An explosion in the number of devices connected
to the internet is expected over the next decade and in turn, our homes
will become increasingly "smart." With this in mind, Samsung has today
announced its own Smart Home service, which will provide home automation
via an app. Read More
Cutting the lawn can be a tedious chore, so
no-one wants to be doing it for longer than they must. The bods at Honda
obviously feel the same way. The Honda Mean Mower has broken a Guinness
World Record to become the world's fastest lawnmower. Read More
It's no secret that LED bulbs are far more
efficient than traditional incandescent lights. One drawback, though, is
a different look than the bulbs that people are accustomed to. Philips
has just launched a new clear LED bulb that features the traditional
light bulb shape and look, but with the efficiency benefits of modern
offerings. Read More
It's always useful to have fresh herbs to hand in
the kitchen, but they can easily wither if not well-fed and watered.
Click and Grow wanted to overcome this problem. Its Smart Herb Garden is
now available. It plugs into the wall and lets users grow their herbs
without having to lift a finger. Read More
Looking to add further functionality to its range of smartphone-controlled
hue LED light bulbs, Philips has announced a kinetic-powered switch to
extend control over color settings at times when your smart device might
be out of reach. Read More
Wireless technology and mobile gadgets have made
it easier for us to track and control our personal belongings. One of
the latest technologies being developed for this market connects not
only objects, but also the people who use them. OCHO Pad is a wired-up
tray that uses NFC or infrared technology not only to identify keys,
wallets, or phones, but also to mediate communication between members of
a household. Read More
We've got smart doorbells, smart locks and smart door handles,
so why not a smart doormat? Dr. Andrew Clark has created just such a
device called, surprisingly enough, the SmartMat. Designed to be placed
under a regular doormat, the SmartMat acts as a pressure sensor and
features Wi-Fi connectivity to allow actions to be triggered when
someone steps on it. Read More
While a mouthful of home-brewed beer delivers a
certain degree of satisfaction for hobbyists and expert craftsmen alike,
seeing the hops, yeast and water come together to create a refreshing
drop can take some serious know-how and even more serious man-hours.
BrewNanny is a device designed to help ease the burden by using built-in
sensors to monitor and offer guidance throughout the brewing process.
Read More
Given even the smallest opportunity to get
creative, kids will invariably take it. This is why modular furniture
designed to appeal exclusively to children is potentially such a good
idea. Olla is just that, offering children of all ages the opportunity
to build their own Lego-style furniture. Read More
Italian design firm Valcucine is looking to turn
its showroom at next month's Milan Design Week into a collaborative
space by seeking out 10 budding designers to workshop sustainable
modifications to its Meccanica kitchen concept. The "Kitchen Becomes
Open!" project is set to take place over six days and will fundamentally
be an open-source venture from start to finish. Participants will work
with a team of experts to develop ideas and ultimately make them freely
available for distribution and modification. Read More
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UK-based Green Spirit Creations is the latest
team to try its hand at paper-based lighting solutions. Seeking out
discarded materials from local shop-owners, its stylish household lamps
are made from 100 percent recycled cardboard (bulbs, wiring and switches
aside). Read More
GE/Quirky partnership releases smart airconditioner
By David Szondy
March 21, 2014
Air conditioners are a blessing in a hot climate,
but with their thermostat minds they’re almost like sticking a vacuum
cleaner in your wallet. To help remedy this, GE and Quirky
have launched the Aros smart air conditioner; the first major connected
appliance of the partnership. This Wi-Fi-enabled air conditioning unit
uses Quirky’s WINK app to learn its owner’s habits and adjust itself
accordingly, so it keeps the home cool without breaking the bank. Read More
Dreampad pillow delivers lullabys for your ears only
By Darren Quick
March 19, 2014
There are many people who find a little music
helps them drift off to sleep at night. Conversely, there are many
people who don't. The Dreampad from Integrated Listening could be just
the thing for couples with a foot in each camp. Read More
Placing guidelights up your hallway or down your
staircase can involve bulky plugin solutions or a professional and
expensive installation. SnapRays Guidelight, an easy-install outlet
cover with built-in LEDs, could simplify this process by turning any
standard power outlet into a night light without the need for re-wiring
or batteries. Read More
There's no two ways about it: your common or
garden sprinkler (so garden, in all probability) is a blithering
half-wit. Rain or no, if you don't turn it off, it'll water your lawn
whether it needs it or not, and much more besides. The Droplet wants to
