Kickstarter

64 'Kickstarter' stories December 2010 - August 2014

Kickstarter: iPhone-connected Starfish child seat sensor aims to save lives

Mike Beasley Aug 25 2014 - 3:03 pm PT

A Kickstarter campaign launched earlier this month is aiming to help save the lives of children across the country with an iPhone-connected, weight-activated child seat sensor called Starfish. The concept is fairly simple. The Starfish sensor pairs with your iPhone via Bluetooth, then fits under the padding of a child safety seat in your car.

Once the sensor detects a child in the seat, it creates a small geofence of about 20 feet. Anytime the paired phone leaves that geofenced zone, it receives a push notification informing notifying the user of the potential danger the child is in. If the notification goes unanswered for five minutes, the app automatically reaches out to an emergency contact and informs them of the situation.

The Kickstarter campaign runs for another 11 days (and ends on September 5th), but thus far hasn’t even reached half of its $15,000 goal. The retail price for the finished product hasn’t been revealed yet, but backers who pledge $40 or more will receive one. The shipping date indicated is expected to be December 2014.

You can back the campaign over on Kickstarter.

Kickstarter campaign begins for iPhone-controlled Bluetooth padlock

Ben Lovejoy Aug 18 2014 - 4:34 am PT

16 Comments

Locks always struck me as the perfect application for Bluetooth LE: walk up to the lock, it detects the phone in your pocket or bag, checks the code and unlocks. If you need to let someone else in, you authorize their app on a one-off or permanent basis. Simple, secure, convenient.

There are a bunch of Bluetooth door locks on the way, and you can even lock and unlock your Mac via Bluetooth, so why not a Bluetooth padlock too? Noke is a Kickstarter campaign for a $59 lock where you simply click the hasp to unlock. Provided your phone is with you, and the app code matches the lock, it opens without key or combination.

Cleverly, you can also program the padlock with a Morse code-style pattern that you can click to open the lock if your phone battery is dead.

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The campaign has an ambitious $100,000 target, so it’s by no means certain it’ll get funded, but as with all Kickstarter campaigns you lose nothing if it doesn’t make it. $59 is the Kickstarter price, with a planned retail price of $99.

The campaign doesn’t say anything about the security credentials of the lock, so it’s probably best considered something for relatively low-security applications like gym lockers and ‘cafe locks’ for bikes (ones you use just to stop someone hopping on and riding off while your bike is within sight).

SmartBrick Bluetooth LEGO controller replaces infra-red remote with your iPhone

Ben Lovejoy Jul 29 2014 - 5:35 am PT

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If ~~you~~ your kids play with LEGO Technic, and the standard infra-red receiver feels just a little 1990s, a new Kickstarter project has the answer. The SmartBrick is a Bluetooth LE receiver that forms a direct swap for the IR one, enabling you to control your hi-tech LEGO projects with your iPhone.

The SmartBrick has four ports, enabling it to control four functions, and if that’s not enough you can control up to 16 SmartBricks from the app, providing a total of 64 controls. Because it’s Bluetooth LE, you can embed the controller inside your model, and you get around 300 feet of range – and even control your device over the Internet.

The app allows you to choose the remote control profile you’d like for your device. Joystick, gamepad and gyroscopic controls are offered as standard, and you can create your own custom controls.

A pledge of £40 ($68) gets you a brick from the first production run, but there are still some Early Bird specials available for £29 ($49).

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Kickstarter campaign offers ‘Magsafe for iPhone’ (history says Apple lawsuit incoming)

Ben Lovejoy Jul 17 2014 - 6:41 am PT

28 Comments

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The main product offered on this Kickstarter campaign is just another powered case (albeit a pretty-looking one) – but it was the ‘Magsafe for iPhone’ adapter three-quarters of the way down the page that caught my eye.

Plug in a slim adapter to the Lightning socket of your iPhone, plug in an adapter to your Lightning cable and you have the equivalent of a MagSafe connection on your phone.

It’s a neat idea, but sadly not one that is likely to survive scrutiny by Apple’s lawyers – at least, not using ‘MagSafe for iPhone’ as the description. Battery company Hyper, which makes external batteries for MacBooks and iPads, learned this the hard way when it offered MagSafe connectors. Apple’s lawyers sued, and forced the company to go via an airplane power adapter instead.

