Salesforce, which has considerable skin in the wearables game, is out with a survey today showing that enterprises are trying out wearables for workplace security, employee time management, and real-time communication. Coming soon, the company says, are pilot projects in business analytics and field service. Salesforce surveyed about 1,500 companies; of those, 500 said they … [Read more...]
A Long-Form Inside Look at Disney’s MagicBand Project
Disney, like any company that adapts and rebuilds reality, is a famously controlling place with a frequently difficult culture. So the high-stakes project to re-engineer theme parks with the wearable MagicBand was even more full of internally corporate competition than it might have been at a "normal" company. FastCompany has an exhaustive and exhausting blow-by-blow of how … [Read more...]
First-Day US Apple Watch Sales Estimated At About 1 Million
Someone tell Tim Cook that he can start the production line. The e-commerce consulting company Slice Intelligence estimates that 957.000 Apple Watches were pre-ordered on Friday, the first day of "availability." The average customer bought 1.3 watches, and spend $504 per watch. Sales were skewed to the less-expensive Sport watch -- 62 percent of those buying -- at $383.83 … [Read more...]
The Apple Store Try-On Experience Tried Out
We stopped by an Apple Store this morning -- the one in Soho, Manhattan -- to try on a Watch and see how smooth the try-on experience is. The short version: it's a very nice piece of hardware, and the experience is a little bumpy. In fairness, a lot of the experience is new for everyone involved; one of the sales associates reminded a customer that they themselves have only … [Read more...]
Want an Apple Watch? Oops — Too Late
Apple Watches went on sale at 3am Eastern Time today, for arrival on April 24. (No link; you know how to get one.) By all reports, the first quantities sold out as fast as a Taylor Swift secret club date; delivery intervals are now stretching into May and June, even for the $10,000 gold Edition. It's highly unlikely that anyone who wanted to wait and actually try one on will … [Read more...]
Diamond-Encrusted Apple Watches, In Case $17,000 Is Too Little To Spend
Much as we'd like to, it seems impossible to write about anything this week that isn't related to the Apple Watch, so we offer this: You may know that there is actually a business of gold-plating iPhones. (Android phones too, but that's not what we're talking about right now.) One would think that a $17,000 18k gold Apple Watch would be the top of the market, but one would … [Read more...]
New Boutique Watch Company, Olio, Launches Smartwatch
There have been one or two smartwatch announcements over the last year, mostly coming as extensions of already well-established companies. For all the trumpeting, (and with Pebble as a very notable exception), actual new smartwatch companies are pretty thin on the ground. That's one reason that Olio is so interesting. Here's a company, based in Silicon Valley, with roots in … [Read more...]
Connected Health Services Market Will Be Nearly $2B by 2019, Says Juniper
More market projections from Juniper Research today, projecting that the connected health services market in 2019 will be six times what its estimated at today. The report, "Smart Wireless Devices: CE, Enterprise, Fitness, Healthcare, Payments 2015-2019," says that the market will partly be driven by a desire to track someone else's data -- a friend, or a parent, or to share … [Read more...]
Baselworld: Mondiane Shows The First MMT Platform Watch
Mondiane, perhaps best known for its iconic Swiss Railways watch face, today announced the first fruits of the recent MMT smartwatch alliance that puts technology from Philippe Kahn's Fullpower Technologies into watches that can be labeled as "Swiss Made." The Helvetica No 1 Smart has a brushed steel case, white dial, sapphire crystal, and a soft leather strap. It looks like … [Read more...]
TAG Heuer & Intel Unveil Android Wear Smartwatch at Baselworld [UPDATED]
![TAG Heuer & Intel Unveil Android Wear Smartwatch at Baselworld [UPDATED]](https://wearablesinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2015/03/449c820954ad2bf022f50cd6384ca8989a8d5ce6-150x150.jpg)
The watch industry's big trade fair, Baselworld, started today, and the first smartwatch announcement is a bit of a deflation. TAG Heuer and Intel went public with their much-rumored alliance, but it turns out that the software behind it will be Android Wear. Reuters reports that the hardware will be based on TAG Heuer's popular Carerra design, pictured here. There are many … [Read more...]