When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works

Home / News / The measuring tape is dead. Long live the dimensioning pen!

The measuring tape is dead. Long live the dimensioning pen!

I dimension, you dimension, we dimension… one dimensions

And yet, I think I measure.

Sigh. And this so soon after Microsoft dragged the word ‘performant’ into being. Still, no-one could argue that ‘dimensioning pen’ isn’t a fairly descriptive title for a thing. Except that it’s actually called the InstruMMent 01. It’s US$149, by the way, and it’s available now.

Don’t try and sell it to me yet; I don’t understand what it does.

It measures things. You run the roller end along a surface – there’s a little laser light to help you find your way – and the results are displayed on a corresponding phone app.

I can get a measuring tape for £3.

Ah, but can your so-called measuring tape measure around curved or otherwise shaped objects? Does it have an accelerometer to automatically label the height, width and depth dimensions of a box as you measure it? Does it also come with either a pen, pencil or capacitive touchscreen stylus on one of its ends?

We’ll wager it does not, Sir, and if that multi-functionality’s not worth US$149 and some manhandling of the word ‘dimension’, then we’ll eat our hat.

How’s that hat?

Damn tasty, thanks.

Profile image of Fraser Macdonald Fraser Macdonald consulting editor

About

Fraser used to wear a Psion Series 3 palmtop in a shoulder holster. Perhaps he still does.Either way, his lifelong mission - including fourteen years for Stuff - has been to see whether the consumer electronics industry can ever replicate that kind of cyborgian joy.So far: nope. Despite a plan to combine a action camera and Olympus Eye-Trek goggles to become Man Who Sees The Vision Of A Man Three Inches Taller Than Himself.He also likes mountain bikes, motorbikes, cars, helicopters. Still thinks virtual surround is witchcraft. Dislikes jetskis, despite never having been on one.