Technabob » garden

AQsound Wireless Speakers: Darth Vader Approved

Range — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 12:59:00 +0000

Spring is upon us and that means that summer is not too far off. That being said, it’s always cool to find a way to play your tunes on the patio or in the garden without spending too much money. The AQ Wireless Outdoor Speakers will let you broadcast sound without worrying about your gear getting wet.

The 3.5W speakers are water resistant and can be hooked up to any source, iPod, MP3 player, TV, or a computer. The source plugs into the transmitter, which in turn sends the sound to the speakers. Each of these speakers needs 6 AA batteries, and that will give you 10 hours of playtime. Thankfully, they can also be plugged in, but that defeats the purpose of them being wireless – unless you happen to have an outdoor outlet, of course.

The speakers can be put within 100 feet of the transmitter if there are obstacles such as a wall or a ceiling in the way. If there is no barrier, then the reach is about 330 feet. AQ Wireless Outdoor Speakers sell for £90 (appx. $146 USD) over at Firebox. They come in either black of white, in a design that sort of reminds me of Darth Vader and some stormtroopers.

[via GeekAlerts]

Xtremelife Rock Spy Camera: Good Luck Finding It

Lambert Varias — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 12:49:33 +0000

Psst! You! Evil-doer! Take a good look at this thing. Memorize its nondescript rockiness. Because the next time you’re doing some bad deed in someone’s garden, spreading evil in some rocky area, or stealing pet rocks, this stealthy fella could be nearby, watching you. Because nobody watches like this rock watches. You rock, rock. The rock just sits and is. This rock, which is not actually even a real rock, is weather-resistant, and will start recording whenever it detects motion. Otherwise it remains in sleep mode, enabling it to save battery. In fact, it can standby for up to a year on a single charge, or take videos continuously for up to 20 hours.

To maintain its stealthiness, manufacturer KJB Security didn’t even point out where the pinhole is on this thing. It also should have a USB port somewhere, to transfer videos to a computer. I think they lost the real artificial rock and just placed a picture of an actual rock. Which shows you how good the artificial rock is at blending in. Anyway, the Xtremelife rock comes with a remote control, RCA video cables, and a 2GB SD card, but the camera itself supports up to 32GB. To give you an idea of how much memory you might need, it will take 1GB to store a 40 minute video at 720×480 resolution.

You can order the Xtremelife artificial rock camera at Smarthome for $649 (USD). If you’re getting this, may I suggest that you take a picture of the rock or that you mark it in some small way to distinguish it. Ezio Auditore could take lessons about blending in from this thing.

[via Automated Home]

Star Wars Garden Jawas: There’S No Place Like Gnome

Technabob — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 04:09:08 +0000

If you’re a Star Wars fan, you MUST immediately head over to the Star Wars Shop and place your order for one of these Jawa garden gnomes.

Designed as a good luck charm for your garden, these hand-painted, foot-tall mini Jawa lawn ornaments sell for $35 (USD) each and are the perfect guardian for your front yard.

Of course, they might start scavenging for electronic parts and droids around your house if you don’t keep an careful eye on them.

While the little guys amber eyes look like they’re illuminated in the photo above, I think it’s just a reflection. But I plan on modding mine with solar-powered LED eyeballs to achieve a similar effect. Garden Jawas are available for pre-order now, and start shipping in January 2010, so you’ll have yours in plenty of time for spring flowers. Or is it already springtime on Tatooine? I always figured those twin suns wreaked havoc on the growing calendar.

The Travelocity roaming gnome is so yesterday’s news.

Honey, I Got You a Bouquet of Light-Emitting Diodes

Technabob — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:41:37 +0000

If there’s one thing us geeks know how to do is turn the everyday into something fantastically dorky. Our latest invention? LED flowers, trees and shrubs.

This high-tech plantlife does away with such petty annoyances as dirt, water and sunlight, replacing them with an ongoing thirst for electricity. Each kit comes complete with bendy branches, tipped off with bright and colorful LEDs.

While these particular ones are only available in Korea and come with a 220-volt power adapter, I managed to find some similar ones over at Sam’s Club.

Brinno Gardenwatchcam: Time-Lapse Digital Garden Camera Shoots Video Slightly More Interesting Than Watching Paint Dry

Technabob — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 11:50:58 +0000

Want to know if your green thumb is really green? This nifty garden gadget lets you keep watch over your budding plants 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from across the globe if you want.

The Brinno GardenWatchCam observes your flowers as they grow, taking time lapse digital photos at intervals ranging from 1 minute to 24 hours apart. Just set the camera in front of your plants, set the desired interval, and start capturing your garden as it takes shape. You can also include time and date stamps on your images if you want. Here’s an example video taken from the GardenWatchCam’s time lapse images.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The camera is designed to take 1.2 megapixel macro images from as little as 20-inches away from your subject, or can be set to a distance focus mode for plants more than 20 inches away. Images are captured in JPEG format and can be saved into an AVI video file, and you can store up to 2GB of pictures on any USB flash drive. The camera runs on 4-AA batteries and should be able to shoot images for 4 to 6 months depending on the interval you set.

Of course, you don’t have to use it to shoot time lapse videos of flowers. Pretty much anything that takes a long time to happen is a potential subject…

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

You can find the GardenWatchCam over at Amazon for $139.99 (USD). More example videos can be seen here.

Farmerbot Turns Gardening Into Gaming

Alisha K. — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 11:44:29 +0000

Gardening can be lots of fun, but it’s not always really easy. It can be, though, if you’re a robotics expert able to put together your very own robot gardener, who can do all the grunt work by remote while you kick back in a lawn chair with a gaming controller.

Peter Sands’ garden-bot will create a garden in the space provided, down to planting seeds and tending the veg, but it doesn’t work on its own: the robot is really just a proxy gardener manipulated with a gaming controller. Much easier than breaking soil with a pickaxe!

There’s video of the project, too, but unfortunately, it’s a little short on the gritty details. Cool to see the scope of the garden-bot, though.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

[adafruit via Hack a Day]