Hasta La Gadget!

Smartphones have pretty good cameras, but nowhere near good enough to do the kind of high accuracy measurement work that’s required for engineering or remodelling projects. Enter Spike, a new smartphone attachment designed by ikeGPS, a company that specializes in building fit-for-purpose laser hardware for use in surveying and 3D modelling.

The Spike is version of their solution that attaches to the back of a smartphone and integrates directly with software on those devices to make it possible to measure objects and structures accurately from up to 600 feet away, just by taking a picture with your device. The accessory itself ads a laser range finder, advanced GPS a 3D compass and another digital camera to your smartphone’s existing capabilities, and it’s much more portable than existing solutions (pocketable, even, according to ikeGPS).

The benefits of the Spike and its powers are evident for the existing market ikeGPS already sells to; telecom and utility companies, architects, city planners, builders and more would be better served with a simple portable accessory and the phone they already have in their pocket than by specialized equipment that’s heavy, bulky, requires instruction on proper use and lacks any kind of easy instant data portability like you’ll get from a smartphone app’s “Share” functions.

But ikeGPS is after a new market segment with the Spike, too. It says the device is “built for developers & hackers,” and they suggest augmented reality as a possible consumer application, but are interesting in seeing exactly what the dev community can come up with via its full-featured API. Laser accurate measurements could indeed bring interesting features to location-based apps, though Spike is clearly more interested in letting developers more experienced with that segment of the market figure out the details.

Spike plans to eventually build a case attachment to make it compatible with any phone and case combo, though at launch it’ll be doing this via a CAD model which owners of the device can use to get mounts 3D printed themselves. It’ll work a bit like the Sony QX10 and QX100 smartphone camera lens accessories, it sounds like, and make it possible to use with any iOS or Android device.

The goal of Spike’s founding team, which includes founder and CTO Leon Toorenburg, who built ikeGPS (neé Surveylab) to fit the needs of professionals, is to make this kind of tech widely available. It’s another example of costs associated with tech decreasing quickly, and making it ultimately possible to provide something that once required a professionally trained operator and expensive, specialized hardware usable by anyone with a phone. ikeGPS tech has been used by UN and US Army engineers in disaster recover and emergency response, and now its team wants to make those same capabilities open to app developers. Others like YC company Senic are looking to accomplish similar things, but Spike’s vision is much more sweeping at launch.

The project is just over halfway to its $100,000 funding goal, and $379 scores backers a pre-order unit, which is scheduled to ship in April next year. Building a consumer device is different from building very specialized hardware on what’s likely a made-to-order basis, but at least the team has the know-how and experience to make its tech actually work.

New hardware startup and Y Combinator Summer 2013 cohort member Senic is launching pre-orders for its first product today, a laser rangefinder like the ones sold in hardware stores around the world and used every day by contractors and DIY enthusiasts. The difference is that Senic’s device uses Bluetooth Low Energy to communicate with iOS and Android devices, recording measurements instantly and syncing them to the cloud.

The use of a cloud-based platform for collecting and storing measurement data, as well as Senic’s plans to expand their hardware catalog to include a number of different hardware devices, including micrometers, gauges, and other tools that builders and engineers use regularly in their work. Senic co-founder Toby Eichenwald explained that he got the idea working for his father’s company in Korea, and learned from its customers that the measurement industry was essentially “stuck in the 80s.”

“We build precise, sensitive devices for smartphones,” Eichenwald said. “The product that we’re working on right now is the worlds’ smartest laser distance meter. It’s directed to two big groups right now, so we’ve made one app that’s directed at do-it-yourselfers and consumers (a floor plan app), and for our B2B customers we’re doing a price quote app so that electricians or heating guys for instance can walk into a building, enter the price-per-feet of their systems and quickly generate a quote.”

The laser distance meter they’re building has a 200-foot range, is accurate up to 0.075 inches, is water and dust resistant and features single button operation. It will retail for $149 in stores, but is available to pre-order customers through the Senic website starting today for just $99. The Floorplan app for iPad (Android support coming soon, now that Android 4.3 supports Bluetooth Low Energy) allows a user to record length and width measurements and build a model in the software, and then rooms can be dragged and positioned next to each other to mimic the actual floor layout. The Price quotes app outputs an invoice that can be emailed, and offers in-app customer sign-off for approving work orders.

“We’ve talked to a lot of architects, engineers and really big firms here in the Bay area to see what problems they’re going through, and that’s why we’re focusing on apps first because they solve the biggest problem,” Eichenwald said. “People in the building industry are under huge money and time pressures, and anything that can save them a lot of time and make their lives easier is so valuable to them.”

Senic is looking to ship in the beginning of November, with an idea first production run of around 500 to 1,000 units, and Eichenwald says that they’re fully ready to go to production, unlike a lot of Kickstarter or other crowdfunded products at this stage. The laser rangefinder is just a start, too, and eventually firms could use Senic products for all their measurement needs, which could result in a completely new resource in terms of aggregate, cloud-based data from the building and construction industry.