Getting outdoors means being at the mercy of the weather, and although we can check it pretty quickly with an app or the internet, the nearest weather station might be miles away. Looking to cater for people who really need to know the exact readings right where they are, Weather@Point is a keychain-sized device that plugs into your phone to provide real-time weather data, so you can – in the wise words of Crowded House – always take the weather with you.
Developed by startup company Mind Lab Solution, the Weather@Point plugs into an Android phone by way of the headphone jack (or a Lightning adapter, for iPhone 7 users), where it gathers local data on temperature, humidity, UV levels, atmospheric pressure and ambient light, which photographers might find useful. That information is instantly displayed on the phone courtesy of an app, which can store the data over time or share it to a cloud platform.
Since it's taking those measurements live and running off a phone, the Weather@Point won't need an internet connection, which could make it handy for checking the weather far off the beaten track. According to the design team, it won't leech too much power from your phone's battery and when not in use, it slips away inside a bullet-shaped case made of aluminum and titanium, which is designed to hook onto a keyring and apparently waterproofs the device.
Weather@Point has some competition though. Just this week, an air quality monitor called Sprimo launched on Kickstarter, which plugs into your phone and also takes temperature and humidity readings. There's also Peggy – an Internet of Things-enabled clothes peg that uses similar data to ping your phone at the first sign of rain, and the Urban Weather Station, which provides a more permanent at-home monitoring system.
The Weather@Point has just launched on Indiegogo, but note that this isn't the company's first crowdfunding rodeo. The device was successfully funded on Kickstarter back in 2015, but original backers are yet to receive their products. Mind Lab has carried that capital across to the new campaign, and says it will honor those pledges in May, while delivering the product to new backers in October. Early Bird pledges for the WeatherPoint start at US$35. The retail price is set at $59.95.
Source: Mind Lab Solution
