If you’re into activities such as windsurfing, sailing or kite-flying, then you’re going to want to know where and how hard the wind is blowing. While weather reports may give average wind speeds for your city as a whole, they’re usually not very specific. That’s where Shaka comes in. It’s a tiny wind meter that works with your iPhone.
Shaka plugs into the phone’s headphone jack. Once it’s held into the wind and its blades start spinning, a paired app displays data such as wind speed, direction and temperature, in real time. That information can then be shared with your fellow windsurfers (or whatever the case may be) via a social network of your choice.
Even if you have no friends that share your wind-related pursuits, you can still check and/or contribute to wind data for your area, via a crowd-sourced wind map that is accessible through the app. You can also look back on the history of your wind readings, should you need reminding of just how windy it was that one day when the conditions were so great.
Shaka isn’t available for purchase just yet, but the company’s Raigo Raamat informs us that they’re working on getting it to market as soon as possible. The estimated retail price is US$59. Although it presently only works with iOS devices, Android and Windows Phone versions are on the way.
There is at least one alternative out there for people who want to use their iPhone to measure the wind, which is reportedly about as accurate as dedicated hand-held wind meters. It’s an app simply called Wind Meter, that measures wind speed by analyzing the volume of wind noise coming through the phone’s microphone.
