At CES Unveiled, the media event leading into CES 2013, UrbanHello co-founder Hervé Artus demonstrated the prototype for what his company is calling the new home phone that works as a hand-set, and as a 360 degree hands-free speaker phone.

The elegantly designed device features a keypad on the bottom, OLED display, and it also works with standard phone lines. UrbanHello also includes standard home phone features like caller ID, call lists, and a phonebook.

Watch the demonstration video, and you can support the UrbanHello project on Kickstarter.

By W. Andrew Powell • January 15, 2013

At least two startups launched Kickstarter campaigns while at CES, hoping for a positive feedback loop between the two platforms. The Good Night Lamp, a set of internet-connected lamps shaped like houses, launched its £360,000 ($580,464) campaign the day before CES started. Urban Hello, a home phone that switches to speakerphone when it’s set down, pulled the trigger on its £100,000 ($161,240) campaign at the trade show’s official press event.

Urban Hello founders Catherine Seys and Herve Artus are a sweet French couple who left their two children with a neighbor in order to come to CES, taking separate flights just in case one plane crashed, they said. “I think Kickstarter is really worth it because we are just starting,” Seys told The Verge. “There’s already one, two, three, four, eight backers,” Artus said. “We stopped looking at it because we have to concentrate.”

Seys and Artus hope Kickstarter will generate buzz around the product that will, in turn, help them get more funding from institutional investors. Urban Hello is an aesthetically pleasing device with high-definition audio and a 360-degree speaker, a rethought version of the home phone that bears little resemblance to the archetypal handset. The couple believes that it’s important to showcase at both Kickstarter and CES, in order to get in front of both consumers and buyers who will put the product in stores.

IF KICKSTARTER HAD A BOOTH, IT WOULD BE THE MOST IMPRESSIVE AND CREATIVE DISPLAY ON THE SHOW FLOOR

Urban Hello has raised £18,636 of its £100,000 goal in four days, a respectable amount but not yet a sure thing. Still, it’s fun to imagine that the home phone, another device thought to be creeping toward obsolescence, might inspire Kickstarter campaigns for creative designs that established companies could never think of. What other neglected or botched categories might turn out to be popular hits on Kickstarter? If Kickstarter had a booth that displayed all the products that had been funded there, it would be the most impressive and creative display on the show floor.

By Adrianne Jeffries on January 10, 2013 03:12 pm

See the full article on theverge.com