TL:DR Technology based Crowd Funding is mostly a scam these days.
Link to the reddit thread
Link to relevant YouTube video
I got bored browsing /r/videos. When the title "6 Major Futuristic Tech You Can Buy Now!" caught my attention. Let me save you some time. Not only is there no new tech, you can't buy any of it. It's all indiegogo campaigns. Some of it's terrible, some of it is just flat out scams. Why did I spend my evening on this? Because someone on the internet was Wrong.
Figured i'd post it here, in case Linus ever decides to revive Kickfarted. Here's some free ammunition.
OK, let's rain on this parade.
First thing: Hayo. It's an "augmented reality switch device" Which is to say, It's an xbox kinect. It appears to be using a couple cameras to read depth, and responds to preprogrammed commands. Things like "Virtual buttons" Touch a spot on your coffee table, your lights turn on.
Doesn't seem like you can buy it right now, video makes it sound like a kickstarter. Even if you could, there's no way this thing works nearly as well as advertised. First, you have occlusion as a problem. It can't see through you, and therefor can't see you "press a virtual button" if you or something else is in the way. Next, you'd have massive false positives, a virtual button on your coffee table would get set off accidentally by putting any object there. That's assuming the depth perception on this thing would even be good enough, and wouldn't just freak out every time any object passed in front of the target area. While they don't state it directly, the video implies gesture control. Good luck with those tiny cameras having enough resolution to register gestures, the software to recognize them, and the parsing to filter out people who talk with their hands.
Item 1: Hayo, Verdict, NO NEW TECH. Not even available for purchase. Definitely won't integrate with all the services they claim.
Second thing: Rocketbook Everlast. An erasable notebook with cloud integration. Write some stuff in it, scan it with their app, it gets uploaded to your app of choice, book is erasable.
Hrm. Well, this is really two things, so we'll tackle them separately. It's an app that scans your notebook pages, and notebook pages that are erasable.
The app is, well, let's be real it's nothing special. It's a cool idea, Write some stuff down and scan it, upload it to whatever app you use to take notes. But, wait, you're using an app to manage your notes. Why don't you just write it in that app? The argument of, well I just needed to jot it down quickly on this napkin, doesn't work, because you need to use special pages with QR codes. If there was say, a reusable QR code sticker or something I could see this being useful, but it just adds extra steps to taking notes.
Next, the notebook itself. I liked the "Any pen from the Pilot FriXion line", because it's not using proprietary "You have to buy them from us" pens. Then I looked up what the Pilot FriXion line of pens is, their standard erasable pens. Admittedly, the "paper" for the pages is some fancy material that allows the ink to be washed off with water, instead of an eraser, saving a small amount of work, I guess? But, don't we write in pen because we Don't want things to be erased? That aside, they claim the fancy material these pages are made from feel the same as paper for writing purposes. I seriously doubt anything with low enough friction for the ink to be wiped off would feel the same, but I'll have to take their word. What I can speculate on is the durability of those pages. No way a ballpoint pen doesn't leave damage to those pages after repeated use. They claim "Thousands" of uses, but that's just not possible. Especially when you're talking about running a Metal ballpoint pen, on a Polyester page.
Item 2: Rocketbook Everlast: Page material is new, the app offers no new tech. Product probably works as advertised but I have serious doubts about longevity, and no idea what use case this has. Not bad.
Third thing: uArm swift/pro. An open source robot arm, aimed at hobbyists and educational use. Regular arm does 500g and 5mm accuracy, pro version does 500g and 0.2mm accuracy. Indiegogo, NOT AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE.
Robot arms aren't new. Open source, not new. However, something like this for small scale automation or projects is. Unfortunately, there have been a lot of these "Home Robotics Kits" hitting the market in the last two years. They all suffer from Terrible, Horrible, Unusable programming languages, buggy software, and lacking support. I do like that they've included advanced programming options for people that don't want to use the "Graphical programming interface".
The accuracy on the arms is terrible. Even the pro version. 0.2mm doesn't sound like a lot, but it adds up when each action performed can alter where the next action happens by 0.2mm. 500g is a lot of weight for something that small with that type of armature, I'd expect a lot of Flex in that arm, throwing precision off even further.
It's an expensive toy that children won't play with, and any adult capable programming it probably wouldn't use. If you had the required skills to program and use something like this, doing it with an arduino would be much more efficient, offer better expandability, and a larger and existing community for support.
Item 3: uArm swift/pro. No new tech, maybe new in the sense that it's available to consumers, except that anyone who could actually use this would be able to build one themselves from scratch. NOT AVAILABLE FOR SALE, Indiegogo campaign.
