Focusing on the Internet of Things, the 2015 O’Reilly Solid Conference, at Fort Mason in San Francisco, was peppered with established speakers and interesting exhibits from IoT mainstays, such as Autodesk and Intel. The event also hosted the Startup Showcase, a competition in which the judges were ready to accept or swat away each new enterprise’s pitch. Among the 30 startups selected by O’Reilly to compete in the Startup Showcase was one business with both 3D printed electronics and sustainability in mind. Nascent Objects took home the win at that event for their product development platform and water conservation product meant to help people keep track of their water consumption.
The pitch from the Nascent Objects team showed how their unique platform uses modular electronics and a new process to generate 3D printed circuitry in order to dramatically decrease product development timelines. The startup illustrated how consumers can switch modules from one product to another, which lets people save up to 50% of the cost of buying various new smart devices (think fitness trackers and smart security devices).
How It Works:
Nascent Objects software will prompt you, so that you can tell it what you want to create, give the general schematics of your product, with a combination of 3D modeling and placing drag-and-drop modules into your object. You can even enter code directly on the platform, through the JavaScript API. After your product is built to your specification, it is delivered to you with your electrical components fully integrated.
Swappable Modules:
- Main boards
- Cameras
- On-board power
- Accelerometers
- RGB LEDs
- Captouch
- Memory
- Protoboards
Nascent Objects is using their own platform to launch product series that are viable examples of what goods can be created with their development platform. The first product series they presented was H2SHOW, which was described as “a smart water monitor aimed at increasing conservation in light of the California drought.” The device, now available for pre-order, works like this: you buy it, receive it, take it home, place it next to a faucet or water fixture, it senses how much water you are using, and then displays how much water you have left in your budget.
“It’s great to be able to do something to address the drought and help save water,” said CEO and Nascent Objects founder Baback Elmieh. “Being able to use our technology to make this product quickly means that we can make a difference when it matters most. We started developing the H2SHOW when we heard about the water conservation mandates, and we’ll be launching it in just two months.”
Nascent Objects may be among the first such companies to begin implementing electronics 3D printing for the next generation of manufacturing. As the technology advances, there will only be more such companies that emerge, allowing individuals, not just companies, to manufacture functional objects, and not just plastic or nylon parts.
