You can find some incredible new gadgets on Kickstarter and Indiegogo that often go unnoticed. We’re rounding up some of the best every week to help them get the funding they need to become a reality.
This week, we’ve got super smartwatches that keep your kids safe, incredibly intelligent headphones with artificial intelligence, a device that measures your nutrient levels, and more!
David Kronstein fell in love with the capture of high-speed video while a teenager watching Mythbusters. He wanted one of those expensive cameras so bad and thought he had a shot at one in 2006 when an Olympus i-Speed 2 started at a bid of $150 on eBay.
When the bidding surpassed his college budget, Kronstein said, “Screw it, I’ll build one.”
Ten years later, he not only built the camera, he is making it available to average consumers at a tenth of the usual price. (High-speed cameras used in laboratories and TV production studios average around $25,000.)
Before there was the Apple Music Festival, there was the US Festival: a sprawling, Woodstock-style music event hosted by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.
Boasting performances ranging from the Grateful Dead and the Ramones to The Kinks and Fleetwood Mac, the story behind the epic, money-losing concert is set to be told in a new documentary called The US Generation.
You can find some incredible new gadgets on Kickstarter and Indiegogo that often go unnoticed. We’re rounding up some of the best every week to help them get the funding they need to become a reality.
This week, we’ve got modular drones that turn into all kinds of flying machines, a tiny white box that promises to improve your posture, a device that brings Amazon Alexa to your car, and the world’s first personal air conditioner.
Place your iPhone’s camera too close to your subject and it loses its ability to focus, but not if you turn it into a microscope. That’s possible with a simple Blips sticker that’s placed over your iPhone’s camera lens — and you can preorder yours right now.
If you’ve got high-end wired headphones and want to make them wireless, AirMode might do the trick. The short cable comes with standard audio connectors on either end that replace the detachable cords found on many headphones.
Packed with features and reasonably priced, AirMode could be the perfect Bluetooth dongle for retrofitting your gear for Apple’s wireless future.
There are Bluetooth speakers that are shaped like bottles. Then there’s the Bluetooth speaker that needs a bottle to work.
The Cork Speaker attaches right where you might think – at the opening of a bottle – and directs audio into the empty space so that it projects a deep and resonating sound.
Before there was an Apple Watch, Snake Plissken had a kind of smartwatch that tracked his health. He knew that if his watch hit zero before he could rescue the President of the United States, he could count on the explosives injected into his neck to go off.
But that’s not the point. What matters is that the countdown clock attached to actor Kurt Russell for the 1981 classic Escape from New York would make a really stylish smartwatch today. And you can now own one and wear it as if your president’s life depended on it.
For all the magical powers coded and wired into the iPhone camera, it can’t rise to every challenge. You still need light to make a decent photograph and good light can be as fleeting as the moments you are trying to capture.
But what if you could put good light into your pocket and pull it out when you need it?
The makers of the popular Lume Cube have created a nifty but powerful light called Life Lite, ideal for mobile photographers who want to keep shooting even as darkness closes in.
It’s not easy to find MacBook cases that are both protective and good-looking; you usually have to choose between the two. But Gumdrop Cases has hit the nail on the head with its new DropTech case.
It promises to be one of the “world’s most durable MacBook cases,” and it looks like it came straight out of a futuristic sci-fi movie. Or maybe a retro iMac? Claim yours on Kickstarter now to take advantage of big discounts with early bird pricing.
Two people couldn’t have been further apart as they sat close to each other on carpool rides to swim meets. Steve King was a jock. The other kid was a geek.
But the geek did something one day that King would never forget. King watched as his teammate made a horrific turn at the wall in the backstroke and popped up in a neighboring lane.
Steve Jobs was immediately disqualified. He got back in his lane and finished the race.
Too bad Hillary Clinton is busy or she could serve as a celebrity endorser for a Kickstarter campaign sure to interest people whose important lives depend on carrying two smartphones.
SIMpro is a credit-card-sized device that serves as a dual-SIM adapter with data connection that can manage two active phone numbers. SIMpro works with an iOS app and even works with Bluetooth to turn an iPod or iPad into smartphones.
