Eton Road Torq Self-Powered Spotlight and Emergency Beacon

 

Changing a flat tire on the road can be a difficult challenge for anyone. Changing tires on the road in the middle of the night is hell, not to mention dangerous. The Road Torq Self-Powered Spotlight and Emergency Beacon made by Eton will provide important relief for those stuck in the darkness and in need of reliable source of light. When you become stranded out on the road, lighting is not always ideal or available. Being alone in the dark, in an unknown environment is unpleasant, scary and unsafe. This is where the Eton Road Torq Self-Powered Spotlight and Emergency Beacon will come in very handy.

The Road Torq self-powered emergency device is hand-cranked to generate power and light up its 1.7 Watt LED spotlight. You don’t need any batteries to power the device. With just a few cranks of the built-in generator you always have light. You probably agree, nothing is more unreliable than keeping a flashlight in your car for emergencies only to find out when you really need to use it, the batteries have died. This is never a problem with the self-powered Road Torq Self-Powered Spotlight and Emergency Beacon.  It will never fail you in times of need or road-side emergencies.

Another great feature, the Road Torq Self-Powered Spotlight and Emergency Beacon has a three-leg retractable tripod that provides a steady and reliable stand so you can easily position the spotlight and keep it aimed where you need the light. And the retractable tripod gives you ease of storage and makes it very convenient to keep in your car without taking up a lot of room.

Besides serving as a useful light source, the Road Torq Self-Powered Spotlight and Emergency Beacon includes 3 red LED flashing beacons. This is a great safety feature that helps to alert passersby vehicles or other drivers on the road that you’re working on your car. It can also help to grab attention if you need help when you’re in an accident or other emergencies.

Truly, the Eton Road Torq Self-Powered Spotlight and Emergency Beacon should be a standard safety accessory issued with every new car sold!

I strongly recommend drivers everywhere to keep at least one Road Torq Spotlight and Emergency Beacon in their cars at all times. You never know when you might find yourself in trouble. It’s better to be safe than sorry.

Available: Amazon

Price: $30.00

Dryer Vent Alarm

 

According to a study conducted by the Consumer Products Safety Commission, 15,000 fires that occur annually in the United States is caused by a clothes dryer. This is due to excess lint that is formed during the clothes drying process.

Lint that is accumulated over time blocks the vents in the dryer causing it to overheat and short circuit. To avoid burning the house down, we can occasionally check the lint trap in the dryer but that does not guarantee that there is no lint trapped in other parts of the dryer vent. What is needed is a safety gadget that can alert you of a blockage.

Thankfully the Dryer Vent Alarm is now made available in the market. By installing this device into the dryer’s transition hose, it will alert you with the sound of an alarm when the dryer is blocked with lint. The Dryer Vent Alarm monitors the air pressure in the dryer vents. There are also five LEDs located at the base of the device indicating the amount of blockage in the dryer. When all five LEDs are lit, that would indicate that there is a serious blockage in your dryer vent.

In addition to that, if there is a blockage in the vent the air pressure will go up. At the point when the air pressure reaches a critical level of 90 dB, the alarm will activate. The Dryer Vent Alarm will continue to ring until someone presses the reset button. Not only can this device reduce the number of fire incidents caused by a blocked dryer; it can also save energy because a blocked dryer causes it to use more energy to dry the clothes.

Available: Hammacher

Price: $59.95

Firetext Smoke Alarm Will Automatically send SMS Up To 4 Phones In An Emergency

 

Smoke alarms are basically designed to alert and to wake up all the people in a building that a fire has broken out in. They may also be helpful in alerting people when their much loved and yummy chocolate chip cookies are burning. Either way they are designed to warn people of the danger i.e a fire and allow them, to escape hopefully without anyone losing their lives.

But this Firetext Smoke Alarm goes one step further. It features a slot for SIM card and when it observes smoke in its range it will send an SMS message for up to 4 different numbers. I assume that it’s meant as a useful way to alert the people in an emergency situation when they are away from the building where the Firetext Smoke Alarm detector is present. As opposed to rendering a more efficient way to alert our generation of a fire, who looks to have produced a knee-jerk ‘gotta check it right away!’ response to their mobiles ‘new text message’ alert.

