Thank you crowdsource funding sites for acting as virtual patrons to this recent renaissance of hardware and device hacking. Based on watching the occasional gadget startup bravely pitch to skeptical, hardware-phobic angels and VCs, I’d say that Kickstarter and Indiegogo are a far better alternative for them and a good way to get their brand out into the market.
Max Virtual, a Delaware-based startup that I first spotted at CE Week in June, is yet another small company that has decided to take that route. Last week, I received an email about an Indiegogo project to raise $70,000 for their bone conducting hearing product, known as Cynaps. For those with partial hearing loss due to conductivity issues–the web page explains this in more detail–Cynaps’s sound transducer band will restore hearing. I’ll affirm that Cynaps performed well during my brief testing at their CE Week booth.
Since I last saw them, they’ve become very creative with their different product bundlings: just the transducer band ($24), band with Bluetooth options for taking calls ($59), and the whole shebang–band, Bluetooth, and stereo receiver– sewed into their own cap ($149).
And yes, if you have your own favorite hat and are not very good with needle and thread, you can send it to them and they can be your cloud-based seamstress ($50).