The Wandmakers Chris and Richard sent a free Kymera Wand,
with a gift message:
Dear Mr. NeeNaw, we’ve seen your videos –
the Harry Potter one appealed to us greatly,
and we figured you’d enjoy one of these
to the crazy Mr. NeeNaw aka Neelesh.
After some problems opening the package (like a man) he lifts the lid of the black box with sound effects he finds the “big piece of paper” then he figures out that it is a wand but very unlike the HP ones.
His electronic knowhow helps him to find the little piece of plastics that keeps the batteries from conducting and to remove it. “I didn’t read that, I don’t know what it is. It does make magical noises.” Then he reads the instructions aloud anyway – you all know that about the universal infrared remote control that can recognize up to 13 gestures.
We follow him to his “lounge”. He presents the wand again but talks about fake leather of the box and saving cows. But acutally it is Faux Dragon Skin (important difference). After presenting the “nicely themed mass of instructions”, he switches on his TV which is slowly waking up (as all TV’s seem to do nowadays), pulls back to leave the tv guide, double tap to enter it again, changes channels and the like.
“They take a small while to get used to but then they can replace TV, Sky, Apple remotes.”
“The way you program it is pretty awesome, it gives you feedback because you can feel beating it your hand. Which is a very very creepy feeling.”
“I’m very grateful that TheWandCompany sent me one of these, because I love them now. I think it will make a great gift. ”
If you’re in England you’ll receive it within one day.
When my sister is watching crappy music on MTV I can switch it off.
And now I’m going to program it to everything thats in my skull. So I can get up to mischief.
He’s blown away:
It is pretty damn awesome (6 times or so) … I love it.
Coolest thing about the video are the bloopers Like the planes and the wand biting.
I should ask the people that received a free wand from me to do a similar cool video or blog post.
We chatted about having a giveaway contest some time in the future, and now with Fathers Day (June 20th) approaching, she took the chance to offer a Kymera Wand for her blog’s readers.
As an avid reader of the Kymera Wand site, you should know how many gestures the wand supports. So hurry up to the post and add your comment to win a wand.
The giveaway is open until June 11th 2010. Wishing you Good Luck.
We already contacted him for the details so he’ll soon be a proud Kymera Wand owner.
Everyone else, don’t be sad, there will be more possibilities throughout the year to win a magic wand. We’ll continue to post Kymera Wand news on Facebook just stay tuned. Thanks for your participation.
I just noticed that the wandmakers moved to a new twitter account @thewandcompany. So if you want to follow the news from their workshop just add them to your list of daily updates.
So, this is the 100th post on kymera-wand.com. I want to take some time to celebrate and review the things that happened since I became a fan of the Kymera Wand.
First I want to thank Chris and Richard for their ingenious invention that has sparked magic not only in my life. To come up with such an awesome product is really a work of a genius. Thanks for being so creative, welcoming, helpful and generous all the time. I really enjoyed collaborating with you guys and am very glad to have two such friends on the British Islands. Please keep up the great work and surprise us now and then.
Wand creator Chris Barnardo has the wand supermodel Charlie present the newest magic trick that you can do with the Kymera Wand. Balance it with just one finger. Have fun.
There was an awesome discussion of the Kymera Wand by the Guys from Daily Giz Wiz in their show number 1054. Dick DeBartolo and Leo Laporte have much fun showing off the wand. They are very excited about about it and discuss it in great length.
The well site well known for reviewing Apple related products, appletell.com posted a exhaustive review of the Kymera Wand.
They did a very good job in describing its applicability and potential uses for home equipment and Macs in particular. They also pointed out some disadvantages like the limited number of gestures and the missing "switch gesture set"e;-gesture.
Here are some quotes from the post:
And in practice, it’s truly magic, or at least the kind of magic that your standard magician would perform, making it perfect for kids and the young at heart.
The manual details all of the steps necessary to get you from muggle to magician in no time. You can really get a sense of how much attention to detail is put into this product just by visiting The Wand Company’s web page. I love how their website is different from most, because their product is, too.
They also point out a special annoyance. If you don’t train all the gestures, those you didn’t will result in pulsing their gesture numbers when used accidentally. That takes quite a long time especially for the higher numbers and renders the wand unusable for that time. So it is better to program all gestures (provide a unused ir-function for those gestures not in use – e.g. from an older remote control).
After that’s all done, using the wand is a breeze. The most satisfying thing you can do is shout a “magical phrase” while using a long swipe to turn your TV on or off. And while most of the people to whom I showed this wand initially thought it was lame or extremely nerdy, all found it necessary to do exactly what I just detailed.
Of course they discuss using the Wand with a Mac, as I detailed in the Control Your Mac post, this is easily done.
It’s worth noting that navigating Front Row with this device would work perfectly since you can assign the right IR codes to the same left/right/up/down gestures in the wand. You could use the same gestures to change songs on your Mac from across the room. And honestly, if you’re going to say that a certain computer works with a little bit of magic, it really should be a Mac.
The app SofaControl is recommeded for using a remote with a Mac, I still have to check it out.
They close with the following comments and give the Kymera Wand a 3/5 rating.
And I guarantee you’ll have the coolest universal remote in town if you buy one of these, though you will be accused of being a nerd. You should only buy one of these to have fun, not to replace remotes, because you’ll be disappointed if you’re expecting to do the latter.
I think this product would make a great gift for any kid who’s a Harry Potter fan or just has a general wonder towards magic. And honestly, what kid doesn’t? Could you imagine getting one of these things when you were ten? That would have been awesome.
As I’ve written almost 100 blog posts about lots of different aspects of the Kymera wand, and people might get lost in the sheer amount of information, I’d like to pick some of those which I think are more important than others and point to them in this small overview.
You can of course use the categories on the right side if you’re interested in a certain topic about the Kymera Wand.
To celebrate our new Facebook presence as a place to reach people that share our curiosity, love of magic things and the Kymera Wand in particular,
we’d love to give away
one Kymera Wand
for free.
Your Kymera
is a truly magical feat of
circuitous wizardry
sensing your every movement
& thence employing beams of
invisible light
to control most domestic
equipment at a distance.
This Wand is not a Toy,
it is a finely tuned
Instrument of Control
The Kymera Wand is a
Universal Infrared
Remote Control
that recognizes up to 13
gestures and sends the
according infrared signals.
It can learn infrared codes
from any remote control
(also Mac Apple Remote).
Gesture recognition is
achieved through an
built in accelerometer.
Ihr Kymera Zauberstab
ist ein wahrliches Meisterstück
funkensprühender Magie
der jede Ihrer Bewegungen
spürt und durch Strahlen
unsichtbaren Lichts die
meisten Geräte Ihrer
Umgebung aus der Ferne
steuern kann.
Dieser Zauberstab ist
kein Spielzeug sondern
ein sorgsam kalibriertes
Kontroll-Instrument.
Like the planes and the wand biting.