Firetext Smoke Alarm is still powered by a standard 9V battery, which is pretty good for about 36 activations. But in the event that it will never goes off, on a single battery it should stay active for about 5 years. The Firetext Smoke Alarm is available now for about $144 i.e £89.99 plus the cost of your SIM card and your local carrier’s SMS service I presume.

[Source: Firetext]

The Tsunami Escape Pod

 

With the severely regretted events occurring in Japan recently, everyone hopes that there is something they could do to help out with the situation. One of the fruits of such dreams is the Tsunami Escape Pod.

Tsunami Escape Pod is a 7-foot hollow ball made to fit a family of six. However, with the issue of huge meal portions clouding our society these days, no one can be sure how many members could actually fit in.

The mechanism of this life-saving ball starts at the first sign of a tsunami. When a family sees the tides receding, they would all jump into the ball and close the lid tight. I wish I could imagine how that can be done before the water catches their heels, but I am no Einstein so I’ll leave that to the inventors. Then, the ball would keep them safe by floating on the wave and bouncing away from any danger.

This Tsunami Escape Capsule is invented by Julian Sharpe and Scott Hill – both are Boeing engineers, in case you’re in doubt. The idea came during a tsunami warning at Cannon Beach, Oregon. This escape pod, however, is still under construction.

As you can see, the escape pod is actually a multi-functioning product. Imagine what would happen when a ball is left floating on ferociously rocking water. It will go round and round and bob up and down according to the rhythm of the wave. Therefore, other than saving lives, this ball also offers exclusive entertainment that you won’t get anywhere else – only on a tsunami. The product is expected to kick off in two years at around $1,000 each.

[Source: Tech Flash]

Improved Tracking Ability for Firefighters

 

Firefighting is without doubt one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. Even with all their safety equipment firefighters put their lives at risk everytime they go into a burning building.

One of the most useful pieces of equipment to a firefighter is their communication device which takes the form of a radio. Unfortunately radio signals can be blocked by concrete walls which mean sometimes a firefighter may have no way of communicating back to their commander. This becomes even more serious if the firefighter is in trouble and needs to let them know their location.

For this reason the US Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate have developed a better system, a system that involves a three-part structure,

Firstly, a book sized tracking device is carried by the firefighter, this is named the Geospatial Location Accountability and Navigation System for Emergency Responders. That’s a mouthful; thankfully there is an acronym for short, the GLANSER. On the back of the fire truck a laptop is used to receive microwave radio signals from the GLANSER. The laptop and the GLANSER software displays firefighters positions in the building in real time no matter where they go.

Secondly, firefighters wear a Physiological Health Assessment System for Emergency Responders (another acronym – PHASER). This device monitors variables of the firefighter such as body temperature, blood pressure, and heart beat/pulse rate. From this, the laptop which the data is streamed to can be used to view the status of the firefighter, obviously if signs are extreme then the firefighter will be ordered to evacuate. The PHASER device can also be used to indicate whether the firefighter is in trouble as along with the GLANSER indicating the firefighter not moving the PHASER may indicate their vital signs slowing down.

The main problem with transmitters for the PHASER and GLANSER is that they may be unable to transmit their signal through thick concrete walls. To help this a third device is used called the Wireless Intelligent Sensor Platform for Emergency Responders (WISPER). This device is small with dimensions of one square inch by half an inch thick. It is robust as well as it’s both waterproof and able to resist temperatures of up to 500F (260°C). Built within the device are an antenna, a two-way radio, and a 3-volt Lithium battery. The idea behind this third part of the system is that multiple WISPERS are dropped as signal from the firefighter to the laptop base station is reduced. Each dropped WISPER combines to form a network that can produce a positive GLANSER and PHASER signal no matter what obstacles the firefighter comes across.

Personally, this sounds like a good system in theory but I think a lot of testing and training would have to be carried out before it can be used in real world situations. Fingers crossed they continue to develop it and if the technology used saves one brave firefighters life that a traditional radio couldn’t then it gets my vote.

[Source: Homeland Security]