If you’re looking to impress your geeky friends who love listening to music, look no further than Blueshift’s first product.
The new Portland-based startup just launched a crowdfunding campaign for Helium, a portable speaker that’s powered by supercapacitors — meaning it can charge quickly and hold power for longer periods of time than a traditional battery.
Helium charges in five minutes and can play music for six hours at full volume. It also has a lifetime of 500,000 charges.
Even more geeky, the speakers are open-sourced, allowing ongoing updates and improvements.
“We want to push the world toward longer-lasting, more sustainable products,” the company writes. “Supercapacitors are a technology that can help — so we’re making our ideas available to anyone who wants to build awesome products.”
Inside the speakers are a 4″ full-range driver, which is enclosed by shell made of bamboo sourced from Portland.
Blueshift, which does its own manufacturing in the Rose City, is offering up its “Copper” product — one that requires an outlet — starting at $300, while the portable “Helium” goes for $350 (mono) and $500 (stereo).
Blueshift is using a fellow Portland-based company, CrowdSupply, to raise $35,000 by Dec. 19. Check out the campaign here.