This week’s SmartDevice roundup features a cool new Bluetooth headset, a smart way of monitoring your baby, and a fun way to digitize board games.  Plus, a new crowdfunding site to help projects get the backing and mentor support they need.

Deka

We often see people wearing Bluetooth headsets, walking around and talking to “themselves”, looking something like a droid.  They all have this black, elongated device sticking out of their ears.  Don’t you wish there was a way to make these Bluetooth headsets less obvious and more fashionable?

Now you can, with Deka.  It’s equipped with Bluetooth 3.0 technology, an HD speaker, microphone, multicolor light visualizer and sound sensor.  It has a waterproof shell so it’s safe to use near bodies of water, and has a long battery life with talk time up to 5 hours and standby time up to 150 hours.

The Deka looks like an in-ear headset, or earbud, sans the wires.  The Deka alone already looks stylish, but there are designs that can easily slide on the device to customize it.  You can choose slide caps with photo images, or 3D slides of flowers and skulls, or something you designed yourself, as these are 3D printed.

Deka was recently launched on Indiegogo with a funding goal of $100,000.  It still has 33 days to complete funding and it has already raised more than $10,000.  If you want to see this go to market, head over to Indiegogo and fund the project.

Owlet Baby Monitor

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome claims thousands of babies every year.  What’s scary about this is that it can happen to any kid under the age of one, and you won’t even know until it’s too late because the baby doesn’t really show any signs.  This made baby monitors popular in recent decades, but most rely only on audio sounds.  While others offer a way for you to see your baby, it’s still hard to discern if the baby is still breathing.

Owlet Baby Monitor is a vitals monitoring system that measures heart rate, oxygenation, and sleep data.  It’s like a sock that snugly fits on your baby’s foot while he or she sleeps.  It then sends collected data via Bluetooth 4.0 to the parent’s smartphone, which is then pushed to the cloud, making the data available on any internet connected device.

The Owlet price starts at $199, and will ship this Fall.

Dice+

Board games are fun to play with all the apps on smartphones and tablets, they are now deemed obsolete.  Now, there’s a way to bring back the joy of playing board games without sacrificing your tablets or smartphones.

Dice+ brings back the memories of rolling a die to know how many steps you’ll be taking, how much closer you’ll get to your goal or whatever the mechanics of the game is.  But unlike tapping on a virtual die that you’re not even sure if it will give you a random number or land you in jail, Dice+ gives the control back in your hands.

You can’t just use Dice+ on any game board-like app on iOS or Android, it has to be Powered Board Games as the games and Dice+ are integrated seamlessly.  Dice+ connects to the games via Bluetooth 2.1 and 4.0, it also has magnetic field sensor that determines its orientation in the 3D space, proximity sensor that detects when it is being handled, accelerometer, ARM microcontroller with temperature sensor, a battery that lasts 20 hours with continuous use or a week if not.  It has a rubbery finish so it won’t slide off the table.

Dice+ costs about $54 and it comes with a pouch, a manual, the Dice+, a USB cable for charging and 6 Power Board Games.

New crowdfunding platform

Kickstarter and Indiegogo are packed with projects ranging from movies, smart devices, and recordings, to name a few.  So it can be challenging to stand out. Now there’s a new crowdfunding platform just for gadget makers, where winners gain access to a team of mentors as well. .

HWTrek (Hardware Trek) announced its digital crowdfunding platform this week, setting out to revolutionize the crowdfunding process.

It will pair project teams with manufacturing and design experts who help guide the projects from concept to production, delivering a high-quality product at scale, on time and on budget, to hardware enthusiasts excited to back promising product innovations.

“This is really a win-win-win situation,” explains Lucas Wang, CEO HWTrek, and Partner TMI Holding Corp. He continues, “Consumers get access to new hardware and can be confident that manufacturing experts are guiding teams at every step. Project teams get invaluable advice and guidance to make their product a reality. Experts get to work on innovative designs and source them through their affiliated partners.”

Interested innovators should move in quickly to grab this opportunity.  HWTrek’s funds-matching launch initiative is giving away up to $200,000 to five projects: if a team raises $50k on the platform, they’ll provide an extra $20k; if a team raises $100k on the platform, they’ll provide an extra $40k.  To qualify, all projects should be submitted by October 31, 2013.