Back at CES in January, TechCrunch met Fin, the Bluetooth ring that went on to become one of our Hardware Battlefield finalists. Fin, which turns your hand into a wireless controller for smartphones, TVs, and other connected devices, just reached its $100,000 Indiegogo goal. Now Fin is aiming for its stretch goal of $150,000, which will make the ring available for a discounted price to visually impaired people.

Fin is worn on your thumb and has a tiny optical sensor that detects movements, allowing you to send commands to connected devices with a few swipes and taps of your fingers. As TechCrunch’s Greg Kumparak described when he wrote about the device’s prototype in January, you can turn down your phone’s volume by swiping your thumb down your index finger or skip the current track by swiping your thumb across the palm of your opposite hand. In the future, creator RHL Vision wants to use biometrics to assign a different behavior to each segment of your finger, basically turning them into buttons.

Fin is one of the coolest wearable devices out there because it makes you look like you have magical powers. But the ring is also very useful, especially for people with visual or motor impairments. RHL Vision says that Fin can potentially help more than 285 million visually impaired people interact more smoothly with technology. If it reaches its stretch goal, the company will make its ring available for $59 to blind people.

To get a sense of a visually impaired person can use Fin, take a look at this video, in two users talk about how Fin helps them control their smartphones and tablets without struggling to see controls on their touchscreens.

After two days of presentations, hours of judging, and 14 demos, we’re excited to announce the finalists for the inaugural Hardware Battlefield: Atlas Wearables, Blaze, CubeSensors, and Owlet Baby Care.

The winner will be decided tomorrow afternoon and awarded a $50,000 check and a robot-topped trophy.

Fourteen companies participated in our first Hardware Battlefield representing eleven countries. From medical devices to quantitative self gear to drones to bike lights, these companies launched for the first time on our stage at CES 2014 and were judged by panels of all-star judges.

Tomorrow, at 3:00pm PDT, the four finalists will present their product yet again to four more judges including Yves Behar, Bre Pettis, Jen McCabe, and Matt Turck. The winner will take home the first Hardware Battlefield cup.

All of our companies were amazing. All of our entrants are already doing some amazing work in their fields and most are well on their way to successful crowdfunding. We were proud to have them on our stage.

The finalists are:

Atlas [Presentation] – Atlas is a wearable device that tracks and identifies specific activity. Where existing products can only track a single metric, steps, Atlas is smart enough to identify pushups, squats, dead lifts and everything else.

Team:
Peter Li, CEO
Mike Kasparian, CTO
Alex Hsieh, Lead Software Developer
Mehdi Mirza, Data Scientist

Blaze Laserlight [Presentation] – Blaze are an intelligent biking brand. Launching with the Laserlight, a radical innovation tackling the greatest cause of cyclist fatality – being caught in the ‘blind spot’ and vehicles turning across an unseen bike.

Team:
Emily Brooke, CEO + Founder

CubeSensors [Presentation] – CubeSensors are small, stylish and connected devices that help you understand how every room in your home or office is affecting your health, comfort and productivity. The Cubes monitor everything that can be measured about indoors, like temperature, humidity, air quality, noise, light and barometric pressure. They are small enough to fit in the palm of your hand and can easily blend in any room you want to optimize for leisure, sleep or work.

Team:
Ales Spetic, CEO
Marko Mrdjenovic, CTO

Owlet [Presentation] – Owlet provides parents with peace of mind by implementing new technologies to monitor, track, and alert on changes in their infant’s health. Owlet helps parents prevent SIDS and other early infant issues.

Team:
Jordan Monroe, CMO
Zack Bomsta, CTO
Kurt Workman, CEO
Tanor Hodges, CFO
Jake Colvin, COO

We’re pleased to announce the 2014 Hardware Battlefield finalists, a group of international hardware startups from eleven countries that are about to take the world by storm with some amazing technology, great ideas, and unique business models. Up for grabs is a $50,000 prize, the first ever Hardware Battlefield trophy, a wealth of press exposure and new open doors.

