Kisha Tells You When You've Forgotten Your Umbrella
Adding to the growing number of smart things trying to vie for our attention, love, and money, Kisha is bringing out what it is poising as the world's first smart umbrella. Using a combination of Bluetooth wireless technology, a mobile app, and some weather reporting, Kisha tries to make sure that not only will you never accidentally lose your umbrella again, you also won't have to leave home or office without your umbrella on a forecast rainy day. And it won't get broken so easily either.
To some extent, Kisha might not be the first to claim the title of first smart umbrella, as Blunt and Tile also just got together to come up with a sturdy umbrella that you can't lose as well. But if you have to nitpick, that umbrella isn't exactly smart in itself, as it merely carries within it one of Tile's handy little NFC and Bluetooth tags to keep the umbrella within sight. Of your smartphone, that is.
To that end, Kisha's umbrella also makes use of a Bluetooth chip but directly embeds it inside the umbrella. The same principle of keeping the umbrella within Bluetooth range is applied, though Kisha tries to be smarter at that in a few ways. For example, it will alert you if you stray too far from your umbrella in a public place, but not when you leave the umbrella at home, at the office, or in your car. But leaving your umbrella even at home will be a problem on a rainy day, that is why the Kisha mobile app has a built-in weather alert function that will inform you when it's going to rain and to remind you to bring your Kisha umbrella along.
Despite the smartness, Kisha isn't a fragile device and is touted to have been designed to last. It is 100 percent windproof and corrosion-proof and uses perfect stitching and 16 polyurethane ribs to keep everything from falling apart. Unlike the Blunt+Tile umbrella, Kisha only comes in one size, at 92 cm (36.22 in) from ferrule to crook handle or 108 cm (42.51 in) from tip to tip.
A single Kisha umbrella is being sold for $59 and, for a limited time, free shipping is being offered. The Kisha app, available for both Android and iOS, will launch sometime this month.
SOURCE: Kisha