At any given moment, there are approximately a zillion different crowdfunding campaigns happening on the web. Take a stroll through Kickstarter or Indiegogo and you’ll find no shortage of weird, useless, and downright stupid projectsout there – alongside some real gems. We’ve cut through the fidget spinners and jankyiPhone cases to round up the most unusual, ambitious, and exciting new crowdfunding projects out there this week. That said, keep in mind that any crowdfunding project — even the best intentioned — can fail, so do your homework before cutting a check for the gadget of your dreams.
BoxLock Home — anti-porch pirate padlock
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Amazon recently rolled out a new program called Amazon Key — a service that allows delivery people to enter your house and place packages inside, where they’re safe from so-called “porch pirates,” otherwise known as assholes that steal stuff that is left on your doorstep. The only problem with Amazon’s approach? Well, you have to give delivery people access to the inside of your house — which raises obvious concerns for most of us. But what if there was a way to protect your parcels from thieves without giving strangers access to your house?
That’s exactly what the BoxLock Home aims to achieve. The device is essentially an internet-connected, app-enabled padlock that’s equipped with a barcode scanner. You’ll need to provide your own lock box, but after that, it’s outrageously simple to use. Upon arrival, your delivery person simply lifts the lock and uses it to scan the package they’re hoping to deliver. So long as the package is legit, and scheduled for delivery on that day, BoxLock will unlock — thereby allowing the delivery person to place it inside your box, and re-lock the padlock to secure it. Check out the video for details.
Somnox — robotic pillow
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Ever had trouble getting to sleep at night? You’re not alone. Millions of people across the globe suffer from some form of sleep deprivation, and a large percentage of the population reports difficulty falling asleep. For most, the answer is sleeping pills or other pharmaceuticals that knock you out for the night. But what if you could achieve the same effect without putting unnecessary chemicals in your body? Well, that’s exactly what Somnox aims to do. It’s a soft, pillow-like robot that lulls you to sleep with rhythmic breathing and calming sounds.
“Our company was started in the robotics institute of the University of Technology Delft,” Julian Jagtenberg, one of the Netherlands-based founders of Somnox, told Digital Trends’ Luke Dormehl in an interview. “As four robotics engineers, we wanted to create a soft robot that could solve a personal issue: That of sleep deprivation.”
Jagtenberg said the team started by looking at ways to solve the problem, but most of them seemed to involve medication — sometimes with addictive side effects. “This was the moment the Somnox sleep robot was born,” he said.
Luminoodle Task — flexible utility light
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A couple of years ago, a startup by the name of Power Practical launched a ridiculously successful Kickstarter campaign for a versatile string of LED lights called the Luminoodle. About a year after that initial launch, the company returned to Kickstarter with a refresh, offering two new Luminoodles that were brighter and more colorful than ever before. But Power Practical isn’t stopping there. This week, the company took to Kickstarter to launch yet another noodle-like LED utility light — and this one is the brightest and most versatile yet.
The Luminoodle Task, as it’s called, is “an ultra-thin, bendable, 3,600-lumen work light that wraps, magnets, and snakes where you need it most.” Unlike its predecessors, the Task light is equipped with magnets on either end, as well as a pair of oversized loops, making it a breeze to hang, secure, and reposition on the fly. It’s basically the most flexible, portable work light ever.
“We designed the Luminoodle Task to bend to your will, tack on to any metal surface, pack up small and easy, and fill any room with natural-looking, feel-good light,” the creators explain on Kickstarter.
Unico — ultrafast tooth brushing device
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Tired of all the squeezing, scrubbing, spitting, rinsing, gargling, and flossing required to keep your pearly whites clean? For decades now, your only recourse from this mildly laborious task has been the electric toothbrush. But while these automatically oscillating tooth scrubbers are definitely a step in the right direction, they still don’t remove all the tediousness and time consumption from the act of brushing your teeth. What if there was a way to get the same job done, achieve the same level of cleanliness, and do it in a fraction of the time?
Enter the Unico brush, the first fully automatic toothbrush that (allegedly) finishes the job in just three seconds, giving you more time to do … well, anything else. Here’s how it works. The device itself is essentially a big, bristly mouthpiece. You start by placing it in your mouth and switching it on, at which point it oscillates at a high frequency and scrubs your pearly whites with an array of moving bristles. While this happens, micro-channels built into the mouthpiece deliver toothpaste directly to where it’s needed. The whole process allegedly takes just three seconds, with claims that it cleans your teeth just as thoroughly as normal brushing.
Snow White — snow scooter
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What do you get when you mix a snowboard, a mountain bike, and a Razor scooter? We don’t know the answer to that question — but we assume that if such an unholy union were consummated, the resulting offspring would probably look a lot like this ridiculous contraption from Gravity Scooters. It’s basically the most tricked-out snow scooter you’ve ever laid eyes on.
With big handlebars, a wide standing platform, and a low learning curve, “Snow-White instantly let’s you enjoy the amazing feeling of skiing, snowboarding and being on a board without having previous experience of skiing or riding a bike.”
“We have created a snow kit that can be mounted on a mountain scooter of Gravity Scooters brand,” Judith Garcia, managing director of Gravity Scooter, told Digital Trends in an interview. “With our snow scooter, you can surf the mountains.
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