We’ll be running three straight days of exciting presentations live from the CES parking lot. You can watch the event – and all of our live coverage of CES 2014 – live on our special live coverage page and, if you’re in Las Vegas, you’re invited to visit us at our tent out on the LVCC parking lot. You don’t need a show pass to watch the proceedings in the tent and we’ll have giveaways, interviews, and other fun stuff all day.

That said, let’s welcome our fourteen Hardware Battlefield finalists:

Tuesday 11AM

Atlas [CrunchBase] – Atlas is a wearable device that tracks and identifies specific activity. Where existing products can only track a single metric, steps, Atlas is smart enough to identify pushups, squats, dead lifts and everything else.

Team:
Peter Li, CEO
Mike Kasparian, CTO
Alex Hsieh, Lead Software Developer
Mehdi Mirza, Data Scientist

Health2Sync – Health2Sync takes legacy medical devices and transforms your smartphone into a smart health monitoring machine; connecting users, loved ones, and clinicians. Our first product comes in the form of an app and accessory for smart blood glucose monitoring.

Team:
Ed Deng, CEO
Erin Chung, Product Marketing

Adheretech [CrunchBase] – AdhereTech makes smart patented pill bottles, designed to improve medication adherence. These bottles measure the amount of medication in the bottle in real-time. If a dose is missed, AdhereTech reminds the patient via automated phone call or text message – as well as on-bottle lights and chimes.

Team:
Josh Stein, CEO
John Langhauser, CTO
Mike Morena, COO

Tuesday 3pm

CubeSensors [CrunchBase] – CubeSensors are small, stylish and connected devices that help you understand how every room in your home or office is affecting your health, comfort and productivity. The Cubes monitor everything that can be measured about indoors, like temperature, humidity, air quality, noise, light and barometric pressure. They are small enough to fit in the palm of your hand and can easily blend in any room you want to optimize for leisure, sleep or work.

Team:
Ales Spetic, CEO
Marko Mrdjenovic, CTO

Livemap [CrunchBase] – Livemap is a unique high-tech motorbike helmet with built-in navigation system and voice controlled interface. It is a heads-up display for motorcyclists.

Team:
Andrew Artishchev, CEO

Sentry Scientific Smart Walker [CrunchBase] Sentry Scientific is building smart assistive technologies to make the future safer. Their Smart Walker aims to increase safety, independence, and mobility for seniors by reducing the risk of walker-related fall injuries.

Team:
Wilfrid Ngo, CEO
Parth Dave, Hardware Engineer
Ray Zhou, Hardware Engineer

Blaze Laserlight [CrunchBase] – Blaze are an intelligent biking brand. Launching with the Laserlight, a radical innovation tackling the greatest cause of cyclist fatality – being caught in the ‘blind spot’ and vehicles turning across an unseen bike.

Team:
Emily Brooke, CEO + Founder

RHLVision Fin [CrunchBase] – RHLvision Technologies Pvt. Ltd. is a group of passionate individuals dreaming of a world where technology is in the palms of your hands, where a mere finger-swipe can bring you resources and functions never imagined.

Team:
Rohildev.N, CEO

Adheretech [CrunchBase] – AdhereTech makes smart patented pill bottles, designed to improve medication adherence. These bottles measure the amount of medication in the bottle in real-time. If a dose is missed, AdhereTech reminds the patient via automated phone call or text message – as well as on-bottle lights and chimes.

Team:
Josh Stein, CEO
John Langhauser, CTO
Mike Morena, COO

The Eye Tribe [CrunchBase] – The Eye Tribe software enables eye control on mobile devices and computers, allowing hands-free navigation of websites and apps, eye activated log in, enhanced gaming experiences, and cloud-based user engagement analytics. We utilize standard low-cost hardware components that can be integrated into the next generation of smartphones and tablets.

