it wifi enabled. They claim 100% compatibility with all intercoms in the world. I think not baby puppy.
Unique – An unique name for a product. The smarts are put into a watch band so can be added to any phone. Basically just a bracelet.
Blocks – Yep, you heard it here first. Another first modular smart watch! The sensors are in the links of the band.
Salto – A low cost motion capture suit. It looks great but a very niche product.
Sesame Touch – A portable finger print ID card and digital/password vault. Maybe.
Momento Smart Frame – Another frame but this one is in 4K. And a price tag to match.
Glyph – While I love ePaper displays, this one looks too much like an Etch-a-sketch
Meater – A wireless meat thermometer without the wires. Yes, more wireless. I wonder how well Bluetooth works inside a Faraday cage? I like the Wifi bridge in the block.
Hudway – I am still excited by the idea of a quality HUD but I refuse to use my phone display for this.
Glowforge – A 3D laser printer. Cuts and engraves at the same time. Only $2000-$4000. Cheap enough to buy two!
Temposcope – Clever weather simulator that saves you having to look at the weather web sites before leaving the house.
Boogie Dice – Finally, the ultimate tech gadget is here! Self rolling dice!
Light L16 Camera – Another attempt to reinvent digital photography. Light uses 16 small lenses instead of one big one, to mae a 50+ megapixel photo with multiple focal lengths. I got mine locked in at $800 off retail.
The Darwin Tank – I had never considered keeping jellyfish as pets until this project. It’s stunning.
DigiRule – Such a simple and lovely tool. No more fighting with my kids over rulers? I think not.
Moonspike – I doubt Elon Musk would have succeeded with SpaceX if he had tried to crowd fund it. Space is REALLY hard and $1m won’t be close to enough.
Evapolar – A personal evaperative cooler. These are called swamp coolers in the US for obvious reasons.

Left Fielders

Lumen – I am not convinced there is enough harvestable energy in your thumbprint to light an LED. Let’s see.
LoonCup – I won’t mention the insanity of the choice of name, that would be crass. But who knew that women want a connected menstrual cup? And then she said … “Hey, I have Bluetooth in my knickers!”
Pink Trotters – Apparently, these people think women are pigs not loons.
Travmaga – Why they named a shemale dating app after an Israeli martial art, I do not know.
Nursing in Public Task Force – Free the Nipple! But why is this listed under “technology”?
KBlocker and NoKayne – Browser plugins to block the Kardashians. Perfect.
eJaculator and 3FAP – Do you want VR with your porn or three holes to play with?
DogStar TailTalk – Attach a sensor to your dog’s tail and if you don’t get bitten it will translate your dog’s emotions.

Shitstarters

Solu – Pretty product but that’s it. They want to get consumers to pay to use a product they have already paid for and they are talking about US$25 per month. I will stick to Apple for now.
Seisco Supercharger – This campaign focuses on the credentials of their NASA engineer and the rising costs of water heaters without explaining what the product actually does that every other instant water heater doesn’t do. I think it kicks in when the water tank delivers cold water. I love their update titled “Not sure what’s going on here”.
SID – There are so many of these on the market, why you would try to make another and then make a horrid campaign like this is beyond me.
Paygle – Being from Melbourne isn’t enough to save this project. There are heaps of services that do this already.
Automatic Speeding Tickets – The rest of the world has been issuing speeding tickets automatically for decades. The US doesn’t because it has a backward legal system. More importantly, why would anyone support you in this quest?
Skarp Laser Razor – “I was working on medical lasers and decided I wanted to do something that would actually help everyone. So I invented a laser shaver.” Something tells me this project will be a disaster.
Cujo – “Users” say they feel more secure even though the product isn’t built yet. I wouldn’t trust my security to “machine learning” done in the cloud but I understand why people are scared silly.
Guardian Key – I really don’t know what to say about this one.

And remember, its only limited by your frigging imagination.

Welcome back to another week in Kickstarterland. This week is a busy one, all about LEDs (lights, clocks, noodles, bikes) and exploration (in space, under water, on land and even music). But with all this brilliance, we also have to have pizza panties.

