around the home
around the home at Spoot: Spotted Early is a file of 4 stories. The newest of them: “A bird feeder that IDs 11,000 species while you're stuck at work”, “Oru lamp pokes its nose into your wood stove so you don't have to”, and “Your shower could be mining Bitcoin while it heats your water”. A bird feeder that IDs 11,000 species while you're stuck at work. Oru lamp pokes its nose into your wood stove so you don't have to. Spoot: Spotted Early New things, caught while they're still new and a little weird. Spoot finds fresh gadgets, clever inventions, crowdfunding campaigns,… The list below is every around the home story on Spoot: Spotted Early, newest first.
A bird feeder that IDs 11,000 species while you're stuck at work
A bird feeder that IDs 11,000 species while you're stuck at work. That's the pitch, and it's a strange little knot to untangle. Birdwatching has gone digital, with smart feeders sprouting cameras and smartphone connectivity, and some people will tell you that defeats the whole point: the quiet, the patience, the break from screens. Fair. But consider the alternative. A smart feeder might be your best chance of spotting a rare bird in your backyard while you're busy with your 9-to-5, logging the visitor your own eyes missed. That's not nothing. It's a trade, attention for automation, and whether it's worth it depends on how much you trust the machine to notice on your behalf.
Oru lamp pokes its nose into your wood stove so you don't have to
Oru lamp pokes its nose into your wood stove so you don't have to. That's the kind of specific, slightly feral design choice I can get behind. Winter is coming, millions of households are firing up their stoves, and every year unattended fires contribute to house fires. The Oru, fresh on Kickstarter, is a lamp that monitors the fire and offers peace of mind to the constantly worried. It's a simple premise executed on a narrow, necessary detail everyone else scrolls past. I like that it doesn't swallow the hype, it's a crowdfunding project, and it says so plainly. If you're also in the market for tools that do the thinking for you, you might enjoy our coverage of the Arrowmax S1, which picks the bit and torque so you don't have to.
Your shower could be mining Bitcoin while it heats your water
Your shower could be mining Bitcoin while it heats your water. That's the proposition from Heatbit, a company making home appliances that pull double duty as cryptocurrency miners. Its latest product is a hot water system designed to deliver on-demand showers while hopefully earning its keep in the background. It's the kind of idea that sounds like a fever dream until you remember Heatbit already shipped a Bitcoin-mining space heater. The logic holds: the heat generated by mining has to go somewhere, so why not pipe it into your pipes? I like the efficiency angle, but I also wonder about the noise, the wear on the hardware, and whether the crypto earnings will actually offset the cost.
The sun does your drapes' dirty work now, no motor required
The sun does your drapes' dirty work now, no motor required. We've seen smart curtains before, sure, but they usually want a chunky motor, a hub, and a stern talking-to about Wi-Fi passwords. This new one skips the machinery and just lets the light do the pulling. That's the razor clam in the spec sheet, the detail that makes you lean in. It's clever, sure, but we're gently skeptical until we see it ship. The campaign's live now, and it's worth a scroll if you've ever wanted blinds that move without you lifting a finger or lifting a screwdriver. It's not quite the cinematic wall-buster Epson's pushing with its new lasers, but for the window-bound among us, this feels like the quiet win. Stay spooty.