Virtual Reality becomes more of a reality with haptic gloves 🤯
Happy Wednesday from our team to yours! ;)
After weeks of feeling either the Sahara Desert or Mount Everest in our Hong Kong office, we decided to make our Air Conditioner smarter and did a quick little project ❄️ check it out below!
We’re also hopping on the Virtual Reality bandwagon, and purchased an Oculus Quest 2 to kickstart another Rocking Friday project 😏 Any guesses on what we’ll build next?
Here’s what we’ve put together for your weekly Spark reads:
💙 NEWS FROM OUR MATESBeamer releases new features to keep your users (even more) in the loop 📥
Our mates at Beamer have just launched new features "Roadmap" and "Feature Request" to keep your users close to your development plans, and know what features they wish for!
Especially when you're starting out and focusing on the skeletal features of your product, updating your users of what's to come or what's changed is crucial - how do they know you will solve their pain points better, and to stick around?
Built by seasoned product developers, Beamer helps solve this problem by integrating changelogs, notifications and NPS's onto your software, website or ecommerce store. It is also a no-code tool so you won't need to worry about any hard programming 😉
The new features are still in BETA, but give your users some love anyway and give it a go!
🤸 FUN PRODUCT WE LOVESay goodbye to checklists and and hello to Macro 📈
If you like and need checklists for your tasks, you’re going to love Macro as much as we do 😉
Macro is a powerful task management app that allows you to streamline your processes and monitor progress for each. You can set multiple workflows and checklists within the platform, and even add your own automations (from sending an email whenever you start a checklist, to creating or updating bases on Airtable). They also integrate with Zapier, which opens up +3,000 more integrations with other apps 🔥
This is perfect for when you have many tasks or projects that include many other smaller tasks that can be hard to keep up with or remember - and Macro helps exactly with this: it helps you finish everything from A-Z!
💭 TECH FOOD FOR THOUGHTMeta brings us a step closer to reality with VR haptic gloves 🖐
We’ve all wondered how we can “feel” objects in VR to make it more a reality - and Meta (formerly known as Facebook) has the answers: air pockets 🤯
Since it acquired startup Oculus VR in 2014, Meta has been working on this wearable technology to push the boundaries of Virtual Reality - which is perfectly aligned with their new company vision. With their preview release yesterday, they showcased the new haptic gloves that are lined with inflatable pads on the palm, underside of fingers and fingertips.
In a VR world, these pads can adjust the level of inflation to create pressure where it should on your hand. So if you’re touching something with your fingertips, the pads on your fingertips would stiffen to add the feeling of resistance. How cool is that? They’re also working on integrating sound to your touches to make it even more realistic!
🌱 TECH FOR SUSTAINABILITYReviving our planet by creating electricity with plants 🌺
Ambitious 25-year old Pablo Vidarte (who also made NASA’s system for powering cars 60% more efficient!) has designed biological batteries that generate electricity from energy released in decomposed soil.
Like classic batteries, the biological batteries also have an anode (-) and a cathode (+), which uses organic matter (the soil) as fuel instead of materials like lithium. Microorganisms then break down the soil and electrons are released, and are transported into the anode and cathode to create a current of electricity.
These batteries produce up to 200Wh a year per square metre, and are currently still limited to low-power applications - but this is only the start! It’s about time we make use of what our planet is abundant in 🌴
💥 WHAT’S ON @ SPARKMATEMaking our AC smarter as a quick little project 🥵🥶
Just by adding a bit of tech to your Air Conditioners, you can have it self-regulate ❄️ We added a brain to it (the ESP to add your code), a temperature sensor and an infrared transmitter - all neatly packaged in a 3D printed box.
Now, as soon as it feels like it's too hot (say 28C), it will automatically set it to a lower temperature (like 22C), or if it's too cold, will set it to a higher one.
We've also developed a quick app the team can access, to monitor what the room temperature feels like and set a new temperature straight through our phones - no more fighting over the remote 😂
What do you think? If you want to try it out for your office/home, let us know and we'll send a little guide over ;)
Exciting things are happening every day ⚡️ Follow us on social media to stay tuned!