Sony is a massively frustrating company to cover. It frequently produces exceptional cutting-edge products across the entire range of consumer technology, which it then overprices, underpromotes or somehow screws up in some other fundamental way. At CES, Sony showed the Sony Core, wristwear along the lines of the Fitbit Flex, but with software that appears to go far beyond … [Read more...]
CES: Epson Shows Moverio Visor and Pulsense Activity Tracker
We wrote a couple of weeks ago about Epson's Moverio smartglass platform. Epson formally showed it at CES, and it's pretty much what had leaked. The choice of demo partners listed in the press release is revealing, though. On the consumer side, they showed a few fighting games and first-person shooters, but also Scope AR, an augmented reality application that promises to … [Read more...]
CES: Garmin Announces Vivofit Fitness Band
You probably think of Garmin as a GPS company with some high-end wristware. They're making a move down-market with the Vivofit fitness band. It looks a lot like a Fitbit Force, but the Vivifit has a larger display (not unlike a Fuelband). Unique in the category, the Vivofit claims to learn your activity patterns and set goals based on that, upping them as your fitness … [Read more...]
2014 Predictions in Wearables: More of the Same, But Get Ready for an Explosive 2015
At the end of each year, tech journalists are usually called upon to predict the year ahead. Having been in the predictions business as a strategic analyst and a journo, I try to keep in mind two maxims: "If you're going to make predictions, make a lot of them. People remember the hits and forget the misses." -- unknown, but possibly economist Milton Friedman "The future is … [Read more...]
Pebble Watch: Product of the Year — Part 2
The Pebble watch may have been the first big hit of the consumer wearables space and the first big hit of Kickstarter. When Pebble's campaign hit in 2012, it was hugely oversubscribed -- a big vote for a technology and product that was, well, kind of uncertain. People put down their money anyway. The watch shipped in early 2013, and it was ... OK. A geek totem, certainly. … [Read more...]
Pebble App Store Gets Ready to Launch
The Pebble watch is a nice hack and an unobtrusive totem of coolness, but it's been a little hard to justify the cost. Other than displaying interesting watch faces and telling you when you've got emails or phone calls, the Pebble doesn't really do much. That looks like it will change early in 2014. Pebble has announced the opening of its appstore. The appstore will give … [Read more...]
Qualcomm Toq Smartwatch Goes on Sale December 2
Every so often, the chipmaker Qualcomm has a brain freeze and decides it wants to play in the consumer market; it rarely ends well. The latest is a smartwatch that's going on sale in a couple of weeks. The thing is, it sounds like it might be pretty interesting. One way the Toq watch is different is that its wearers don't need two hands to tell the time; the screen is always … [Read more...]
A Wearable Phone Leash from Vybe
It's a simple idea. You don't always want your phone next to your body. You don't necessarily want it to sound off when it rings, but you don't want to miss calls or texts. Vybe is a small module plus wristband that looks quite a lot like a FitBit Flex. It vibrates when you get a call or a text. If you wander more than 50 feet from your phone, it vibrates a lot until you're … [Read more...]
WSJ: Google’s Getting Close to the Watch Business
The Wall Street Journal is citing sources that say that Google is in "late-stage talks" with suppliers to build a watch, and could begin production "within months." The watch would run Android (no surprise there) and be based around Google Now, the intelligent assistant that appears on some Android tablets. Reliance on Google Now would require access to things like a user's … [Read more...]
Comparative Review of Fuelband vs Flex: Can You Trust The Data?
I've been wearing a Nike Fuelband for the last year or so, since it first became commercially available. I added a Fitbit Flex three months ago, when it too first hit the market. They differ considerably -- not just in design and intent, but in measuring what is supposedly the same thing. The short version: over the course of the last three months, the Flex counted an … [Read more...]