Spokenlights – LED POV system for your bike. Pity it doesn’t charge kinetically. Similar to the Monkey Light but programmable.
Brite Bits – Personally, I think this is how LEDs should always come.
Flicked – It’s really pretty but just a touch expensive for me.
Luminoodle – A slight twist on the LED strip.
ClockFOUR – When ClockTHREE isn’t enough, it’s time to roll out the next version with Neopixels.
Livall – Improving cycling safety with an LED helmet and look cool doing it. It’s actually a full system including a helmet, remote control, phone mount and cadence sensor.
SpaceVR – Sadly, I will never get to space. Maybe my kids might. This is probably the closest I will get.
Fusion guitar – Electric smart guitar with built-in amp, speakers, battery and iPhone dock!
7Bot – Desktop industrial robot. Really, who doesn’t want one of these?
Dobot – Pity I saw 7Bot first as this would have looked better without the comparison.
Trident – This second version of their underwater drone looks pretty amazing.
Hoverboard – I can’t say I was expecting yet another hoverboard. Note that this campaign closes on Oct 21st 2015. No guys, I didn’t miss it.
HiddenHUB – The third in their product line. I am not sure what to think of this. It looks like it might be better feature-wise than the competitors.
Klokers – We would all want weird watches, wouldn’t we?
Icebreaker – Ice making reinventedwith a twist. Pun intended.
Weekdate – Why use a computer/phone for your calendar, when you can invent a new one?
Batband and AfterShokz – Does anyone know what a “social lifescape” is? Why does John look like Geordi Laforge. I have backed two crap “bone conducting headset” projects. Not going to happen again until I know it works.
Angee – While this is a nice product its disengenuous to say that it provides security. It provides monitoring of your home but won’t prevent theft or violence. The best security is designing the outside of your home to be a deterent to anyone entering the home. Once they are in, its way too late.
Jogmod – This does make breadboards better … but I still hate breadboards with a vengence.
BRO Ball – Bluetooth speaker inside a useable football. Sadly, people aren’t as excited as they said they would be.
Ivee Voice – I backed their first project and it was shit. Hopefully they have learned their lessons. I won’t back them again. Amazon Echo works fine for me for now.
Neverlost – I quit playing golf because I lost too many balls. This was an obvious solution but I have waited 10 years to see it. However, it seems they were far from the first.
Comet – An Android phone with one redeaming feature, it floats on water. They clearly didn’t have a lot of money to spend on celebrity endorsements.
Left fielders

NoPhone Zero – Third time lucky. This zero-tech tool for zero brain people.
Quantum Flux – Evil genius or mad scientist?
Poop Sling – I can’t imagine exactly what is patentable about this. Maybe the toilet paper holder.
Pussy Protector – A home screening kit for infectious diseases.
Bad Parking Cards – Yep, it’s hard to not like these.
Pizza Panties – This guy is trying to live out his own fantasies by having women around the world wearing his thongs. What if this guy bought one?

Shitstarters

WiFi-MCU – Or you could just use an Electric Imp.
IoT PLC – These guys live in Silicon Valley but haven’t moved forward since the 70s. I covered their last project too. You should see their website!
Fixl – Everyone should have a guy standing behind the guy in front of the camera. Especially when they are seeking $350k.
Heyo – Who uses a landline anymore? Interesting idea, about 10 years late.
PoDDI – This guy is a moron. He should have website just for himself.
EOS – Yep, another absurd hoverboard. This guy is off his tree.
Pooch Selfie – Selfies are bad enough but don’t screw up your dog as well!
Quicklock – I hate companies that claim they are a “world 1st” when they are about the 10th. This is an indoor BLE/NFC lock that is very expensive and has many flaws.

And remember, its only limited by your frigging imagination.

Welcome back to another week in Kickstarterland. This week we have a new touch pad type device which shows real promise, a couple of sleep aids, smart bike devices and strangely similar magtip cables. A solid collection of shitstarters and left fields including the crowd favourite Zero Fucks.