Without the description, however, it might survive. You can pledge $25 for the two-part adapter kit, with estimated delivery in November. The campaign currently has just over $6,000 pledged of its $50k target, with 43 days to go.

This Yves Behar-designed smart cup can tell you about your drink’s nutrition

Mark Gurman Jun 12 2014 - 9:00 am PT

8 Comments

A partnership between famed industrial designer Yves Behar and company Mark One are today announcing the Vessyl, smart cup that seeks to track data for the nutrition in beverages. The concept sounds simple. Pour a drink into the sensor-packed Vessyl cup, and an accompanying iPhone application will instantly tell you the type of beverage (like soda or milk), the brand (perhaps Coke or Pepsi), calorie content, fat content, and sugar content…

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Tado confirms smart air-conditioning controller funded, aiming now for Apple HomeKit support

Ben Lovejoy Jun 5 2014 - 4:27 am PT

4 Comments

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Tado, the location-aware alternative to the Nest smart thermostat, has confirmed that it has achieved its Kickstarter goal to launch a device to control existing air-conditioners, turning them into smart cooling systems.

We talked about the GE-backed Quirky Aros in March which can now be purchased at Amazon.

Tado is now aiming to raise an additional $50k to allow Tado Cooling to integrate with Apple’s HomeKit, enabling Siri control.

If HomeKit is integrated, our customers will be able to use the tado° app together with some key iOS features such as Siri or TouchID.

Imagine setting your tado° to sleep mode or adjusting the desired temperature with a simple voice command.

Imagine giving your AC a little boost just by placing your finger on the home button.

Imagine combined scenarios with other connected devices …

Tado says that its system will be compatible with 82 percent of existing air-conditioning units, with a control unit working in the same way as its smart thermostat: using an app to track the location of those in the household, automatically turning off air-conditioners when the last person leaves the home and pre-cooling the home when it detects that someone is on their way back.

Low-energy Bluetooth is also used to track the position of people within the home, automatically adjusting air-conditioners within different rooms.

Tado Cooling will retail for $149, but Kickstarter backers can pre-order for $99, with units expected to ship in August. The existing product is fully funded, but currently needs an additional $47,000 in the next six days to add HomeKit support.

Other iOS controlled home cooling systems on the market and in the news include Big Ass Fans.

Kickstarter: Augment modular charging solution for iPhone 5/5s reinvents the battery case (Video)

Dom Esposito May 16 2014 - 6:33 am PT

12 Comments

Augment is a new case series from Rubix that puts a spin on the traditional battery case. Rubix is currently seeking funding on Kickstarter to produce this product line, but don’t let that get you down. This is definitely worthy of your hard-earned cash if you’d like to have the benefits of a battery case, without all of the bulk.

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Hyper launches the first Made-for-iPhone/iPad USB flash drive w/ built-in Lightning connector

Jordan Kahn May 12 2014 - 7:59 am PT

41 Comments

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Hyper— we’ve reviewed some of its MacBook batteries and iPhone accessories in the past— is today announcing the first Made-For-iPhone/iPad/iPod touch (MFi) flash drive that includes a built-in Lightning connector. Unfortunately you can’t get your hands on one just yet, but you can preorder through a funding campaign the company just launched on Kickstarter.

Hyper told us it’s been working on the product for over two years and just recently got approval from Apple: “As expected, Apple had many concerns for iOS storage products like the iStick. We actually started MFi application for this product more than 2 years ago. It was definitely not an easy process but we managed to address all of Apple’s concerns and finally just got MFi approval.”

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Former iPhone camera engineers create 360-degree video camera

Ben Lovejoy May 1 2014 - 5:21 am PT

16 Comments

CENTR, a startup created by a group of former iPhone camera engineers, has developed a video camera that creates 360-degree views, allowing viewers to pan around the image during playback.

CENTR allows you to capture your experiences and share them in a whole new way. Capture 360° video in real-time on a camera that fits in the palm of your hand. With decades of experience working on cameras at Apple, the CENTR team knows what it takes to bring beautiful design and groundbreaking technology together in one product …

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Lensbaby planning to bring its DSLR selective focus lens to the iPhone

Ben Lovejoy Apr 3 2014 - 7:26 am PT

2 Comments

Lensbaby is planning to make an iPhone version of its popular selective focus lens range. The company’s existing lenses for DSLRs allow a small focal point to be positioned in a scene, creating some whacky burred effects in the rest of the image. I’ve used one on my DSLR, and it’s fun to play around with.

