2016 Christmas List: Cool Crowdfunded Chinese Hardware
Christmas is right around the corner. This year, we decided to ask Santa for the best of China’s crowdfunded hardware products.
With its unique technology and design, China is leading trend in hardware with more geeks craving “Innovated in China” products.
Last year’s Christmas wish list had mostly IoT products including a projector, a smart water bottle, a scanner, a robotic arm, and a connected helmet. These successful crowdfunding projects this year range from robotics, VR camera, bikes, and projector all the way to an air pump. Two products hail from Chengdu and Dalian, showing that China’s hardware innovation is spreading into the second-tier cities.
COWAROBOT R1 might be helpful to Santa carrying all the presents to your house. It is a robotic suitcase that follows its owner around, so that he don’t have to carry it and can be controlled using matching app. The Indiegogo campaign raised 550,797 USD (456% funded) on September 10th. TechNode interviewed the founder and CEO of COWAROBOT, Tommie He in Shanghai; he mentioned the possibility of developing an AI-enabled “a passenger companion robot” in the future.
Insta 360 Air can provide a cool method to livestream Christmas parties using its 360 ° videos and take unique selfies using flat mode, sphere mode, VR mode and planet mode. Users can clip the compact camera to their Android smartphone to take 3K stills or film 2K videos and share the images and videos to social networks. Shenzhen-based Insta 360 previously launched their 360 ° panoramic camera Insta360 Nano at CES in 2016. Insta 360 Air 360 has raised 77,042 USD so far and was 385% funded on Indiegogo with 10 days more to go.
Founded by university alumni in Dalian, MAX PUMP raised a total of 192,092 USD, and was 3430% funded on August 13th, 2016. Priced at 35 USD, it can inflate and deflate air mattresses, life buoys, air beds, and vacuum bag.
For those who don’t want to brave the Christmas cinema crowd, the Z4 Aurora can provide a better option at home. Priced at 699 USD, Z4 Aurora is a smart LED projector that can transform any surface into a 300-inch screen. Unlike other projectors, Z4 Aurora provides vertical and horizontal correction that provides an optimal image from any angle, eliminating the hassle of set-up. Founded in Chengdu, the projector has raised 323,852 USD, and was 597% funded of its pledged goal on May 2nd.
Santa won’t need Rudolph if he had an e-bike that can pull him up the slope. Priced at 2,199 USD, FLX electric bike is 22.67 kg, lighter than other e-bikes. It’s one of many good examples of bike innovation in China, as the bike market begins to see Chinese brand bikes with technology and design. Shanghai-based FLX’s e-bike has raised 1.7 million USD and was 3192% funded of its pledged goal on May 29th. Another example is Beijing-based SpeedX road bike, raising over 2.3 million USD of a 50,000 USD goal.
Image Credit: Indiegogo