Why it matters to you
No one likes wasting good wood by getting their measurements wrong. This Kickstarter smart miter saw fence will help you make the perfect cut every time.
Ever tried a spot of do-it-yourself work and ended up wasting good wood by making the wrong cut? As Steve Jobs might have said, “there’s an app for that” — or, in this case, a whole smart miter saw fence.
Described by creators Velocity Robotics as the first of its connected “Internet of Tools,” Autoset is a nifty rail device which reads in a cut list generated electronically by Bluetooth measuring tools, and then moves a stop to the exact location so you make the perfect cut.
To make a single cut, the user presses a single button on the Bluetooth tape measure, and moves Autoset’s stop in the indicated direction. Autoset then stops and makes a fine adjustment to the exact cut length, while the user grabs his or her workpiece.
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“When I founded Velocity Robotics, I had been working at Caterpillar for a number of years, and I had done some DIY renovation work on my 80-year-old house,” founder Brad Kriel told Digital Trends. “Between those two experiences, I decided to start something in the construction industry. I still had no idea what, though. After some early interviews with contractors, the first thing I learned was the the ‘cut guy’ is a big bottleneck — so I decided to try to tackle the issues around measuring, cutting, and installing building material, among the most common workflows on the construction site.”
While the type of saw you get is important, getting the proper support for your saw is also incredibly important, yet often overlooked.
The promise of Autoset is to let customers measure and cut stock much faster, more precisely, and with fewer errors — thereby improving efficiency and reducing scrap. You’ll need your own miter saw for it to work (unless you just plan to do a whole lot of measuring with no actual cutting), but Kriel says that the device has been designed to attach to any make and model out there.
“Autoset is built for the construction site in mind, but is just as useful in the wood shop,” he continued. “It’s for rough carpentry and finish carpentry. It’s for wood floors and tile and siding. It’s for plumbing. It’s for woodworking. Really, it’s for any operation that uses or can use a miter saw.”
Pre-orders are currently underway on Kickstarter, where Kriel and his team have 28 days to raise $50,000. An Autoset test kit starts at $349, which includes 8 feet of rail, carriage with stop and user controls, universal bracket for saw mount, iOS or Android app, and an eTAPE16 Bluetooth tape measure. Shipping is set to take place in June 2017.