Jake Boshernitzan and Ohad Nezer had big ideas about the Internet of Things. They felt that voice control was too sensitive to background noise, too easily misunderstood a user's command, and could be disturbing to others. Smart switches or buttons needed to be physically manipulated, could have trouble blending in with walls, and usually just had an on / off capability. Their new solution is Knocki, a device to make any surface a smart surface.
Knocki is running an exceptionally successful Kickstarter campaign to fund their device, using non-acoustic sensor technology to detect surface vibrations and control gadgets when the user knocks on the surface.
The device works by sensing taps or knocks on a surface and filtering out random vibrations from the environment. Quantities of taps and patterns of taps can be used to set up different IoT functions. Up to ten different functions can be programmed into each Knocki.
Knocki's app works with both Android and iOS, and current partnerships exist with Next, Philips Hue, Spotify, WeMo, IFTTT, Google Calendar and Google Mail, and several others. Users who aren't yet fielding a full house of smart devices can use Knocki to find a phone, control music, set alarms, or act as a remote door bell.
An ABS housing holds the circuit board, processor, WiFi module, LEDs, and an accelerometer. The vibration transfer chassis allows the unit to maximize sensor range and houses the batteries. SurfaceLink is the mounting method, developed with 3M, to optimize vibrations from the surfaces.
Like many Internet of Things items, Knocki expects that users will find multiple innovative uses for their product. There's already an interesting section of the campaign page where users have been giving ideas for accessibility enhancements. This might be showing my age, but I haven't yet seen comparisons to The Clapper.
As of this writing the Kickstarter funding campaign has blown its modest $30,000 funding goal out of the water. The comments page says that the $600,000 mark required to pay for production volume costs, but the total pledged is more than $750,000 and won't end until July 2, 2016. First units are expected to ship in December, 2016.