The HAX hardware accelerator held its eighth Demo Day in San Francisco the day before today. while all 15 companies within the newest batch hang promise, and embody some very wild ambitions, these three stood out thanks to ingenious applications of advanced tech to on occasion overlooked, but actually large potential markets.
based in Lausanne, Switzerland, Rovenso is adapting know-how created for planetary exploration to use in the economic world here on the earth.
the corporate’s ROVéo 250 is a remotely operated car that can navigate rugged terrain, suffer harsh environments and do the very heavy lifting that people would in finding difficult even with the right tools in tow.
The rover is battery-powered, and human-operated remotely the usage of a controller that gives tactile feedback to a driver. Doing this instead of simply offering a mobile app to run their rovers must help drivers remember instantly when the ROVéo 250 is stuck in a ditch, or in the course of a steep climb, then make changes if needed.
Co-founders Lucian Cucu and Thomas Estier said they had been impressed by using generations of Mars rovers, but also the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe, to build their laptop.
the company will develop and rig its rovers with customized, robotic fingers to do completely different tasks for purchasers. Rovenso already has signed one consumer, and wants to boost undertaking capital to convey robotics automation beyond nuclear, to mining and civil engineering, oil and fuel and development companies.
Cucu mentioned, “If it’s a harsh atmosphere, that’s bad humans, otherwise you wish to automate the process and waft of heavy supplies, that’s the place our expertise makes sense.”
The LIV by using HabitAware.
HabitAware is a health tech startup that sprang, as so many do, from the founder’s personal challenges dealing with a “physique-centered, repetitive habits;” in her case, obsessive hair pulling.
“I hadn’t had eyebrows considering the fact that I was a teen,” mentioned HabitAware’s co-founder Aneela Idnani Kumar, head of product, design and advertising. “a couple of years into my marriage, I showed my husband what I appeared like without my eyebrow makeup on, and we determined to construct something to assist me and others who have this drawback.”
Kumar and her husband, CEO and co-founder Sameer Kumar, built smart bracelets that wearers use to gently conquer their repetitive behaviors.
The wearables, referred to as the LIV, include refined movement sensors and connect to a user’s smartphone by way of Bluetooth. A LIV cell app firstly calibrates the bracelets so they can silently monitor a wearer’s process and vibrate to alert them when they’ve begun to engage in an unwanted habits.
After they’re set, the bracelets work with out being related to a smartphone.
Wearers get a two-bracelet set for a instructed retail value of $ 279. folks who do not use each palms when they engage in an undesirable behavior can opt for a single LIV bracelet for $ 149 at retail.
beyond hair pulling, kids and adults alike fight with nail biting, pores and skin selecting and thumb sucking. They regularly have interaction in this habits round sure triggers or stresses that can be pegged to a certain time of day.
When customers select to attach their bracelets to their smartphones by way of Bluetooth, the LIV app shows them a chart tracking the occasions of day when they’re most likely to fall into their repetitive behaviors.
That means, customers, or their folks, can take different measures to lend a hand them get via that worrying time of day without triggering their habits.
the company estimates that 30 million people within the U.S. suffer from some type of repetitive, physique-focused habits. HabitAware is at the moment taking pre-orders.
A prototype model of Wazer’s water-jet cutter.
With a company identify that’s a portmanteau of lasers and water, this ny-based totally startup is working on constructing a quite low-cost water-jet cutter that can slice through metal, glass or, for that topic, materials and pastry, without burning any materials or giving off poisonous fumes.
Co-founders Nisan Lerea (CEO) and Matthew Nowicki (CTO) say they want to sell their cutter to “makers,” particularly contractors who could want to use it to create custom tiles and steel brackets or other parts to make dwelling repairs, in addition to jewelers and interior designers who need to minimize stunning shapes with out growing poisonous fumes in a house studio or small store.
The desktop’s footprint dimension is set 2 toes by way of three toes nowadays. So it’s now not rather a computer variation, but it is a scaled-down version of water-jet cutters handiest to be had for tens of hundreds of dollars and for factory use.
the corporate is still refining its prototype. It plans to offer custom-design software, however the co-founders said, extra importantly, they’re going to combine with and make it simple for designers to use the tools they have got already mastered, like AutoCAD, SolidWorks or Adobe Illustrator.
learn extra about the HAX VIII corporations, and challenges facing all hardware startups.
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