Home to some of the most imaginative and ambitious tech ideas, we pick out our favourite crowdfunding projects of the month from the likes of Kickstarter and Indiegogo.
Whether you want to build the world’s first hoverboard, an umbrella made of air, or a smartring, the likes of Kickstarter and Indiegogo have a captive audience willing to put their money where your mouth is.
Some have enjoyed great success like the Oculus Rift and Pebble, others like Ouya, perhaps not so much. As developers pitch ideas to a virtual equivalent of Dragon's Den, we will select five projects each month we think has the legs to get funded.
So read on to see our pick of the ccurrently active crowdfunding pitches vying for your money.
Seen a great project we missed? Let us know in the comments section below
Powerlace auto-lacing shoe technology
Remember that bit in Back to the Future II where Marty puts on his “futuristic” (2015!) Nike trainers? You might recall that they came with power laces, automatically tightening up when he inserted his feet.
That’s pretty much the technology being proposed by the company behind Powerlace, which has a project running on Kickstarter right now.
The company is seeking 650,000 Canadian dollars (roughly £360,000) to fund its idea. It already has working prototypes of the technology up and running (pun unintended).
While not as cool as Marty McFly’s Nikes, the Powerlace system is mighty clever. It works without batteries, utilising the wearer’s own weight to activate a pressure pad inserted into the rear of the shoe, which in turn tightens the lace system.
Okay, so the shoes themselves don’t look too hot, but you have to applaud the idea. And possibly even fund it.
Link: Powerlace Kickstarter page
Bluesmart smart carry-on
Have you ever wished that your carry-on luggage was smarter? Okay, so you probably haven’t. But once you’ve seen the Bluesmart pitch over on Indiegogo, you might well start to.
This rugged carry-on suitcase hooks up to your smartphone to provide useful information and a bunch of genuinely helpful features.
You can lock and unlock the suitcase remotely (and it’ll lock automatically when it leaves your side), weigh it, and track it (no more lost or stolen luggage).
You can also have it send you a notification when you leave it behind, which should come in handy on those occasions where you get into the holiday spirit a little too readily at the departure lounge bar. The final killer feature here is the Bluesmart’s ability to charge your smartphone six times with its built-in battery, which could prove a life saver in a number of holiday/airport mishap situations.
The Bluesmart project has already burst well through its $50,000 (about £32,000) target many times over - it’s currently at more than $1.3 million. However, you can still get in early and ensure a final unit for $280 (£180), which is 40 per cent less than the expected retail price.
Link: Bluesmart Indiegogo page
iPac-Man two-in-one iPhone charger and gamepad
The trouble with smartphone gamepads is that, regardless of how compact you make them, they’re still an additional, somewhat superfluous THING to carry around with you. Yes, they can make mobile games play better (or certain traditional genres at any rate), but they’re just not useful for enough of the time to be worth it.
That’s why we’re really digging the simple concept behind the iPac-Man. Not only is it a working eight-button Bluetooth gamepad (complete with miniature analogue nubbins for those first person shooters) for your iPhone or iPad, but it also doubles as a portable charger.
The 6,000mAh battery at its heart will be good for four complete iPhone recharges. What’s more, with both USB and micro USB ports, you can charge two devices at once.
Again, the iPac-Man has already made its (rather low) goal of $1000 (£640) three times over with two months to go, but commit $49 (£31) now and you’ll receive an iPac-Man charger at the alleged manufacturing cost. There’s also a mounting device available for $19 (£12).
Link: iPac-Man Indiegogo page
Andromium smartphone desktop dock
We’ll admit to being a little dubious about this one, but it’s certainly an interesting idea if nothing else.
The Andromium is essentially a little dock that turns your Android smartphone into a desktop computer. It's been conceived and developed by former senior Google engineer Gordon Zheng, who has built a lightweight OS from scratch that incorporates design elements from Windows 7 and OS X. This allows you to execute simple desktop tasks such as document editing, web browsing, game playing and the like, and multitasking is supported. Meanwhile the Andromium dock will pull in all your phone’s usual notifications. It also has three USB ports for any accessories you might want to plug in.
We can see the appeal of cutting your travel bag down to just a phone and a small box, but is the Andromium really a match for a MacBook Air or an Ultrabook when it comes down to power, productivity, and even convenience given the all-in-one nature of such established devices?
If you’re interested enough to find out, the Kickstarter project is set to run for another month or so. At the time of writing it had made just over $22,000 (Roughly £14,000) of its $100,000 (£64,000) goal.
Link: Andromium Kickstarter page
MIYO digital-to-analogue audio converter
MIYO is one for the audiophiles out there, as well as those who just don’t get on with the jagged edges of modern digital sound.
It’s a highly portable digital-to-analogue converter wrapped up in a pretty, durable aluminium shell.It’s been built by a small team of music industry veterans with credibility to spare. They have spent the best part of a year designing and developing the MIYO, and it shows - this is is a neat plug and play device that simply features a USB port for hooking up to your computer, two headphone outputs, and a stereo input.
From these humble ingredients, the MIYO team claims that you can get the kind of sound quality your could only previously experience from bulky professional equipment worth $5,000 or more.
With such a polished, attractive pitch, it’s no surprise that the MIYO has reached its $20,000 (roughly £13,000) Kickstarter goal with plenty of time to spare. The Early Bird offers are all gone, but you can still pick up a MIYO shortly after its launch in March 2015 by pledging its $250 (£160) cost.
Link: MIYO Kickstarter page