Apple famously knows what we want before we do, yet so many fans say the iPhone maker got it wrong when it took away the earphone jack on the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus.
Jokes, outrage, even night terrors, erupted on social media in real time as the new iPhone design was revealed. Not long after, a startup went to work to bring the anxious a $10 fix.
The Apple II and IIc weren’t exactly known as gaming machines when they launched 40 years ago, but that’s not stopping 8bitdo from creating a new wireless gaming controller that comes with an adapter for the PC that put Apple on the map.
The new AP40 Bluetooth controller comes in the shape of a retro Apple logo, allowing you to wirelessly play any old school game on the Apple II.
The future arrived on the iPhone 7 and the no-earphone-jack thing is still sticking in your craw. Maybe you should just take a breath and float. Float your phone, that is.
Your new iPhone 7 or 7 Plus can float in midair on magnetic waves while it charges with the Air Charge, a charging device available via Kickstarter that further steps into a future without wires.
Apple is criticized for not catering to gamers — and rightly so — but you might be surprised to learn that Macs do have the potential to be great gaming machines. Even portables like the MacBook can become high-end gaming rigs, thanks to the Wolfe.
Designer Joel Beebe has spent a good portion of his working life tied up in power cords so you don’t have to.
His latest solution is a MacBook accessory called the Hula Wrap, a leather sheath that helps organize your computer’s power cable.
The iPhone comes in handy on a long bike ride. You could record video of your trip, use GPS to find your way and track things like mileage and calories burned.
The rider just has to choose which function to use. A startup called Bycle has an answer to the question why not all of them?
You wanted the latest iPhone, but you could only afford the 16GB model. By the time you install some cool apps, load some songs and shoot some pictures and video, you can expect something else to appear on your screen: the Storage Almost Full message.
You can go through the sometimes frustrating task of backing everything up to the cloud or you could drop a dime on your iPhone — an i.dime, that is.
The i.dime is a dime-sized magnetic storage device that can add up to 256GB of additional space on an iPhone and functions much like a thumb drive. Backers can get a 32GB i.dime with a case for $63.
Pebble has stepped up its fight against Apple Watch and other wearables by announcing a pair of new smartwatches that finally pack built-in heart rate monitors. They’re called Pebble 2 and Pebble Time 2, and they’re big improvements over their predecessors.
The more I grow to love photography with an iPhone, the more I miss certain things about conventional cameras. Get a grip, you say? A grip is one of the things I am talking about.
miggo, innovative makers of camera bags, straps and mounts, brings to Kickstarter the Pictar, an ergonomic camera grip for the iPhone that also shifts cumbersome menu functions to five programmable wheels and buttons right at the tip of your shooting finger.
Most people don’t use a stylus with their iPhones, and late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs wouldn’t want them to. But the StylusFlex might change a few minds because it’s not simply a substitute for the five styli you have at the end of your arm.
You have plenty of reasons to just stick with your fingers when you’re using your iPhone or iPad, and this device seems to realize that. That’s why it does a few extra things that might help it earn its keep.
The development team at DoBox wants to make your iPad even more useful. This wireless box will let you connect a mouse, a wired keyboard, or even a printer to your iOS device (or Mac) and let you turn your iPad into even more of a productivity workhorse.
Check out the video below.
The great thing about power strips is that they let us run a bunch of devices despite a limited number of wall outlets. The bad thing about power strips is that that’s all they do.
And I didn’t even know that that was a downside, but I’ve just found out about Youmo, an upcoming product that makes every power strip I own look like complete garbage. I am absolutely exaggerating there; my power strips are both useful and attractive. But this new thing looks incredibly cool, too.
Today, the iPod shuffle you’ve been hoping for is getting a shot at life — no thanks to Apple. Mighty Audio is launching its Kickstarter campaign for the new Mighty streaming music player, a small clip-on device that can stream Spotify wherever you go without having to use your smartphone. A portable, affordable music player with streaming capabilities? Yes please.