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Bagel "Smart Tape Measure" Seeks 30K on Kickstarter, Clocks Over $500,000—and Counting

Apparently there's profit in making "dumb" tools "smart"

By Rain Noe - July 12, 2016

in Hand Tools | Design Business | Crowdfunding

Let this be a marketing lesson for you would-be design entrepreneurs: There is a potentially massive market for specialty tools that have been redesigned and/or made "smart" for laypeople, even if the cost is much higher. Let's look at tape measures, for instance:

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- At your local home center, you can pick up a 25' Stanley FatMax for about 20 bucks. It will survive a drop off of an extension ladder and most contractors would be happy to throw one or two of these into the back of the truck.

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- You can also buy a cheapie, plastic, 25' generic model for about five bucks. This will not survive falling off of a ladder, but this is the model your average citizen will pick up to help them plot out their frame cluster before living out its retirement in the junk drawer in the foyer.

In essence this is two markets, pro and non-pro. Twenty bucks versus five bucks. But a company called Bagel Labs is targeting a third market, and has designed a gadgetized "smart" tape measure, the Bagel, that will retail for a whopping $90. Here's what it does:

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I cannot see the roller feature delivering accurate results. I have no doubt that the wheel can be calibrated to precision, but in terms of knowing precisely where to start and end the rolling, not to mention keeping it in a perfectly straight line during the process, seems a bit of a UX challenge.

One area where I do see the roller being helpful is for upholsterers who need to determine rough fabric lengths for curved objects.

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I see a major design flaw in having a round bottom where the "remote" feature is concerned. Any laser measuring device worth its salt has a flat bottom for good reason. Imagine laying this on the floor and attempting to shoot it straight upwards, to figure out how long to cut studs for a new wall, for instance. If the object is not completely plumb, you'll get an incorrect, slightly diagonal measurement.

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The aforementioned flaws do not matter to the backers, of which nearly 5,000 have pledged a total of $535,843 at press time, on a $30,000 target. And there are still 22 days left to pledge.

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The takeaway: Obviously this is not aimed at contractors, as one of the touted benefits is "No more cutting your fingers on metal tape edges" (we're not making that up). And five-dollar tape measures aimed at the casual user are obviously a huge chunk of the market. But by going "smart" and expensive, Bagel Labs has managed to carve out a pretty good niche. Next we'll see if they can deliver, and we'll be very curious to read the reviews.

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Jeremy Lacy

8 years ago

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I think the ideas are good but I agree with other comments and would also add that taking a laser measure and not having a flat base to help keep the measurement plumb would be a huge problem. I wish they would've designed the base to account for this but I'll wait for reviews before I make my mind up. I'm probably not the person this was designed for anyways. Until then, I'll keep my Fat Max (which is awesome) and my Bosch GLM80 for larger distances (which is also durable, accurate & awesome).

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Rudy Werner

8 years ago

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Again, so much for the wisdom of crowd(s)funding....

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Adam Kemény

8 years ago

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I'd be *amazed* if just one of these is delivered successfully this year

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Brian Hackett

8 years ago

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Madness. Along with the difficulty of accuracy for the ball measure, there is no discernible edge to register your measurement when using the tape. I'd much rahter buy the measure you featured from the Holz Handwerk show.

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Esmond Sit Bo Sheng

8 years ago

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The only reason I changed my mind about backing it is because I do not see how a string a hook will be any easier than the conventional metal tape. I can stand on one end of say a table, extend the tape to the other end and get a measurement where as I can't do that with a string.

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Lee Bizek

8 years ago

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Wouldn't the string stretch or sag over longer distances causing inaccurate measurements?

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