Penmoto was my favorite Kickstarter funding to date. The project team provided a thoughtful and creative prototype concept, and more step by step process information as the project entered production than any other Kickstarter project I’ve seen. The process junkie in me loved it. They had many issues with quality control and supply over the months of final development and QA/QC and their diligence allowed them to arrive at a top-quality product that is well put together.
The concept is simple: When you use a stylus all day, setting it down and picking it up every time you want to type can be laborious and inefficient. The Penmoto is a ring coupler, where one module fits on your digit and the other on your stylus. Simple enough, right? But the key to the design’s innovation is the interface: HOW you transition the stylus into ‘away’ mode is as important to the efficiency concept as the act itself. With Penmoto, you can either flick or spin the pen away from your writing position, thanks to two pairs of coupled magnets. It’s pretty brilliant.
After some months of trial and tribulation on the part of the Penmoto team, the product finally shipped last week, and I was soon in possession of my Penmoto Kickstarter kit. It was packaged in a savvy, designer-appealing way, with a folded cardstock enclosure opening to reveal the penmoto modules on a punched card, with instructions shown in semaphore along each face of the enclosure. Gorgeous! As last minute additions to the Kickstarter package, we were also treated to a spare set of magnets and silicone adhesive dots, intended to double up on the magnetic coupling of the pen and ring, to ease learning of the flick or spin methods of moving the stylus away. I didn’t end up using them, but a nice inclusion. Further, a number of ring sizes are included, to allow either multiple fits, or, in a household like mine, with a diminutive yet commanding presence in the form of wifebot(tm), a second penmoto in action. Realistically though, I’ve just added a coupler to my second stylus that lives with my dreadfully underutilized Wacom Cintiq in the home office (I use an Intuos 3 tablet everywhere, but have limited access to the Cintiq, on account of the demands of small-child parenting and bike riding.)
The default configuration is as shown above. The ring is on your index finger, and the spin sends the pen away from your keyboard. The back end of the stylus is now lined up with your index finger. An alternate method features thumb-mounting of the digit ring, which is better for some, and certainly for me. The spin you can get on the stylus, in either layout, is pretty fun, though the thing can escape at velocity if you have too many of what DeNiro called ‘the enthusiasms’ in Untouchables.
I should note that being a two-finger-typist (of considerable speed) this product isn’t always best for me. I learned years ago to shift the stylus to between my index and middle fingers while typing, which is still more efficient than this. But for proper QWERTY users, I think this must be a godsend. I still quite like it and use it for some text input, just not a 5-paragraph essay… or review.
Well-recommended, and pre-orders are now available:
http://penmoto.com/
