Spotlight: From GoPro to Picbot, gadgets that are ruling the tech world

AER for GoPro – Throw Your GoPro
GoPros are pretty versatile (and rugged) cameras. People have been mounting them to drones, motorbikes, bicycles, boats, cars, airplanes and more. The AER gives your GoPro wings – quite literally. It’s like a low tech solution to get aerial videos using your GoPro. It’s designed to work with the Hero 3+, 4 and 5 series. You place your GoPro in the shell, snap fit the wings on and throw it. The wings give it stabilised
flight over a large distance. Although you’ll only get a few seconds of aerial footage per throw, it’s a fun and inexpensive way to get some unique shots. The sample footage looks incredibly smooth — almost as if it was shot by a drone with a motorised gimbal. It is currently
funding on Kickstarter and you can reserve one for about US$57 — the price includes a nylon bag to store the AER and GoPro camera.
Shipping is estimated in January 2017.

Picbot – A Motorised Bot For Your Phone


Picbot works with any phone to deliver good photos and videos. (Image: Agencies)

Smartphones have pretty good cameras now – what they need is a little external help to take the quality to the next level. Picbot is a motorised, battery powered mount that works with any phone to deliver next-level panorama shots, selfies, time-lapse videos and recordings. It comes with a Bluetooth remote that you can use to spin it around. If you get the companion app, you can control all the features right from your phone. One of the interesting features available in the app is face tracking: if you’re recording video using Picbot’s app, it will track you and rotate the phone to follow you. It can also do effortless 180 and 360-degree panoramas. You can mount the whole contraption on a tripod (it has a standard tripod mount). It’s funding on Kickstarter and you can get in on the action by pledging US$99 (the price includes a mini tripod).

Gate – The Connected Deadbolt Lock
This is truly the do-it-all deadbolt lock for your front door. It installs on your door just like a regular lock and you’ll get a set of keys to go along with it. But it also has a digital keypad, built in motion-activated camera and 2-way audio capabilities. It connects to your home WiFi network and you can control everything using the companion app or from any web browser. It has a 720p HD camera with a 150-degree wide angle lens. Power is from a rechargeable battery. You can set it to notify you when it detects motion in front of the door. This means you can also answer your front door remotely — you’ll be able to see who it is, talk to them and even let them in. If you have friends coming by, you can also send them temporary (or permanent) access codes. It is currently in the funding stage on Indiegogo and prices start at US$ 179 + shipping (estimated to ship in March 2017). This is for the super early bird offer which was available at the time of writing.