Will Crowdfunding Change the Face of Consumer Electronics?

At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) a number of companies showed wares developed using the crowdfunding finance model popularized by Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and a variety of other firms.  Some of these devices were recently reviewed in another Forbes article and include:

• Two watches: the Pebble and ConnectedDevice’s COOKOO,
• A minimalist home phone by UrbanHello,
• The Turtle Shell line of loudspeakers by Outdoor Technology,
• Robots designed to look like the Android mascot by Reality Robotics,
• The Shine activity monitor by Misfit Wearables,
• HAPIfork, a food intake monitor,
• Two 360-degree lenses for the iPhone, made by Kogeto and GoPano,
• The Ouya game console,
• The Good Night Lamp, a product that defies categorization.

These companies have raised anywhere from $100,000 to about $10 million using crowdsourcing, largely by taking pre-sale orders for upcoming products