Fourth thing: Fingbox. It's a network monitoring and security....box. Another indiegogo.
Well, their first claim is bullshit right out the door. They claim you can just plug it into your router, and that's all. OK, well let's assume it also needs to be plugged in, despite the prototype on screen not having a power cable.
The more I think about this the more offended I get that people are giving them money.
First, there's no way it can do half of what it claims. Monitoring individual devices and and restricting access. No. Period, it can't. At least not in the way they've suggest it be installed. Even if this thing could talk to the router, and they'd have to make it compatible with thousands of routers, it would take a lot of setup, way more than someone who needs a device like this could do. Anyone who could get a device like this working in the way they've demonstrated it, wouldn't need a device like to police their network.
Next, their entire claim of "free forever" "no subscription". Yeah, bullshit. Even if this thing could do what it claims, which it can't, it needs to send notifications to your devices. Now it's possible to do this over WiFi, even if I've never seen an app actually implement it properly. But here's the thing, it would Only work over WiFi, which means I wouldn't be able to detect intruders on my network, or monitor the PS4's use while I'm away from home, completely defeating the point of existing since I can walk into the damn living room and see whether or not the PS4's in use. If instead it's communicating over the internet, then your notifications are going through their servers. Which means they can, at any point, decide to start charging for this service. It certainly won't be "Free Forever" because they'll either decide to start charging, or go out of business, and then it all stops working anyway.
Item 4: Fingbox. No new tech at all, Cannot possibly do what is advertised, Even if it did work anyone capable of installing it wouldn't need it, but that's okay because it's NOT AVAILABLE FOR SALE.
Fifth thing: NextVPU Angel Eye Glasses. It's glasses that help the blind get around by warning them of obstacles, and providing directions.
Oh man, this is such a scam it's funny.
We can break this down into two things, a bluetooth headset, and the actual Augmented Reality stuff.
It's a bluetooth headset. It's not new. The prototype actually looks like it's hooked up with a cable to an unseen device, presumably a smartphone or small computer. It's relaying directions to a visually impaired person. Yeah, unless they intend to remap the entire world, it's just pulling walking directions from google maps or some other existing map source. Nothing new here, and kind of useless to someone who can't see since GPS only puts you within 15 meters on a good day.
Next, the augmented reality stuff. It's all nonsense, is my opinion. We see it Claim to be able to do the following: Determine what denomination of currency is held in front of it, Detect stairs going up or down, and warn users of red lights, and read a menu. OK, Denomination of currency, given good lighting, I can see this working, I don't know about chinese money like in the video, however Canadian money has indentations specifically for this purpose, rendering this feature worthless. Detecting stairs, and red lights. Oh wow, NO WAY. Firstly, the camera has no way to determine Which red light source is a red light. After that, the problems involved in detecting stairs are ludicrous, I don't see any way for it to do that with the limited cameras on board. But that's ignoring the largest factor, Liability. Even if it could, they couldn't sell it with that feature, no company would insure them for the kind of liability that happens when your glasses tell a blind person it's okay to walk into traffic. The problem there really comes when the camera fails to detect a red light. Such nonsense.
Item 5: NextVPU Angel Eye Glasses, No new tech, could only do about half what they claim, doesn't solve any problem that a bluetooth headset and a smartphone together haven't solved. NOT AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE (And probably never will be thanks to glaring liability issues)
Last thing: Livia. An electrical device to reduce menstrual pain. On indiegogo.
Disclosure, I don't have lady bits, and therefor only have limited knowledge. I do however not need to be a lady to point out some obvious problems. Funny ad though. I can't believe it's 1000% funded.
OK, so it uses two electrical pads, hooked up to a colourful unit. The pads are placed on the lower abdomen, and claim to reduce pain by "blocking the pain signals between your brain and your lady bits". First, No. No it doesn't. If it was, there'd be all sorts of fun side effects like PARALYSIS OF THE LADY BITS. Even then, if we could block pain this way, the medical field would be using it instead of anesthetic. It's clearly an electrical muscle stimulator.
Now, it's possible that controlled electric stimulation of muscles could ease cramping. However this is where my knowledge ends, not ever having had to experience this sort of cramping. I do however know the last time I was hooked up to something like this, my muscles seized immediately, and the whole experience was for me rather unpleasant. Could this device Uncramp muscles? I don't know. But it certainly doesn't do what it claims by "blocking pain signals", so I have a hard time believing it works at all.
Item 6: Livia, Doesn't do what it claims, whether it works at All I can't be certain, but it's NOT AVAILABLE FOR SALE.
TL:DR Technology based Crowd Funding is mostly a scam these days.