A magnetic attachment system means that you’ll be able to combine the Lensbaby with any existing magnetic iPhone lenses you already own.

It’s currently just a Kickstarter project, but with half of the modest $20,000 goal already reached just one day in, it seems pretty certain to make it into production. As of the time of writing, you can reserve one for $50, a $20 saving on the planned retail price.

Sample images below.

iPhone-connected ‘MicrobeScope’ lets you capture & share video of microbes

Jordan Kahn Mar 25 2014 - 6:07 am PT

0 Comments

A new product called MicrobeScope raising funds on Kickstarter is an iPhone-connected, pocket-sized 800x microscope that allows users to record and share video of what they are viewing.

The specimen is placed directly on the inverted lens, and the internal AAA size battery powered light source provides the illumination. The 800x magnification achieved by this simple device is unmatched by other small scopes and the phone mount is a game changer because of the ability to share real time video.

The company, 4D Optical, has been developing similar products for around 10 years and explained that advancements in iPhone camera tech in recent years have made MicrobeScope possible:

Before cell phone cameras became as good as they are now we were using standard video cameras. While this scope version produced excellent optical quality, it was not as small or as durable as we wanted. We also tried out a version that was pocket sized, but it did not have good video capture capabilities. When the iPhone 4S came out we realized that it was the perfect video camera, so we went back to the drawing board and came up with the MicrobeScope…

While the company notes that MicrobeScope is “a very powerful fixed focus instrument capable of viewing sub 1micron features of individual bacteria,” it’s also made it simple enough for kids to use and is taking donations to get MicrobeScope into schools.

The Kickstarter project has already raised well over its $10,000 goal and still has 25 days to go. A $125 pledge will get you a MicrobeScope when they are ready to ship in May or June. It also has a $10,000 or more pledge tier for professionals that will allow for a MicrobeScope customized with professional level optics.

(via TechCrunch)

Add some sick modular hardware controls to your Mac for $99 (Kickstarter project)

Ben Lovejoy Dec 6 2013 - 5:05 am PT

2 Comments

[kickstarter url=http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cchu/palette-a-freeform-interface-that-controls-any-sof width=640]

Trackpads and keyboards are great for many things, but there are some tasks where there’s no substitute for a physical dial, slider or button. In video editing, for example, there’s a reason that professional kit uses a rotary dial to move forward or backward through the video clip. Photo editing and audio work are also far easier with physical dials and sliders.

While there’s a whole world of dedicated hardware controllers out there, the Palette project on Kickstarter takes a particularly neat approach: a modular system that you can design to your own requirements. There’s a power block, button, rotary dial and slider, and you can mix-and-match them in any layout you like, and they can be made to work with any software …
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It’s an iPhone-controlled paper airplane – of course I want one

Ben Lovejoy Nov 29 2013 - 7:22 am PT

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There are some ideas so silly they’re irresistibly cool. An iPhone-controlled paper airplane? Of course I want one!

The Kickstarter project has already quadrupled its $50,000 goal with 57 days to go.

‘Toaster’ dual-iPhone charging dock appears on Kickstarter

Benjamin Mayo Nov 26 2013 - 4:35 am PT

3 Comments

The Foaster is a new novel charging dock for your iPhone and the creators are currently running a Kickstarter to put this neat dock into production. As you can tell from the video, the novelty here is the fact it resembles a toaster. The creators say that the kitchen is one of the most common places where people charge their phones, so they thought they would design a dock to suit.

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Crowdfunding Roundup: upgraded Easy-Macro smartphone lens, smart electrical outlets and switches, more

Scott Buscemi Sep 22 2013 - 7:03 pm PT

4 Comments

Rather than make you sift through all of these projects, we’re rounding up the best or most notable projects from around the crowdfunding web and delivering them to you in a simple roundup. If there’s a project that you’ve backed – or even a project that you founded – be sure to leave a link below so it can be considered for the next roundup. Check out our complete list of roundups here.

The Easy-Macro Smartphone Lens (Kickstarter project) – Taking close-up shots on the iPhone is near impossible, as the camera has trouble staying in focus. One option is to move back a bit then crop once the image is complete, but that usually results in a pixelated image. In comes the Easy-Macro Smartphone Lens.

