By Brian Parker
It charges in five-minutes.
That’s an easy selling point for Helium, the new, revolutionary powered speaker by Portland-based boutique technology company Blueshift. Helium is the first speaker powered by supercapacitors, an upgradable and infinitely repairable source of power. Supercapacitors charge (and discharge) faster than lithium ion batteries, and they don’t use the same environmentally harmful chemicals.
Blueshift’s design for Helium doesn’t stop with the power supply–the rigid bamboo construction is a great acoustic housing for the full-range speaker cones, which run efficiently to allow Helium to run for up to six hours on one charge. Helium also supports Bluetooth connectivity and has an auxiliary jack for plugging in phones, mobile devices, and anything else with an audio output.
Blueshift founder Sam Beck began implementing capacitor power in a design for portable bicycle speakers back in 2009. As capacitors became more affordable over the years, he shifted focus to a wider speaker production that now includes Copper, a speaker that requires power and audio sources, and Helium. Blueshift’s design philosophy is based on open-source hardware, a new trend in technology that follows the openness and availability of software developers’ codes and programs. With this philosophy, the circuitry of newer technologies can be adapted and improved upon in a variety of ways, and will help reduce the rapid onset of technological obsolescence.
However, Helium is only in the prototype stage. Currently undergoing a massive crowd-funding campaign on Crowd Supply, Blueshift is raising funds to get approval for FCC compliance and to put the device in full production. Within the campaign, several pledge levels guarantee early adopters a range of rewards, including DIY capacitor kits, the Copper speaker, and pilot versions of Helium Mono and Helium Stereo.
With 28 days to go, you could be a lucky recipient of some truly groundbreaking technology!
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