Month: January 2013

WakaWaka Blackout Emergency Kit

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While I really could have used this little device after Hurricane Sandy, when my family and I were without power for 10 days, it is the potential it offers for those with homes that are always off the grid that is even greater. The WakaWaka Power (you have to try to get past the image of Fozzie the Bear from the Muppet Show, if you can) is a solar-powered LED lamp and mobile charger in one. This is a product with a huge demand at the moment — the Dutch company Off Grid Solutions launched it in December on Kickstarter and within a week became one of the most funded projects on the site (the campaign ends on January 12th and to date has raised almost $275,000 U.S.). The iPhone-sized kit weighs seven ounces, delivers up to 60 lumens of bright, safe reading light for more than 40 hours on an eight hour solar charge, and can charge mobile phones from all brands. The battery will stay fresh for more than a year — users should …

The Alarm Dock for the iPhone 5

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Designed by New York City-based industrial designer Jonas Damon for Areaware, the Alarm Dock is made of sustainably harvested, new growth beech wood to mimic the classic bedside alarm clock. Simply download the flip clock app, insert the phone into the dock (the connector can be pulled through so the phone, or iPod, can be charged while in use). Note that this is a simple holder for your phone, and does not come with built-in electronics or speakers. Here is a video of how it works. The Alarm Dock, designed for the thinner profile of the iPhone 5, measures 6.75 x 3.5 x 2.5. It is available in a rainbow of colors for $40 from Areaware.

Light Bulb Magnets

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Along with the Museum of the City of New York’s new textile exhibition “The World of D.D. and Leslie Tillett,” (on display through February 3rd) the museum shop is offering a set of 18 light bulb magnets designed by D.D. and Leslie’s daughter Linnaea Tillett, owner of Brooklyn-based Tillett Lighting. Linnaea, who once served as a juror in a product design competition I run for my day job, has a doctorate in environmental psychology, and is celebrated for her firm’s lighting of public and private interiors, including, most recently, the lighting for FDR Four Freedoms Park on New York City’s Roosevelt Island. Linnaea worked with Tillett in-house designer/illustrator Charlie Brokate, whose black and white drawings appear on the front of each magnet. LEDs, CFLs, and other sources of illumination are joined by the ever-present cell phone, which often doubles as a light in a dark theater. The set of 18 magnets are available for $22 from the shop of the Museum of the City of New York, http://www.mcny.org