Robin – An Android smartphone that moves your excess files in and out of the cloud automatically. Sounds like a Dropbox plugin rather than a new phone.
Morph – A new type of touch pad with pressure sensitivity that could dramatically change input.
Oura – Another sleep and activity monitor but this time packed into a ring.
Snooz – A portable white noise machine for people who need help sleeping. Great video. I sleep like the dead, so I don’t need the product but my wife might 🙂
SmartHalo – An LED ring for bikes to give visual GPS directions, a theft deterent plus a few other funky add-ons.
Haiku – Another smart bike that does most of the same things as SmartHalo but is removable.
Pearbuds – Another in-ear wireless earbud project. Kind of gross when the first person in the video shares his earbuds with his friend.
Mycroft – Another clone of Alexa but open source, cheaper and with a British accent.
DreamMe – A weird lens for projecting your smartphone onto the ceiling.
iPPS – A lower cost reversing sensor for cars. Someone punch this guy.
LimiFrog – A prototyping kit using the ARM Cortex M4. There are lots of existing products that do this already.
TESPA – The Hawk and Wings IoT prototype kit based on the ESP8266 and an ARM Cortex M0. Yes, another one.
Solar-Breeze – A solar powered, robotic vacuum cleaner for your pool.
GlowTie – I wouldn’t be seen dead in this but I do love LEDs.
Leveraxe – Who knew you could innovate on the axe.
Metawear C – These guys just keep coming back.
Magni-cable and Zaptip – It must really suck when you come out with an idea at the same time.
JetComfy and Kooshy – Which travel pillow do you prefer?

Shitstarters

StayCool – An airconditioning suit, backpack and blower. What?
Augmented Sound – I have no idea what this dude is on, but I want some.
TVRunway – Because compulsive shoppers need to shop more efficiently.
vUrja – Take my money, please. I must have that butt ugly power supply.

Left fielders

Snack Stadium and MunchArena – These guys prove that American’s are nuts (about sport and food). What weird but wonderful products.
Zero Fucks – For when saying “I don’t care” just isn’t enough.
Knob Gobbler – I assume he doesn’t realise what he has done.
Sports Table – I wonder how many legless manequins they left behind.
Ball Soap – Finally, a product for cleaning ones danglies.

And remember, its only limited by your frigging imagination.

Welcome to another week in Kickstarterland. Sorry about the break in transmission as I was travelling for a while. Thankfully there wasn’t a lot of good activity in Kickstarterland although there are a few doozies.

Remix Mini – WTF? $1.5m? Really? It’s just an Arduino-based PC.
Opal Nugget Maker – $2.5m for chunky ice. First world problems, hey?
Nebia Shower – Another $2.5m project, this time for a vaporising shower. Kickstarter must be a happy place to be this week.
NodeIT – Yet another small modular IoT kit. It’s the first one I have seen using the super-cheap ESP8266 Wifi chip.
Piece – Keep a second SIM card active and connected via Bluetooth. Clever solution to an age old problem.
GlocalMe – Another SIM hosting device focused on global data roaming using a “cloud” SIM card.
BedJet v2 – An upgrade for the successfully delivered BedJet bed climate control system. It shows how much trust you garner when you deliver successfully on Kickstarter.
LightBlue Bean+ – Same Bluetooth device just more Bluetoothy.
Passfort and OMG Passwords – For the trully paranoid, here is an offline-capable password vault. I am fine to keep using LastPass. I think their master keys are too hackable.
SnotBot – I have no interest in the project but Jean Luc Piccard rocks.
Bullbox – A totally untested external graphics card for a Macbook.
Drumcook – An oven that rotates like a rotiserie. Oh the mess this would make.
Mindstream Aquarium Monitor – It’s a bit of a hack and a bit expensive but at least it exists (or will).
iBackPack – I wonder if this wired backpack will leave any room to carry anything?
VoltVoyage – Another piece of luggage with a charger built-in, this time with Qi wireless charger.
Exploride – I am really happy to see more HUD devices for cars but for dog’s sake put a seatbelt on your kid and have the voice-over make sense in English.
Ohm – Finally, someone trying to replace the lead-acid batteries in our car with super-caps. I think it would take getting used to but it looks promising.
Growbot – A small hydroponic garden controlled by a couple of bit of hardware.

