Dropbox Alternative Lima (Née Plug) Works With Chromecast, Breaks Into Kickstarter Tech Top 10

Plug Kickstarter

It’s been a crazy 36 days since Plug started its Kickstarter campaign. First, Plug is now called Lima due to some trademark issues. But everything else stays the same. The $69 adapter will seamlessly transform your USB drives into a personal Dropbox for all your devices. And now it will support Chromecast.

As a reminder, here’s how Lima works: you plug your router into the little adapter, as well as one or multiple USB drives. After that, you launch the app on your computer and then everything will go through Lima thanks to a deep filesystem integration. All your files will be moved to those drives and available on all your devices, at home or away. The only limit of this Dropbox alternative is the amount of storage space you have on your USB drives.

Lima is actually a small Linux-based machine that creates a VPN network between your devices and the adapter. The overall experience feels a lot like browsing and using your Dropbox files, except that you can choose to cache some folders on your device or not — it works like the offline playlist button in Spotify. Finally, you don’t have to pay a subscription fee and you own your files since they are not stored in an Amazon S3 data center. Lima expects to deliver its adapters in December.

For its new Google Chromecast feature, the company takes advantage of the SDK to stream media content to your TV using your phone or tablet. Music, photos and even videos should all work. For a little bit more than $100 ($69 + $35), you can stream everything that is on your computer from your sofa.

“We automatically re-encode all the videos that are stored on Lima,” co-founder and CEO Séverin Marcombes tells me. “An h.264 version of each video will be kept in Lima’s cache.”

That step was already necessary to allow Lima users to watch their videos on their phones and tablets — especially for iOS devices that can really only stream h.264 videos. The team just took it one step further by building Chromecast support into the iOS and Android apps.

Even more impressive than the device itself is the Kickstarter campaign. Back in July I wrote: “the Kickstarter campaign just started but its goal is pretty low. At $69,000, the Paris-based team will certainly attract a thousand backers to reach its goal.” It turns out that this sentence diminishes what the team has accomplished.

In just 12 hours, Lima managed to shatter its $69,000 goal. In fact, with $858,000 and 24 days to go, the campaign is now the 10th most-funded Kickstarter campaign in the technology category. In this list, there are pretty well-known projects, such as Form1 and Oculus Rift. The question on everyone’s mind now is whether the campaign will break the $1 million barrier.



With Plug, Create A Personal, Subscription-Free Dropbox With Your USB Drives

Plug Kickstarter

Plug just launched a Kickstarter campaign for its $69 adapter. It will transform your USB drives into a personal Dropbox for all your devices. Thanks to a deep integration in your filesystem, you won’t have to move your files to a special folder or a virtual hard drive. After launching Plug’s app, everything is transparent and you won’t have to change your workflow. Except that all your devices will now have the same files.

Very much like TechCrunch Disrupt alumni Bitcasa, you can cache some folders and files on your local hard drive or stream them from Plug. The only limit in Plug’s case is the amount of storage space you have on your USB drives.

Behind the scene, Plug is a small Linux-based machine that creates a VPN network. Then, if you want to access your files from your iPhone, Plug’s client will silently connect to the network and show you all your files. It looks a lot like Dropbox’s app, except that your files are stored at home and you don’t pay a subscription fee. You could say that it’s pretty similar to a network-attached storage device, but with a software trick to replace your entire filesystem.

“Our innovation with Plug is a software innovation more than a hardware innovation,” co-founder and CEO Séverin Marcombes told me. “We could have designed this system in the cloud if it weren’t so expensive and so slow,” he continued.

After launching the app, all your files will go through Plug. With a USB 2.0 connector and an Ethernet 100 port, it could be a bit slow to stream movies, especially if you have multiple drives plugged into the adapter. That’s why you can cache your files. Even though Plug claims that you can use your files just the way you used to do, this new paradigm will probably take some time before getting used to it. Marcombes compared the caching feature with Spotify’s offline playlist feature, a button that Spotify users already know well.

The Kickstarter campaign just started but its goal is pretty low. At $69,000, the Paris-based team will certainly attract a thousand backers to reach its goal. You’ll just have to wait until December before getting your hands on the device.

Plug2Know is an Amped-Up Home Energy Cost Awareness Device

How much electricity do your electric curlers gobble up while they’re heating up? What about your iron or your food processor? In this day and age, it pays to know how much electricity your appliances and devices are consuming. The good news is that there’s now an easier way to do it: with Plug2Know.

Plug2Know

Plug2Know looks like a surge suppressor outlet, only it’s not. Instead, it will show you the energy that each of your plugged devices consumes based on your current usage. It’ll help you with energy cost awareness and hopefully inspire you to live a life that requires less electricity to run it. A series of LEDs on the top of the device provides feedback as to energy usage. An included chart helps you identify the rough monthly cost for whatever is plugged into it.

Plug2Know1

Cymbrio, its creators, claim that earlier testers of Plug2Know were able to cut back on their electricity bills by up to 50% after using the device.

Whether you want to save money or are just curious about the energy consumption of your plugged devices, the Plug2Know can lend you a hand. It’s also extremely easy to use: just plug it into the socket, and plug in the appliance or power strip into it and you’re all set.

Plug2Know provides you with specific, personalized information about your projected energy use so you can take steps to eliminate waste, reduce consumption and save money.

Plug2Know is currently up for funding on Kickstarter, where $20(USD) will get you one of your very own.

How New York Will Stop the Subway From Flooding in the Next Huge Storm

New York knew for a long time that a big storm could flood and collapse the subway system, which is exactly what happened with Sandy. Yet city officials did nothing about it. But now, after all the suffering, we’ll finally be prepared. More »

What the Hell Is a Crystal Dust Plug for Your Phone?

I know a lot of people like to throw on a lot of trinkets and flair and pizazz on your phone but would people really use this crystal dust plug? It’s a little cubic zirconia diamond that plugs into your phone’s headphone jack to add some bling and presumably protect the interior of your headphone jack. More »

Luchador Plugs Put Empty Headphone Jacks in a Head Lock

For some reason, in Japan it’s become a popular pastime to stick odd little doo-dads into the empty headphone jack on smartphones and media players. While the utility of these things is somewhat questionable, there’s no argument that they’re fun little embellishments for your gadgets. But up until now, most of them have been too cutesy for my taste. That has now changed.

luchador headphone plugs 1

You see, these headphone jack plugs are designed to look like tiny Luchadors. Just snap them into your empty headphone jack, and a tiny wrestler will protect your phone from all who dare to take him on. While the’ll look pretty cool on most phones, the wrestler will look like he’s doing a headstand in my iPhone 5′s oddly-placed new headphone jack.

luchador headphone plugs 2

You can choose from five colored masks, including red, pink, yellow, blue and black. The Luchador headphone jack plugs sell for ¥630 (~$8 USD) over at Strapya World.


Volt Buckle Gadget Charger is a Literal Utility Belt

If you thought the computer mouse belt buckle was a huge hit, then you’ll probably be interested in the Volt Buckle. It’s equally quirky but it’s a hundred times more practical because you can actually use it to charge your iPhone or any USB connective device.

Volt Buckle1Basically, what you see is what you get: a belt buckle with a plug integrated into the buckle. Just fold out the plug part, plug in your device, and find an outlet to plug it in to start charging up your device on the go.

Volt Buckle

At this point, it’s still a design because the people behind it need $60,000 in funding to turn the Volt Buckles into a reality. If you want to support the project, you can head on over to Volt Buckle’s page on IndieGoGo. A minimum contribution of $50(USD) will get you your very own silver buckle should the project be funded.

[via TechCrunch via Oh Gizmo!]