The Bluetooth SIG, the organization that controls and maintains the Bluetooth standard, has some big plans for 2016. The group said today that it will be increasing the range of Bluetooth Smart (which used to be called Bluetooth LE, or "low energy") by a factor of four, beyond its current top range of 330 feet. Moreover, it was planning a doubling of bandwidth without … [Read more...]
About Dan Rosenbaum
Tag Heuer’s $1500 Connected Watch Goes on Sale; Android Wear and Titanium
The much-teased smartwatch from Tag Heuer went on sale today. The bottom line: it's got a huge titanium case, a vulcanized rubber wrist band, customized watch faces, and a $1500 price tag. If you like petite timepieces, this one is not for you. The watch is 46mm in diameter, the same size as a Moto 360. It's 12.8 mm thick, which is 1.4mm thicker than a Moto360, and a solid … [Read more...]
Lumo Raised $10M in Series B; Touts Platform Play
Lumo BodyTech, maker of the Lumo Lift posture tracker and Lumo Run sensor-enhanced running clothes, has closed a $10 million Series B funding round, the company says. The money will go toward building a platform and ecosystem based on body positioning. One thing that's always made Lumo interesting is its use of sensors not to count steps but to understand movement and … [Read more...]
Intel Introduces “Wearable Smart Gateway” for First Responders
It seems like an obvious market opportunity: body-worn technology and first responders. Turns out, though, that the first-response industry is extremely demanding and conservative. It spends limited taxpayer money, procurement cycles are long and competitive (and not-infrequently clubby), interconnectivity is a must, and system failures can literally cost lives. Civilians … [Read more...]
FDA Asks for Comments About Wearable Tech in Trials
One of the promises of wearable tech has been the possibility of making wearers' data available for clinical trials. There are have been about a million obstacles to that goal. A recent two-day seminar at the New York Academy of Sciences discussed this very issue, with opinions ranging from "it's too complex so it'll never happen" to "here's how we're doing it today." But … [Read more...]
Vogue Picks Best-Looking Wearables
Interested in getting into wearable tech but afraid that your chi-chi fashionista friends will pivot in their Louboutins and leave you hanging? Vogue to the rescue -- or at least, Vogue online, which is the next best thing. The fashion arbiter just published a slide show featuring the eight best-looking wrist wearables. The Apple Watch appears, of course, although in the … [Read more...]
Two of the Three Wireless Power Standards Merge
The wireless charging standard groups A4WP and PMA have consummated their merger into the far friendlier-sounding AirFuel Alliance. It competes with the Wireless Power Consortium, which promotes the popular Qi standard, used by (among others) the current Samsung Galaxy and Note product lines, as well as IKEA's charging pad. AirFuel and WPC are not compatible, even though … [Read more...]
Thalmic Labs Opens App Store for Myo Armband
Even the best hardware is useless without apps. Thalmic Labs, maker of the Myo gesture-control armband, has publicly opened an app store with more than 100 applications. Among the apps is one that will let a user control Parrot drones by gesture; others control Spotify or Netflix. It may be the ultimate couch potato experience to wave your arm to pause or fast-forward a … [Read more...]
Fitbit’s 3Q Beats Estimates; Company to Float More Stock
Fitbit, the top pure-play maker of fitness trackers, said today it sold $409 million in trackers in the quarter ending September, up 168 percent over the year previous, earning a profit of 24 cents per share. Pre-report consensus had expected earnings of 10 cents per share. For the current quarter, the company said it expected to earn 20 to 25 cents per share on sales of $620 … [Read more...]
Why Wearables Makers Should Get Into The Content Business Today
You may not see the intersection of ESPN and fitness trackers, but it's there -- and if you make trackers, there's an opportunity to be had RIGHT NOW. There's a guy named Joe Pulizzi who runs something called the Content Marketing Institute. If you want to tell your brand story with content -- and not only should you, you have to -- Joe's pretty much the world's living … [Read more...]