Left fielders

Blush Vibe – The first Apple Watch controlled vibrator for women and couples. I am a big fan of the music synchronised vibrations.
Intimate – I didn’t know breast firming was thing but something tells me this crap isn’t going to make me feel complete as a woman.

Shitstarters
Lovlit – Another remotely connected candle only this time much more depressing.
E-Taxi – Awesome intro claiming to be “better than Uber”. It has helped them raise $5.00.
OMO+ – Floating speaker and light show. I am sure it looks WAY better in person.
Serenity Airbike – Sure man, I will give you money. Why not?
SunPort – Solar power “on demand”. Transferring solar credits is NOT the same as using solar power. Christ, I hate this garbage.

And remember, its only limited by your frigging imagination.

Welcome to another week in Kickstarterland. Leading the pack this week is two travel jackets, a airline tray table and a travel storage and editing tool for photos and videos. There is also a small pack of lighting projects and a cool new digital camera. So, that makes it “lights, camera, action!” Sorry, I know that was terrible.

Baubax Travel Jacket – Holy cow Batman, that’s $2.5m!
ScotteVest – As if one travel jacket isn’t enough? Poor guys probably didn’t know what hit them.
Airhook – Another great travel accessory for those who hate tray tables (like me!)
Gnarbox – Storage, editing and sharing of HD photos and videos while on the road. I had this for photos in 2001 and it was awesome. But this only has 128gb which just isn’t enough.
Hypnolight – The team behind the Hypnocube are back with a LED string. Everyone who works with me knows how much I want to build these.
Lumos – Bike helmet with LED lights including brake and indicator.
Ilumi – Yep, another smart lightbulb this time with Bluetooth SmartMesh. At least this has a great campaign video.
Silk Light – I would like to see evidence that there premise is true but at least their bulbs aren’t expensive.
Z Camera – A SLR-quality camera in the body of a Go Pro. Nice move.
Move – I really want a blind controller but I know these (and most cheap mechanical devices) will never last. Such a pity.
Frankfurter Brett – These twins are nerds but I like their kitchen workbench.
Trakkies – In Australia “Trakkies” means tracksuit (usually pants). Funny name but great campaign given they have a lot of competitors. I like their use of mesh tech but I am not sure where IPv6 comes into a BLE product.
Boxoi – Such a pity this Zeotrope has been completely ignored, it is beautiful.
GoFish – I am not fisherman but I can see how much fun this would be.
Sensory Percussion – This clever tool allows you to add detailed digital output to analog drums.
Knife Edge – This drill bit rocks.
Besties – Dolls for young girls with awesome potential.
Keezel –  Normally I wouldn’t talk about products that are really just carriers for other products (in this case a VPN service) but I really like the way they are retransmitting VPN over wifi over wifi.
Branto – Why are people trying to pack so much into one product? This looks like it might be an ok product but its such a scattered presentation.
Haz – Umbrellas, an old-world product desperate for innovation 🙂

Shitstarters

Trackerpad – GPS and GSM tracker the size of a 10p coin? I think not baby puppy. How do you spell SCAM?
Wearsafe – I can’t believe people get sucked in to campaigns like this which suggest that a silent tag can make people safe. And a monthly fee on top! What a rip off. Oh, the Secret Service endorses it, that means it must be ok.
Tagonce – Sadly, the people who have your missing luggage will not install an app or scan a QR code. A simple non-destructible tag with typed data would be much more effective.
90K Lock – I almost skipped over this smart lock until I saw this priceless line on their “burglar-proof” security: “the lock contains patented ‘IoT’ coding technology”
Le Flusher – This has to been seen.

Left fielders

Reboot the Suit – Great that this is being done but why does it cost $500k to repair one space suit?
Oviari – Birth control for the modern woman.
GunDetect – Computer vision gadget for visually detecting a handgun. Weird.
Genii – These guys have tried so hard to innovate in a crowded market and nobody cares. But really, why would anyone want to turn on their TV from China? The dog is darn cute but that’s not enough.
MotorBunny – What would this blog be without another sex toy.
Teledildonics Litigation – And then they all get sued. Teledildonics patent trolls.