Team:
Sune Alstrup Johansen, CEO
Martin Tall, CTO
Javier San Agustin
Henrik Skovsgaard

AirDroids [CrunchBase] – AirDroids designs and manufactures drone hardware and software for consumers and commercial applications. Our mission is to make advanced drone technology simple and accessible for everyone.

Team:
Chance Roth, Co-Founder and CEO
Timothy Reuter, Co-Founder and President
TJ Johnson, Co-Founder and CTO

Owlet [CrunchBase] – Owlet provides parents with peace of mind by implementing new technologies to monitor, track, and alert on changes in their infant’s health. Owlet helps parents prevent SIDS and other early infant issues.

Team:
Jordan Monroe, CMO
Zack Bomsta, CTO
Kurt Workman, CEO
Tanor Hodges, CFO
Jake Colvin, COO

Driblet.io [CrunchBase] – The smart way to conserve water. Driblet its an innovative smart water consumption management solution that tracks water related variables to empower and encourage people, businesses, organizations and governments to save water and money.

Team:
Rodolfo P Ruiz, CEO & CTO
Mario García, COO
Carlos Mosqueda, Chief Designer

Alima [CrunchBase] – Airboxlab is taking Quantified Self to another level by implementing Quantified Home with alima, the alarm system for your indoor environment.
Embedding high tech sensors, alima is a standalone device monitoring your indoor air pollution and providing warnings and recommendations for action to keep your living spaces safe.

Team:
Jacques Touillon, CEO
Inouk Bourgon, CTO
Olivier Vonet, CFO

Modbot [CrunchBase] – Modbot brings industrial precision and power to consumer assembled robots. Imagine automated manufacturing and consumer robots within reach of everybody, assembled like Lego. Modbot is a system of affordable and re-usable modules that snap together, filling the gap between $100 hobby and $20,000 industrial motion equipment.

Team:
Adam Ellison, CEO
Daniel Pizzata, COO

We are about to embark on amazing adventure and we need your help. In January we are holding our first Hardware Battlefield in Las Vegas, Nevada to coincide with CES. We will bring 15 great hardware startups, a gaggle of amazing judges, and a 3D-printed trophy of your design.

We need 3D designers to build us an amazing, open source trophy that Shapeways will print for us. If your model is chosen you will receive a Makerbot Digitizer and our unending appreciation as well as a link to your work.

How do you enter? Create a 3D model taller than six inches and submit it to Shapeways with the tag “Techcrunch.” Email me, john@techcrunch.com, when you’ve uploaded your model and we will pick a winner at the end of November. You will receive a print and we will use another copy as our Hardware Battlefield trophy.

What are we looking for? Anything as long as it looks great as a trophy, is sufficiently regal-looking, and is amazing. We want robots, planetoids, and 3D printer nozzles blown up to maximum resolution. We want something that epitomizes the spirit of adventure, fun, and hard work that it takes to make a cool hardware startup.

So enter today. We need you and we want our Hardware Battlefield winner to go home with an amazing trophy of your design.

We are pleased to announce a new set of amazing judges for our first TC Hardware Battlefield in Las Vegas this January. Based on the Disrupt Battlefield formula we will be pitting fifteen hardware companies against each other on our public stage.

First we’ve invited the (female) Bre Pettis of Europe, Karolina Bołądź of Gadgets3D and Zortrax. She’ll be adding some great European insight. Next up we have Ayah Bdeir, creator of LittleBits and a true hardware star. Finally we have the polarizing Scott Jordan of ScottEVest, one of the most experienced hardware and soft goods makers in the industry.

Those are just three of the amazing folks we’re bringing to Las Vegas with us. We’re also announcing that we’ve moved the application deadline to November 11 and we want you to apply.

Rules

We will review applications on a rolling basis, so it’s to your advantage to submit as soon as you are ready. Due to strong demand, we are unable to review applications more than once, so please do not submit a draft application before you are ready for final consideration. Please note that video demos are required. We look forward to reviewing your application.