change all that. A sort of "smart" water cannon, it knows which parts of
your garden to water, and when. Read More
We're all familiar with the sell-by dates stamped
on groceries. They're supposed to protect us, but in practice, they can
be a bit of a coin toss. Now a research team led by Chao Zhang of
Peking University in Beijing, China has come up with a color-coded smart
tag that uses nanotechnology to tell when the food or drugs in a
package are in danger of spoiling. Read More
Danish design firm Faco is offering a new take on
the hanging fruit bowl with Pluk, a space-saving spherical basket that
can be used to conveniently store apples, oranges, or anything else you
can fit inside its frame. Read More
Most people will have heard how bad it is for you
to sit all day. Inactivity can cause obesity, poor posture, and general
unhealthiness – which is why so many people are switching to using
standing desks at work or at home. The biggest problem is how expensive
they are to buy. We recently featured the UpStanding Desk,
which offered an affordable solution to this problem by converting your
existing desk from sitting to standing. The Cardboard Standing Desk
from Chairigami offers another, even more affordable, solution. Read More
A household full of smart, connected appliances
could have benefits beyond waking up in a toasty warm house to the smell
of freshly brewed coffee. As part of his Addicted Products project,
Italian product designer Simone Rebaudengo has created a connected
toaster that becomes unhappy when it goes unused, drawing attention to
areas where e-waste can be reduced. Read More
Gathering around a pit of intense heat and
vigilantly turning pieces of food at perfectly-timed intervals,
otherwise known as barbecuing, has to be one of man's longest and most
widely-held traditions. But from singed steaks to chorizo sausages and
wood chips to propane, everybody has a slightly different take on how to
deliver the perfect feast. As the warmer months approach for many of
our readers, and neighbors, friends and family prepare to don their
aprons and fire up the grill, Gizmag has smoked out 10 outdoor
entertaining innovations that will ensure your backyard cook-up is not
one to be missed. Read More
We have previously covered several innovative standing desks here at Gizmag, such as the XTable and UpWrite.
These have all required starting from scratch, which is usually a
costly endeavor. The UpStanding Desk offers a simpler and more
affordable way to switch from sitting to standing – it's a unit that
sits atop a normal desk or table, converting it into a functional
standing desk. Read More
People who love music can never quite get enough
of it. They often want to listen to it for most of the day, whether at
home, at work, or traveling between the two. Wireless speakers have
aided this endeavor for listening at home, but they're often ugly
objects you wouldn't want to have on display permanently – a problem
potentially solved by Soundwall. Read More
Measuring liquids in the kitchen while cooking
can quite easily spiral into spill-covered bench tops and a sink full of
dishes. The Liquidy-Split bottle is designed to avoid this with its
built-in dial for measuring different quantities. Read More
Toro's Recycler space-saving mower can be stored vertically
By Nick Lavars
February 27, 2014
Thinking vertically can add a whole new dimension
to our storage solutions, but there's a one clunky inhabitant of
garages around the world that doesn't particularly lend itself to an
upright way of life. Landscape equipment manufacturer Toro is looking
to solve this dilemma through its Recycler mower, a lawn mower designed
to be stored vertically without undesirable pools of oil and gas forming
underfoot. Read More
Electrolux Design Lab will open for entries this
Saturday. The theme for the 2014 competition centers on optimizing the
future home for healthy lifestyles, while minimizing impact on the
environment. Read More
Dormi turns Android devices into baby monitors
By Stu Robarts
February 18, 2014
Baby monitors are one of the multitude of things
that parents have to remember to pack when going away for a weekend, or
that they don't have to hand when visits with friends last longer than
expected. A new app solves this problem, for families with two or more
Android devices. Dormi replaces the need for a dedicated baby monitor by
turning one device into a transmitter that captures audio, and relays
it to one or more other receiver devices. Read More
Rekindle provides an (almost) infinite candle
By Dave Parrack
February 14, 2014
Candles never quite seem to last long enough, and
you're always left with a clump of useless wax to dispose of. Rekindle
from designer Benjamin Shine tackles these issues, helping to prevent
both mess and waste. Read More
LED-equipped cork turns wine bottles into lamps
By Ben Coxworth
February 12, 2014
There's an old camping trick, for people who
don't want to bother getting a lantern: just stick a flashlight up
against the bottom of a plastic pop bottle, turn the flashlight on, then
bask in the bottle's glow. Now you can do the same sort of thing with
wine bottles, using suckUK's bottlelight. Read More
Dupe creates "biological concrete" from sand, bacteria and urine
By Stu Robarts
