Lento is an unexpectedly whimsical but safe and effective photoelectric smoke alarm designed by Finnish designer Paola Suhonen for Jalo Helsinki.
Lento will not only enhance the safety of your home, but you will also add a touch of originality. Forget the boring and unattractive smoke alarms on the market – with Lento an essential everyday object such as a smoke alarm will become an original piece of design for decorating your home and keeping it safe. Installing Lento will take only a few seconds thanks to its 3M tape and there will be no need for screws or a power drill.
The whole surface of the smoke alarm acts as a test button, so there are no tiny push buttons, but the whole external casing acts as a press switch for silencing false alarms and testing the performance. Lento has been developed and manufactured according to the requirements and standards for smoke alarms. Lento is lightweight and has a 5 year battery life time.
Available in pink, green, grey, white or black, Lento was awarded the Red Dot Design Award 2011.
Accessories: 5 years
Warranty: 5 year battery life time
Size: Length 188 mm, width 184 mm, height 50 mm, weight 200 g
Colors: Green, Pink, White, Grey and Black
Notes: Operational temperature 0-45C, humidity 0-90%
KUPU - Photoelectric Smoke Alarm, Design by Harri Koskinen
If you'd prefer a smoke alarm that is not quite as whimsical, Jalo Helsinki also manufactures the KUPU, another Red Dot Design Winner that is a square photoelectric smoke alarm available in multiple colors:
The Smart Baby Monitor from Withings is truly a game changing device for new moms and dads. Sleek in design and compact in size, it's packed with the latest technological features that will put any nervous parent at ease.
It's design looks very "apple" with its touch screen interface and it can be used to monitor your baby wirelessly with your iPhone, iPad or iPad Touch via Wi-Fi, Ethernet or Bluetooth.
The Smart Baby Monitor has a high resolution screen (zoom, pan tilt and night vision), crystal clear sound, detects movement and noise, has sensors to monitor the temperature and humidity in the room, can send you four different types of alerts, a built in loudspeaker to play lullabies (you control the volume), controllable LED color changing light acts as a soothing night light and it's rechargeable with an included USB cable.
Works on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch:
Night Vision and History:
Alerts you to noise, temperature and activity:
Monitors room temperature and humidity ( Farenheit or Celsius):
Plays your choice of lullaby (you control the volume, too):
Color Changing LED nightlight:
The Monitor comes with a free iOS application available from the App Store: compatible with iPhone, iPad and iPod touch and 3 accounts can access the Smart Baby Monitor simultaneously, so both parents and a nanny can all be watching baby, if need be.
Let me start off by saying I have spelled the name of this product correctly. Sadly, in some other articles and press, the product has been misspelled as "nesst".
Apparently the Nestt by think/thing is presently in production and has been approved by the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. It must be expensive because it's falling into the 'luxury' category as stated by both the designers and other reviews.
In addition to its organic modern egg design, the Nestt uses a steel safety cage in its skeleton with memory foam cushions that clearly provides enormous side-impact protection for young children.
For the "I'm-so-hip-I'm-bordering-on-space-age" baby!
UPDATE: In 2007 I blogged about Bulletproof baby- what I thought was a company that made actual Bulletproof baby gear and infant safety protection. Even then I thought it seemed absurd, I didn't make the leap to the fact that it was part of a marketing rouse (nor did slashgear, gawker, metro uk and many other sites and bloggers) for a then soon to be released film.
Since then it has come to light, that the entire site, the products and the wildly shocking video were all part of a 'viral' marketing plan for what must have been an awful film called Shoot 'Em Up starring Clive Owens, Paul Giamatti and Monica Bellucci that was released in 2007.
the plot synosis: A man named Mr. Smith delivers a woman's baby during a shootout, and is then called upon to protect the newborn from the army of gunmen. The movie promised a lot of shooting (at one point Clive Owen even shoots the umbilical cord off a newborn).
Sadly, the site, the viral marketing video (the video shown below in which a mother is firing an automatic weapon at her baby clad in a bulletproof stroller) and the products within are far more interesting than the film turned out to be. See for yourself.
My post as it ran 2 years ago (now with a few parentheticals and addendums):
Can only afford a house in a not-so-safe neighborhood? Afraid to raise kids in a geographic area that's got a safety rating of 2? Fear no more! Bulletproof Baby Gear is here. The following products are not a joke, and what blows me away (pardon the pun) is that almost everything is out of stock.
Need a bullet proof stroller? Cost is $599.00 and it's sold out. How about a Baby Flak Vest (seen below)? $70 and sold out. Baby's first gas mask? My First Gas Mask runs $264.00 and is out of stock. How about a riot helmet, a shield? My first D4-55 riot helmet: a Bullet proof crib? Yep, they're all sold out.
The toddler taser:
Watch them shoot up the baby stroller in their demo video (now uncovered to be a viral marketing ploy):
They also have some fun and well designed logos (see below) for the faux company and you can buy real merchandise from them at their cafepress store here.
The founders: The 'now known to be phony' story behind the company:
Welcome to Bullet Proof Baby Industries, the baby protection specialists. I'm Stella Stevenson, Founder and CEO of BPB Industries. I've been an industrial designer all my life, and decided to establish 'bullet proof baby' when my first son, Randy, was nearly killed in a drive by shooting in 2004.
When stray bullets hit the pram but narrowly missed my son, I realized there was a gap in the market for a range of products to protect babies in today's increasingly violent society. Since founding the business in 2005, we've gone from strength to strength, adding new products to our line, and winning awards for our product design innovations.Please note that due to recent events, demand for some of our products has been high and as a result some may be temporarily out of stock. Make sure you check back soon! Make your baby safer today, with Bullet Proof Baby industries.
----Stella & Brian
I had never heard of the movie written and directed by Michael Davis (perhaps you did?) despite it starring 2 of my favorite male actors and was put out by New Line Cinema.
POMEGRANATE PHONE Another viral marketing rouse that has continued to fool the public and garner a great deal of attention,is that of the faux Pomegranate Phone. I am still amazed how many of my readers write to me requesting the price or where they can purchase it.
TATTOO YOUR HEART And then there was this phony site and service to promote a new music release from Vikunju, promising to tattoo your actual beating heart:
