Seven great Kickstarter gadget projects

Kickstarter is great for gadgets. It’s the site that started the crowdfunding revolution – in which rather than have to go cap-in-hand to investors, would be able to raise the cash themselves from the general public. Given how cutting edge it is, it’s no surprise that technology is one of the website’s strengths. Here’s our pick of seven Kickstarter gadgets to look out for.

Michron: Timelapse for Everyone

Michron is an intervalometer – a device commonly found on posh cameras to trigger photo timings, and take timelapse photos and that sort of thing. What Michron does differently is that it doesn’t have buttons or a screen – that’d be far too fiddly. Instead, it’s programmed via an app for iPhone or Android. You simply plug the device into your phone (into the headphone port!), tell it what to do – and then plug it into your camera, and it will take photos with the settings that you’ve told it to. Brilliant – and much less fiddly than pressing buttons and hoping for the best.

ROCKI Wifi Music System

If you’re looking for a wireless music system for your home and a Sonos is out of your price range, then the Rocki could be exactly what you need. Rather than sell you whole new speakers and speaker system, the Rocki Play is a wifi receiver device that plugs into the RCA or 3.5mm jack input on your existing speaker systems – be it the hifi in the living room or the smaller radio in the kitchen. The Rocki app will then let you control music playing in your house in a similar way to Sonos – choosing what plays in different rooms, and what device the music is coming from – and different members of your household will be able to control the music too using an app on their phone.

Neptune Pine

One of the most famous early Kickstarter successes was the Pebble, a smartwatch that took the deliberate deicision to be stripped down – using a Kindle-style e-ink display, and requiring tethering to your smartphone for data. The Neptune Pine by contrast goes completely the other way – and puts a fully functioning Android Jelly Bean device on your wrist.

Needless to say, it’s a bit of a beast – 2.4″ screen, a 1.2ghz CPU, wifi, 3G… there’s no corners cut here. There’s a 5 megapixel rear camera, for when you take the Pine from it’s wrist mount – and use it to take photos. Examples on the Kickstarter page also show it mounted to a bike helmet for use as a bike camera. And there’s even a front-facing VGA camera, for use when Skyping, for the fully Dick Tracy effect.

There’s also built in fitness analytics: gyroscope, accelerometer, pedometer and digital compass, so you can also wave goodbye to your Nike fuelband.

The only awkward thing is that it’s so large you risk looking a bit like Leela from Futurama.

Snooperscope

Ever wanted to see in the dark? The Snooperscope will turn your phone into a gadget fit for a utility belt. It’s pretty clever – it doesn’t actually use your phone’s existing camera, but instead is a separate wireless device that can be mounted on your phone – which will beam pictures back via wifi, to be viewed in the Snooperscope app. This means you can shoot nightvision video, take pictures and more. It apparently even works in pitch black conditions.

The Kickstarter page does a good job of highlighting the sorts of things that it can see – including detecting fine particles (ideal if you have to climb through a laser system when breaking into the bad guy’s lair), and you can even blink more code to your colleagues if both of you have a scope.

And the best bit, of course, is that you’ll never have to snipe blind again – and I think that’s a problem we can all relate to.

Woojer

Woojer sits between your music device and your headphones, and generates vibrations in time with the music so you can really feel the music too – presumably it will make a dubstep even more intense (just be careful if you have a weak heart). Personally – I’m a little sceptical of the talk of “acoustic meridians” (does it work better depending on your horoscope too?), but it’s an interesting way of augmenting the musical experience.

And we’re certain that it’ll only be used for 100% clean and above-board purposes.

Quebee

Ever looked back at your holiday photos only to see that they’re all just of your other half? Did you even go too? Quebee aims to solve the problem of wanting to take photos and shoot video… but wanting to be in it too.

It’s a little wireless camera that connects to your smartphone, which you then use as a control panel. On the phone you can setup all of the settings – choose timelapse, or timed shot or whatever, and then you simply set the Quebee down to look at you, and snap away.

The camera itself is a “full HD camera” with a wide angle lens. It’s water resistant, and has a built in mic and speaker for video purposes, and will last up to 5 hours when recording video, or 48 hours if you’re shooting a timelapse. If there’s a wifi connection it will even automatically upload your videos to the cloud for you.

The app can view the live stream, and can even control multiple cameras – as well as geotag photos and videos.

Unfortunately it’s still early days (well, this is Kickstarter) – so if you want one you’ll have to wait until late 2014.