We're all for greater adoption of technology in sports, but as New Yorkers with a bit of a "thing" about Boston and cheating, we report this with satisfaction: The Red Sox have been caught using Apple Watches to relay stolen signs to their batters. On the one hand, yay for a new business use case for wearables. On the other hand, those sumbitches were cheating. On the third … [Read more...]
Fossil Debuts Two Android Wear Smartwatches
There's been no lack of activity in wearables at Berlin's IFA consumer electronics show, but Android Wear was notably absent until Fossil unveiled two new devices with their first full-round screens. The Fossil Q Venture and Q Explorist have always-on AMOLED touchscreens -- 42 mm for the Venture and 44 mm for the Explorist. They're both based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 1200 … [Read more...]
Garmin Shows Three New Fitness Bands at IFA
Garmin, which has shown great skill at micro-segmenting the fitness band business, announced three new mid-range devices at the German IFA consumer electronics show. At the higher end, the vivoactive 3 is a GPS smartwatch with NFC payment capability licensed from FitPay. Featuring a heart-rate monitor and an always-on touchscreen, the vivoactive 3 includes auto sensing for … [Read more...]
Fitbit Ionic: Minimal Acceptable Product?
Apple aside, Fitbit may be the most recognizable name in the fitness band business. Then why do its products seem to just barely clear the bar? It's tough to judge something before we get out hands on it, so we're willing to give the Fitbit Ionic the benefit of the doubt for now. But its announcement this week did little to make our pulse race. Its major new features -- a … [Read more...]
Intel (Finally) Ditches Wearables for AR
Once upon a time, Intel wanted to establish itself as the go-to chipmaker for wearables. What's more, the company bought the pioneering fitness band company Basis -- its first consumer-facing business in a very long time. Now comes word that Intel has finally and officially killed its wearables business. In truth, it was a long time coming. Intel rarely talks about internal … [Read more...]
Don’t Believe Everything You Read: Wearables Are Far From Dead
You could get whiplash from reading the general tech press about wearables. Engadget looks at the collapse of Jawbone and decides that wearables are over. Steve Levy at Wired is fed a story about Google Glass Enterprise and writes that wearables' future is in the factory. Faithful readers of Wearable Tech Insider know that the real deal is a bit more nuanced. Jawbone, as … [Read more...]
Eyes F.lashing Before Your Life
We really really really don't like writing about Kickstarter projects, no matter how successful the funding is. But sometimes, you've just got to pay attention. Like when we hear about something like F.lashes: a digital eyelid accessory that sticks on like fake eyelashes (eyelash adhesive) and blink in various patterns. If this still sounds like a great idea, consider this: … [Read more...]
Smarty Pants: Nadi X Yoga Leggings
Even with all the hype about the “intersection of fashion and technology,” you don’t often run across clothing that gets written up in Vogue, WWD, and Wired. However, Nadi X yoga pants from Wearable X seem to tick a lot of boxes for both the fashion-forward and technology junkies—and even some yogis. The company calls their product “Nadi X Pant & Pulse,” and its … [Read more...]
Rings: How Smart Can They Be?
A couple of years back, smart rings looked like they might be the coming thing. We checked out the Neyya ring from India, London-based Kerv, and there were even rumors of an elusive Apple iRing. And while none of them—with the possible exception of the iRing—seems to have had an appointment with Mount Doom, consumer response was and remains underwhelming. Into this … [Read more...]
Upskill Closes Series B Financing, But Won’t Say How Much
Upskill, the industrial AR software company that used to be called APX Labs, announced this week that it's closed a Series B round of financing from Boeing and GE Ventures, but won't say how much it raised or on what valuation. Boeing and GE Ventures (which also participated in a second-round in late 2015 year) are big customers of Upskill's Skylight software platform. Both … [Read more...]