Trippy Uses Wi-Fi to Help Ordinary Speakers Go Wireless

Our Kickstarter of the Week column looks for the coolest new crowdfunded projects that you can back, on sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, among others. We're always looking for cool new projects to back because some of the most interesting products we've seen of late come from small companies and not giant corporations.

In the last couple of years, some of the most exciting developments in technology, like the Pebble smartwatch and the Oculus Rift have come, not from the established players, but from small teams with big dreams. We're watching out for what comes next.

This week, we came across Trippy - it is a small Wi-Fi dongle that connects using a standard 3.5mm cable to your speakers, allowing older wired speakers to stream music over Wi-Fi. This is not the first product of its kind, but most others are not easily found in India and are therefore also more expensive. If it's funded via Witworks, you'll be able to get a Trippy in India at Rs. 1,949.

Witworks is an Indian platform that crowdsources product ideas, and puts prototypes of selected ideas up for pre-order. The concept is similar to Kickstarter, with multiple reward tiers and rewards that go beyond the products themselves; but Witworks curates the ideas and develops them itself, so there are only two products you can back on the site right now.

We really liked the design of the Trippy - it's a smooth puck that would fit right in your pocket when you're not using it. And using it sounds pretty simple - just plug it in, start the companion app to connect the dongle to Wi-Fi the way you would connect a Chromecast, and start streaming music. Once the Trippy is connected to the Wi-Fi network, it can play music through the companion app, or through Airplay, or uPnP. This means that once it is set up, you can stream from a wide number of devices, even without the companion app.

You can see the full details in the video below:

At this point, Trippy has raised nearly Rs 1.85 lakh out of a target of Rs. 20 lakh, but there are still 16 days to go, and if it does not reach the target, your money will be refunded. You can pre-order a Trippy at Rs. 1,949, and it will be delivered in India in August.

To see more from the world of crowdfunding, see our previous Kickstarter of the Week stories.