And remember, its only limited by your frigging imagination.

Welcome to another week in Kickstarterland. This week we have a record number of shitstarters. Maybe I am getting too critical in my old age but it seems July is when they are all coming out of the woodwork. On the good side we have a few more smart luggage entries and lots of LED projects.

I also picked up a couple of “equity crowdsource” companies as these are now legal in the USA. I hope we get some interesting additions to the list.

Myle Tap – Another clipon voice recorder. Their unique add-on is voice-to-text conversion.
Wino board – Another really cheap Arduino board with Wifi.
Baselamp – A clever but simple lamp which is just an uplight. But importantly it is limited only by your frigging imagination.
LED Shotrod – Anyone who knows me, knows I like anything with LEDs. Pity this project is going nowhere.
Gecko Switch – This is a good solution for a real problem with light switches. I am not sure why it has performed so badly.
Loopa – I love LED projects like this. I think it would have been better with a camera and display addition.
Blinky.shoes – Bonus points for the best use of the new .shoes domain.
Hydro Hammock – A hybrid between a hot tub and a hammock. Perfect for campers.
Jewelbots – Programmable jewelery to ignite girls’ curiosity. A bit expensive for my kids.
XREAL – An equity crowd funded game mobile company founded by two guys who have dibs on themselves.
Elio Motors – Another equity crowd funded company with a small, cheap, fuel efficient car.
Dot – Stupidly small Bluetooth eatpiece.
Buddy – A freakshow of a personal family robot.
The One – A smart piano to help people learn to play faster and with more fun.
Beepings ZEN – Another GPS tracker but this one uses Sigfox so is really low power / long life.
Kingii – A weird water safety device to replace life jackets. It’s a bit strange but it might do the job … if it doesn’t rip off your arm.
Snor – Shove a tube down your throat and excersize your soft palate muscles. Sounds like a fun way to stop snoring. But it could save marriages.
Saent – I am all for a tool to help you improve focus and productivity. I can’t imagine why I would want to pay a monthly fee for this.
Firefly – The connect luggage department continues to grow. This one has a Wifi hotspot built in.
Baggio – A smart baby bag that tracks the contents of your bag and alerts you if they are running low.
Coolpeds – A powered scooter built into a briefcase. Weird.
Iris – A modern HUD for your car … yes, please.
Slidenjoy – One or two extra screens for your laptop that fold away inside the unit.
Vortex – Another pretty jazzy robotics educational kit.
B-one – Ok, so it’s yet another home hub. But did they have to pour on so much cheese? Not only isn’t the hardware the best in the world (it has four layers after all) but so are their engineers. How could we pass on this? Easily.
DC2 – A Docker container container for your desktop. Stupid product, awesome video.
BeagleCore – I am not sure I would ever want to use their product but I did enjoy watching their video.

Shitstarters

LazyLocks – I think there is a reason that the more expensive locks are a better move. This looks like a purchase someone would regret quickly.
B-one – Ok, so it’s yet another home hub. But did they have to pour on so much cheese? Not only isn’t the hardware the best in the world (it has four layers after all) but so are their engineers. How could we pass on this? Easily.
Secret Sexuality – The pheromone scam of the 1980’s is back and Indiegogo is its new home.
CPUSH – Light and button connected to the audio output port on your phone. This has been done lots of times before and generally they are crap.
Blu – Oh so pretty and such a wonderful dream. But these guys are not the ones to deliver it. Not now, not in 2016.
Beer Frost – They sold 20 of them! Woo hoo!
Yoricap – How about spending a bit less on 3D animations and Photoshopping stock photos and more on explaining your product. Only a Canadian would bother with BB10 support.
droPrinter – The next in the line of “first” claims that are very untrue. These guys are apparently from Melbourne but English is not their first language.
IndieVice – Seriously? Why not just buy a real camera? I just don’t get it.
IoT Counter – I don’t know what the hell these Melbourne guys are doing but they do have a big blue button.
LoveLinkU – I am really sure they don’t see the humour in their product and video. Apparently voice control is one of the wildest dreams we have today.
La Denise – I really like this kitchenware but $200 shipping to Australia is just stupid.
A-lamp – This guy almost breaks down into tears in this video.
Febo – When is a “solar paint brush” not just a magnifying glass? Never.
SipSup – A seriously weird product … a shared storage device built into a glass.