February 12, 2014
With energy production and raw material shortages
becoming increasingly pertinent issues around the world, designer Peter
Trimble has demonstrated a radical method of manufacture that addresses
both issues. Dupe is a portable machine that uses a mixture of sand,
bacteria and urine to create a material called biostone. The machine is a
proof-of-concept design only and is currently set up to create a small
stool, but the method can be adapted to create just about anything. Read More
Pillow nudges sleepers when they begin to snore
By Nick Lavars
February 11, 2014
The Snore Activated Nudging Pillow hopes to
defuse late-night altercations by automatically delivering a gentle
nudge to snorers when the noise levels start to escalate. Read More
VidaPak produces hot and cold drinks from the same unit
February 11, 2014
Coffee machines have become a fixture of many
offices and homes, but how about a machine that can mix and dispense
cold drinks, saving all those plastic bottles? A team of inventors based
in Tampa, Florida, have developed the prototype of a machine that does
just that. Called VidaPak, the Keurig coffeemaker-like unit can
refrigerate and heat to serve both cold and hot drinks. Read More
Ever wished you had an extra set of eyes on the
cookie jar, or somebody making sure the kids aren't sneaking out of
their bedrooms when its time to do homework? Looking to help out with
these and a whole host of common parenting duties is Sammy Screamer, a
small movement sensor that sends out alerts when it detects motion. Read More
Karton offers recycled cardboard creations for home furniture
By Nick Lavars
February 3, 2014
It's generally only when its time to pack up and
move house that the typical homeowner encounters large quantities of
cardboard. In bicycle helmets and vacuum cleaners, however, we have seen some innovative applications
for the material beyond its use as lightweight and durable packaging.
Karton, a cardboard furniture company offering everything from beds to
room dividers, takes a similar approach, yet aims to go beyond the novel
and make its paper constructions a charming and practical part of your
living solution. Read More
Cordless Airgun shoots air into your inflatables
By Ben Coxworth
January 31, 2014
Need to pump up a ball, bike tire or whatnot, but
don't feel like doing a lot of manual pumping? You could take the item
up to your local gas station and use its compressor, but Airman is
hoping that you'll use its Airgun instead. Read More
Piper monitors security and automates your home
By Stu Robarts
January 29, 2014
Blacksumac, a developer of remote presence-based
smart technology, has announced the US and Canada launch of Piper, a
home security and automation device. It allows users to monitor and
interact with their home via a smartphone or tablet. Read More
Toshiba's smart mirror concept puts the future on display
By Eric Mack
January 23, 2014
Every now and then we get demonstrations of
really innovative new technologies and concepts that almost no one has
any chance of being able to own anytime soon. The best place to undergo
this particular form of torture is at the International Consumer
Electronics Show in Las Vegas. This year at CES, a really fantastic
"smart mirror" concept from Toshiba fit the bill. Read More
Some people sure like their Keurig coffee
brewers, although the things are a major steps backwards,
environmentally-speaking – for every cup of java that's made, another
coffee mix-containing "K-Cup" is used and disposed of. Ekobrew's
Stainless Steel Elite K-Cup, however, can be refilled with ground coffee
and used over and over. Read More
Cimagine introduces true markerless augmented reality system
By Paul Ridden
January 20, 2014
When you want to augment a digital image creation
onto the real world, you'll likely need to point your smart device's
camera at the kind of markers found in Sony's TV Size Guide tool or on the front cover of magazines like Esquire. IKEA took this idea a step further by making its 2014 catalog
the marker, but a new system from Israel's Cimagine Media uses a tablet
or smartphone camera and sensors to position the virtual object in a
room without the need for physical markers. Read More
Lack of progress toward an "Internet of Things"
has been attributed to a variety of factors. Indeed, enabling devices
from different manufacturers to communicate in an effective and useful
manner is no simple task. European start-up Relayr believes that its
WunderBar, a hardware kit comprised of seven smart modules, could
provide app developers with the toolbox to bring networks of
interoperating gadgets closer to reality. Read More
ModCubes: The LEGO bricks of modular furniture
By Dave Parrack
January 15, 2014
Modular furniture – that is, furniture than can
be adapted to suit changing needs – is becoming an increasingly common
concept. One company has gone right back to basics, and designed
building blocks for an extensive range of modular furniture. These
building blocks are called ModCubes, and when combined together they
form pieces of furniture known as ModRoomz. The word LEGO is nowhere to
be seen, but the Danish toy company deserves at least a small nod of
appreciation. Read More
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