The screen’s most basic use is as a digital level, ensuring the drill bit is entering a material at the desired angle, like perfectly horizontal if you’re drilling into a wall to hang art, by simply ensuring a small dot is aligned in the center of a crosshair. But the level can be recalibrated, allowing other angles to be dialed in if you needed a hole at 45 degrees, for example. It can even remember the exact angle of a hole you just drilled by hand, allowing you to perfectly recreate it in other locations.
Anyone who’s ever carefully measured and applied a piece of tape to a bit to ensure they only drill to a specific depth, the xDrill can do all that for you. Using the touch screen you can program a depth, in inches or centimeters, and the drill will automatically stop when the bit has reached that limit. The tool can also measure other distances using a pair of built-in laser rangefinders. If you wanted to drill a hole five feet from a wall and three feet off the floor, you could just use the touchscreen to set those distances and the xDrill will let you know when you’re on target. Goodbye tape measures.
As for the catch? Yes, this is another crowdfunded product that’s going the Kickstarter route to raise the $22,000+ its creators need to put the xDrill into production.
See This Depth-Sensing, Laser Measuring, Touchscreen Drill Is the Smartphone of Power Tools
Despite companies desperately trying to come up with reasons to add a screen to every appliance in your house, your fridge and toaster probably work just fine the way they are. And while a drill with a touchscreen also seems like complete overkill, the creators of the xDrill have at least come up with some genuinely useful applications for the upgrade.