We’ve covered the Easy-Macro lens before, but now they’re making improvements to the design and keeping up with the demand by taking advantage of crowdfunding. Now’s your opportunity to grab one for just $10, which is $5 off retail – great for your new iPhone 5s. Disclaimer/another-reason-to-back-the-project: I personally backed this project.

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Crowdfunding roundup: ‘tasty’ cord organizers, bike navigation tool, air quality detector, more

Scott Buscemi Sep 15 2013 - 11:09 pm PT

2 Comments

As the success stories keep piling up, so do the number of projects filling up crowdfunding websites with, among other things, neat hardware- and software-related products. Some projects, like Pebble, gain thousands of supporters as well as millions of dollars in funding (and end up at Best Buy’s retail stores). Other projects flop and don’t reach their necessary funding amount.

Rather than make you sift through all of these projects, we’re rounding up the best or most notable projects from around the web and delivering them to you in a simple roundup.

If there’s a project that you’ve backed – or even a project that you founded – be sure to leave a link below so it can be considered for the next roundup.

The Tastiest Cord Solution: Cord Taco, Cordito, Cordlupa (Kickstarter project) – It’s probably not the best idea to actually eat these cord organizers. However, the unique designs allow you to beautifully wrap up your headphones, USB cords, and Mac charging block in style. Just three days into it, this campaign is half way to meeting its $15,000 goal.

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Crowdfunding roundup: Qooqi cable organizer, iPhone wallet cases, headset without speakers, more

Scott Buscemi Sep 2 2013 - 10:12 am PT

3 Comments

Rather than make you sift through all of these projects, we’re rounding up the best or most notable projects from around the web and delivering them to you in a simple roundup.

If there’s a project that you’ve backed – or even a project that you founded – be sure to leave a link below so it can be considered for the next roundup.

Qooqi for your cables (Kickstarter project) – All of my cables like to fall off my desk and into oblivion. I’ve tried small, adhesive cord holders in the past, but usually the cords tug on the holder so much that peel off. Qooqi, on the other hand, uses what they call “nano pad tad technology” which sounds a lot like the microsuction of my favorite NanoTek Stand dock.I personally backed this project and it has already exceeded its $10k goal. Expect the Qooqi to ship out in December.

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Crowdfunding roundup: eleMount car & camera mount, TILT Stealth Cooling Station, Piper home automation, more

Scott Buscemi Aug 25 2013 - 12:20 pm PT

7 Comments

Rather than make you sift through all of these projects, we’re rounding up the best or most notable projects from around the web and delivering them to you in a simple roundup.

If there’s a project that you’ve backed – or even a project that you founded – be sure to leave a link below so it can be considered for the next roundup.

eleMount: Premium Car & Camera Mount for iPhone & iPad (Kickstarter project) – These aluminum mounts with polyurethane pads are sleek and versatile. The project exceeded its goal extremely quickly and expects to have these shipped out in December.

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Pebble announces 275k units sold to date, plans to add email notifications for iOS in 2-3 weeks

Jordan Kahn Jul 11 2013 - 11:10 am PT

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Following the retail launch of its Bluetooth smartwatch at Best Buy earlier this month, Pebble is for the first time disclosing how many units its sold since its extremely popular Kickstarter campaign. Pebble is now at 275K orders to date, 190K of which came from its website after initially selling around 85k to its Kickstarter backers. Pebble also announced it has now hit over 1 million app downloads on the platform and plans to implement new features for iOS including email notifications and Gmail and iMAP support :

A major new feature on iOS will be available within 2-3 weeks. The feature has been lacking since launch: support for email notifications. At first, our testing with iOS 6 indicated that the built-in Bluetooth notification system would be able to send notifications Pebble. Unfortunately, that system only could reliably send SMS and iMessage to Pebble (ironically something we did not promise to support). We’ve finally cracked the email puzzle and the next Pebble iOS app will have full support for Gmail and IMAP email notifications.

Last month we reported that Apple would be offering a new Notification Center service to developers with iOS 7 that will allow Bluetooth devices like Pebble to access all notifications from Notification Center. Pebble hinted today that it has plans for the new Bluetooth profiles:

iOS 7 looks quite cool and useful but we can’t talk about it in detail until Apple releases it publicly. In the meantime, we’ll continue to work with it and test Pebble support under iOS 7..

