Awesome Stuff: Tech At Home
from the no-place-like... dept
For this week's awesome stuff, we're looking at some crowdfunded technology that stays put in your house and makes life a little easier.
SnapPower Charger
In-wall USB power outlets are one of those little details that everyone would love to have but rarely seem worth the effort to actually make happen. The SnapPower Charger aims to make them a little more accessible by taking the "hard" out of hard-wired: rather than requiring the installation of a whole new specialized outlet, the SnapPower is simply a faceplate with a clever USB extension that draws its power from the screws on a regular wall outlet. Unfortunately, it's currently limited to a 1A current for charging regular smartphones but not high-power tablets, phablets and the like — but the creators are looking into creating a 2.1A model in the future.
Wakē
There have been lots of attempts to redesign the alarm clock over the years, with any number of products promising the most peaceful and/or un-ignorable wakeup call possible. I can't speak to the success of those, or of this, but the Wakē does offer something novel: a solution for the problem, in shared beds, of being woken up by your partner's alarm. Mounted to the wall above the bed and controlled by smartphone, this two-person alarm clock uses an infrared body heat sensor and a parametric speaker to locate one of two users and direct its stream of music and lights towards them and them alone.
Neobase
One thing that bothers me about a lot of cool modern tech, including a lot of fledgling projects on Kickstarter, is a near-total reliance on remote servers and web services for storage, processing and control, even when it's not clear that this approach is at all necessary for the task at hand. So it's nice to see something like the Neobase, which is all about doing the exact opposite. It's a compact, all-in-one server and network drive that runs its own custom-built Facebook-like software, so you can set up your own completely private social network. It's entirely self-contained and doesn't store anything on any third-party servers, but you can access it from anywhere via encrypted connections. There are some limitations to this, certainly, both by design and by virtue (or curse) of reliable broadband availability, but I'm excited to see such devices move beyond the generic "personal cloud" offerings and into more specialized and powerful out-of-the-box solutions like this.
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Filed Under: alarm clock, awesome stuff, social media, usb
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screws?
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Re: screws?
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Re: Re: screws?
Ah, OK, so if you've got back wired instead of side wired outlets you've got to change out your outlets first. Want a genius idea. Not. It think I'll just stick with plug-in chargers.
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Re: Re: Re: screws?
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My house was built in 1962 and has a mix of outlets and their covers worked on all but one - and that was because the box was bent.
As far as a fire hazard - since the contacts are inside the electrical box, there is no more risk than any of the other wiring in the box. These are all fully approved for home use, installed as easily as replacing the face plate, and the night lights at least are great.
I'd be surprised if these didn't become the standard for home use in the very near future.
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Wakē
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Re: Wakē
"Wakē's parametric speaker has a very narrow beam, however the sound it directs at someone can bounce off their cheeks, nose or forehead and create a little sound bleed, although it is many times quieter. "
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Re: Re: Wakē
To be loud enough to reliably wake a very sound sleeper while not disturbing a very light sleeper a few inches away it would almost have to be "magical".
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Response to: Anonymous Coward on Apr 4th, 2015 @ 12:51pm
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Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on Apr 4th, 2015 @ 12:51pm
Really if you want to be pedantic you want to unplug your sensitive equipment when running heavy duty equipment or during lightning storms altogether and the next best thing would be to go to your power box and use that to trace which outlets associate with which switches and keep heavy machinery on different circuits than those of sensitive equipment. But who's gonna do all that. But having a blender on the same outlet as a sensitive USB device is a much more obvious no no and is much more likely to degrade or even ruin your sensitive devices.
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Re: Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on Apr 4th, 2015 @ 12:51pm
http://www.amazon.com/Top-Greener-Charger-Receptacle-Tamper/dp/B00IAZIU5Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8& amp;qid=1428180690&sr=8-1&keywords=outlet+usb
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Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on Apr 4th, 2015 @ 12:51pm
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Re: Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on Apr 4th, 2015 @ 12:51pm
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Also, it didn't occur to me before, but the raised portion at the bottom of their plate, where the USB outlet is, will block the use of a "wallwart" power supply in the lower outlet. You could turn it upside down, but then it would block the upper outlet.
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USB Power Outlets
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Re: USB Power Outlets
It's a wonder why no one, it seems, makes a telephone-line-to-USB power adapter, so people could recharge their batteries in emergencies during power outages (telephones use their own electric source). It's quite simple DC-to-DC transformer, though no doubt the telephone company would not appreciate people using their free electricity for non-approved uses.
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Re: Re: USB Power Outlets
1) The available power is very little, below that required to make much progress charging a device. That is why DSL modems etc. need their own power supply.
2) Drawing power is the same as taking the phone off of the hook.
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But if that happened, no one would have a right to complain, because after all, as we are constantly told, Kickstarter is a tip jar, nothing more.
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Burning down the house
Any electrical connection that is not mechanical will ARC
Spark and Burn eventually .
Best for insurance scams and removing tenants you don't like
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Kickstarter quality has gone down
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