All the Haginas brothers wanted to do was create a device that would let health and wellness professionals work remotely with their clients; in their own living rooms, through video conferencing. But as the two Miami Beach, Florida fitness buffs soon learned, their brainchild was going to need more high-power hardware than either of them had originally estimated. What was first born as the Reshape project, soon morphed into the TVPRO, a full-on, Android-powered smart TV system, built into a 1080p HD webcam, and armed with enough processing power to make your tablet jealous.
Imagine having the power to watch movies and TV shows from Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Instant, and VUDU, stream music from your favorite Internet music services like Pandora and Spotify, and make video calls to friends and family, all through a high-definition webcam placed on or near your television – that’s the TVPRO in a nutshell.
The device is equipped with a quad-core processor for speedy navigation and app loading, dual noise-cancelling microphones, and a couple of speakers for autonomous video calls with displays that may not have their own built-in speakers. Control is leveraged through an “air mouse” with a full QWERTY keyboard for easier text entry and web browsing. Apps? Take your pick from the Google Play store.
Sounds pretty cool, right? Here’s the catch, though: The TVPRO is just a Kickstarter project at the moment and it needs quite a bit more funding before it will become a reality. At the time of this writing, the project still needs $121,000 with just 26 days left to go. If this looks like the kind of device you’d like to see in your bonus room or home gym, you’ll need to crack open your wallet. $140 will secure you one of the first TVPROs available, though smaller and larger donations are accepted.