Pebble’s Eric Migicovsky also clarified when preorders would be receiving their orders and announced he’d be holding a Reddit AMA today at 12pm PDT on reddit.com/r/pebble.

Crowdfunding Roundup: GlassUp, Ziphius Aquatic Drone, Kickstand Projector, more

Scott Buscemi Jul 10 2013 - 12:25 pm PT

0 Comments

Rather than make you sift through all of these projects, we’re rounding up the best or most notable projects from around the web and delivering them to you in a simple roundup.
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Kickstarter: Vloggr for iPhone promises quick and easy video recording and editing

Mike Beasley Jun 21 2013 - 12:30 pm PT

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Vloggr, an app that launched on Kickstarter today, is an interesting new app designed to quickly shoot and edit video blogs. The app sports a fairly simple interface that allows you film and reorder clips, then publish them to your social networks with a few taps.

The Kickstarter campaign is seeking $6,000 to cover the app’s development costs . A few of the rewards for early backers include promo codes to download the app at launch and your first vlog featured on the app’s website for a month.

iDockAll: A beautifully designed dock that lets you keep on charging [Kickstarter]

Zac Hall Jun 12 2013 - 11:00 pm PT

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Virtually all docks that currently exist are modal in that docking your device means you probably won’t be using it while it stays tethered to the power source. Wiplabs wants to solve that problem for you with the iDockAll, which cradles your device upright but is designed to allow you to remove and use your device without removing the power source.
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Logitech acquires creators of TidyTilt Kickstarter project that raised over $200k

Jordan Kahn Jun 6 2013 - 1:00 am PT

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Logitech today announced that it acquired smartphone accessory startup TT Design Labs, a company that first received media attention for its ‘TidyTilt’ magnetic earbud holder and kickstand that raised over $200,000 through a Kickstarter campaign. As part of the deal, the two co-founders of TT Design Labs will be joining the Logitech team, while two of the company’s products will soon be relaunched and evolved under the Logitech brand.

The company will be launching the Logitech TidyTilt earphone holder and the Logitech JustMount in the coming weeks and is already accepting preorders through its website. JustMount is a magnetic cube designed to work with TidyTilt to hold up an iPhone vertically and store earbuds, keys, and more.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this deal is the fact that Logitech is keeping an eye on innovation that’s happening in the Kickstarter and crowd-funding space. Not only did Logitech tell us that it’s “excited to tap into this pool of innovation and talent” in the crowd-sourced funding area, it wouldn’t rule out the possibility of going the crowd-funding route for introducing its own future products.

“The big winners with today’s announcement are smartphone users,” said Derek Tarnow, co-founder of TT Design Labs. “In Logitech, we’ve found a true partner that shares our focus on creating great products designed to improve people’s experiences with the technology they love. We’re very excited to be working with Logitech.”

We reviewed and quite enjoyed the first iteration of the TidyTilt last year (the latest version includes a full case).

Pebble releases updated Pebblekit SDK & Sports API with full support for iOS & Android apps

Jordan Kahn May 16 2013 - 8:18 am PT

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Pebble, the popular Bluetooth smartwatch that raised over $10M on Kickstarter before shipping to backers in January, today announced the release of an updated SDK and APIs that will allow iOS and Android developers to create apps for the platform. Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky had this to say about the updates:

“The tremendous response we received from Kickstarter backers validated our belief in the value of a smart watch as a wearable computer, but also in the value an open platform brings to truly personalizing the watch to their daily activities”, said Eric Migicovsky, Pebble’s founder. “This new investment will help us build out the Pebble development ecosystem and deliver on Pebble’s extraordinary potential.”

The updated Pebblekit SDK will now allow developers to create third-party apps that will be able to send and receive data to apps on the Pebble smartwatch. The updated SDK will effectively allow developers to build new apps for the platform, for example, taking weather or news information from an iOS or Android app and displaying it on the watch. Previously devs were limited to implementing the basic functions of Pebble.

You might have heard RunKeeper recently added support for tracking data using Pebble and today Pebble is making easier for similar fitness apps to do the same with a new Sports API for accessing the GPS features of the watch.
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