elemoon
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This Bluetooth bangle lights up to match your outfit, tells you when you miss a call
Need to have notifications on your wrist, but worried that a standard smartwatch will clash with your personal sense of style? Have you tried a smart bangle? There's one on Kickstarter if it suits your needs. Elemoon is a large, LED-laden bracelet that connects to your phone via Bluetooth - it's designed to straddle the line between fashionable and functional, with a heavy lean on the former. The device doesn't have a display as such, but can use a small grid of multicolored LEDs to display custom, low resolution notification icons. If the wearable's Kickstarter pledges are anything to go by, however, it's a little expensive for what it does.
Crowdfunding Roundup: Blinks and Tickles
Each week, TUAW provides readers with an update on new or significant crowdfunded Apple-related projects in the news. While our policy is to not go into detail on items that haven't reached at least 80 percent of their funding goal, this update is designed to give readers a heads-up on projects they might find interesting enough to back. Blink is a very affordable and easy to set up wireless HD home monitoring and alert system that shows you HD video, detects motion and also provides temperature readings, all though an app on your iPhone or iPad. Being battery powered means it's truly wire-free, so you can place the Blink boxes anywhere you want -- the battery lasts for more than a full year. Expected to ship in May of 2015, the Blink devices are part of a project that is already 287 percent funded with almost three weeks to go. A lot of wearable tech has a problem -- it's ugly as sin. elemoon is quite a bit different in that it's actually fashionable. The device changes colors to match your outfit, has a gold or silver wristband, and does amazing things! Rub it to find your iPhone, receive notifications silently through displayed icons, and track your activity. The project is close to 39 percent funded with 43 days to go. Check it out: Sous Vide is a method of cooking food by placing it in a vacuum-sealed bag, then immersing it in water at a precise temperature for an exact amount of time. It produces tender and perfectly-cooked meals, and now the Nomiku Sous Vide project wants everyone to join in on the fun. The project is 164 percent funded with just under a month to go, but you still have an opportunity to be one of the first to use the Nomiku Sous Vide device, controlling your cooking from your iPhone. This next project should be right up Dave Caolo's alley -- my fellow TUAW editor is a huge fan of board and card games, and Boss Monster aims to bring its dungeon-building card game to iOS. The project has about a month to go and is currently 35 percent funded. If you love games, this should be a fun project to back. Like the Blink discussed above, GeckoEye is another Wi-Fi security camera that sticks to the wall and is battery-powered. This one also recharges itself via solar cells on the casing, a feature that actually puts it ahead of the Blink in my mind. However, there's one little issue -- GeckoEye is only 10 percent funded with 19 days left in its Indiegogo campaign. Finally, if there's one crowd-funded project that you decide to back this week, make it Tickle. This project is designed to teach kids programming using Scratch on the iPad, a process the Tickle team says is as "fun and easy as playing with LEGOs". Tickle has a good start on fundraising, with 34 percent funding with 25 days to go. That's it for this week. We'll be back next Thursday for another roundup of crowdfunded projects that you can support or ignore. Many thanks again to Hal Sherman for providing some tips about new and exciting projects, and if you're aware of any other crowdfunded Apple-related projects, be sure to let us know about them through the Tip Us button at the upper right of the TUAW home page for future listing on the site.
