The idea of your smart phone dock saving your life is funny, if not ironic – typically your smartphone distracts you from everyday situations. A new “emergency aide” has been created to enhance your dwelling’s fire safety system. And it’s all based around your smartphone.

Sense+ is an interesting new piece of smart phone hardware. It’s a docking station that works with your current ceiling-mounted smoke detectors. Rather than replacing them, it enhances their abilities. Standard smoke alarms detect only ionized smoke, which is from fires that are already flaming. Sense+ has a built-in photoelectric smoke sensor that can detect smoldering fires before they’re out of control.

All the detected information goes through an app, which alerts the owner to the danger. If there is no response, the app automatically calls specified emergency contact numbers. And it also detects carbon monoxide, an odorless gas that makes people sleepy and can be fatal. Just don’t forget to plug it in.

The post Innovative iPhone Dock Detects Smoke + Carbon Monoxide first appeared on Gajitz.

Trying to watch a movie on your iPhone is kind of like driving a golf cart to work: it gets the job done, but in the most inconvenient way possible. If you’re set on using your iPhone for movies, though, the Mini Cinema from Faces is a helpful way to make the experience a little more pleasant.

The Mini Cinema is basically a non-powered dock fitted with a magnifier and an amplifier. Your iPhone nestles in the middle so the plastic magnifying screen can turn the movie on your phone into a slightly larger-looking movie.

The amplifier makes the phone’s audio a bit more robust, making it easier to share your movie-viewing experience with someone else. The Mini Cinema is a neat tool, particularly if you want to watch movies on your phone with another person (which is virtually impossible under normal circumstances) but we aren’t convinced this non-electronic gadget is worth the hefty $68 price tag.

The post Movie Multiplier: Dock Makes iPhone Movie Watching Easier first appeared on Gajitz.

The touchscreen on your iPad might be easier to type on than that of an iPhone, but it’s still a touchscreen – which means it’s still a pain in the neck. Designer Austin Yang wants to bring back the old-school satisfaction of a typewriter’s click-click-click, so he created a typewriter-style dock. The dock holds an iPad and allows you to hunt and peck away, just like you used to on a typewriter (if you’re over a certain age) or a physical keyboard.

The idea is actually really fun, but the actual product is not as great as it could be. The keyboard doesn’t have the QWERTY setup we’re all used to, and things like the space bar and punctuation look to be located in odd places. Still, if you don’t mind hunting and pecking for what seems like a really long time, the cool dock does give you the satisfaction of pushing physical buttons to type, something the iPad just can’t offer on its own.

The post Typewriter iPad Dock Blends New Tech + Classic Style first appeared on Gajitz.

Everybody loves Atari, but with all of the super-high-tech games out now it might be hard to find time for those classics from the 80s. Etsy seller and audio tinkerer Daniel McLeod built this rad iPhone dock out of an Atari 2600 console that was originally built in November 1980.

The subwoofer couldn’t fit inside the console, so it became an external part of the setup. Computer speakers and an iPhone dock were stuffed into the Atari’s carcass and a 3.5mm jack was added onto the back for plugging in media players.

You can still plug controllers into the appropriate jacks, but obviously the console is non-operational as a video game. It’s pretty reasonably priced at $100 and would probably make the perfect gift for your favorite 8-bit enthusiast.

The post Modern Antique: Classic Atari Transformed into iPhone Dock first appeared on Gajitz.