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

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.

Welcome to another week in Kickstartland. Today we have penis tracking, muscle input, lots of lights, smelly alarms and a back button for your iPhone. There really were no stand-out projects this week. At least there were a few really crappy ones to laugh at.

CryptoSteel – This cold storage wallet is a low tech solution to a high tech problem. And a beautiful one at that.
Yotaphone 2 – Finally, a phone that uses its backside as an e-paper secondary display.
Ecoisme – Device power fingerprinting is pretty cool technology. There are a lot of people working on this but I haven’t seen a commercial product ready yet.
HidnSeek – The first GPS tracker I have seen using Sigfox as the backhaul network.
StoryHome – Just like ToyMail only longer audio and a slight twist on the marketing story.
Myoware – Use muscle signals as an input to your Arduino project.
DAD – Subscription fine art display frame. The concept of curated art distribution is not original but is perfectly ok. This project could have been done much cheaper as a Roku / Apple TV / etc application. The proof will be in the artwork they present and I suspect that will become a point of contention.
HeavyM – Map projections (via a projector) onto real and uneven surfaces for stunning effects and audio synchronisation. I love the french subtitles when I can barely understand the english audio.
Halo Back – A clever solution to an age old problem – iPhones don’t have a back button. I would probably have included a screen printed back icon.
WyLight – Sadly, they have priced themselves out of the market but I always like LED projects. I like their scripting concept.
Liteseeds – Stick-on LED lights for conductive ink, conductive thread or copper tape.
Jetcards – An automatic card dealer designed originally in 1890. Maybe if this was usable for poker it would get more interested. Maybe not. But I like it anyway.
Microduino mCookie – Another modular electronics kit, this time compatible with LEGO so you can build more interesting and interractive projects.
Optonaut – I like the product but I am not sure people have trouble with still photos or videos. There are plenty of other panoramic photo apps but a little 3D might be an interesting add-on. The joke in the FAQ wasn’t such a good idea: “Optonaut will be available for free. We’ll sell your data instead. Just kidding.”
Automous Desk / Taylor – I like the desk. It’s a good price for a solid product. But what the hell are they including Siri and a home automation hub into a desk? I am still not convinced they are going to deliver their other project Maya the Personal Robot.
ReVault Smartwatch – Wireless storage device in the form of a smart watch or pendant.
Light Phone – A credit card phone designed to be used as little as possible. Getting back to the old days before smart phones for some of the day.
GLO2 – The GravityLight is back with improvements and local (Kenya) assembly.

Left fielders

SensorWake – This is too weird to live in the main section above. It is an alarm clock which emits smells such as “American Breakfast”, “Candy Rush” and “Hot Croissant”.
Weather Beacon – This is such a cute implementation of the NeoPixel weather stations we have all built for fun. I particularly love the piezo speaker.
NPT Lucid Dreamer – Use your penis to detect REM state and initiate lucid dreaming. Yep, that’s just the hardware I have been waiting for.
Algramo – A vending machine for buying in bulk and selling cheap to reduce the cost for poorer families. What is weird about this is they have raised $15,000 from their owners. Go IGG.

Shitstarters

Friendly Fire Rockets – I am not sure which is more ludicrous; naming the product Friendly Fire or trying to sell military training toys on KS.
SelfiePICTEE – Clearly this guy doesn’t take himself or his product seriously but he also has a horrible sense of humour and timing.
Lifeboat – Battery charger and GPS tracker in one. How revolutionary. These guys have dibs on themselves … I don’t.
Pimpy – Yet another home (or “homie” as they call it) aggregator that doesn’t do anything at all. But it definitely has the worst possible name and a butt-ugly design.
Brush Effects – These idiots think that a feature length video and a 10,000 word essay will make up for the fact that they don’t even have a functional prototype or even a dentist advisor. Move on.
Musio – I fail to see how this is either a robot or AI.

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