Misfit, one of the grand old brands in consumer wearables, had a couple of surprises at CES; one obvious, the other less so. The obvious one was the unveiling of its Vapor smartwatch, which abandons Misfit's signature design language. From the first, Misfits trackers have been small aluminum disks (or later, tubes) with only subtle LEDs as indicators and year-long battery … [Read more...]
Change Your Address Book: APX Labs Becomes Upskill
APX Labs was one of the first companies into the enterprise wearables market with its Skylight AR middleware. After more than six years in business, the company is changing its name. From here on out, call it Upskill. The idea, CEO Brian Ballard said in an email and blog post, is that industrial augmented reality enhances a worker's skill, helping them perform complex tasks … [Read more...]
Is a Fitbit Smartwatch Coming? Sure Looks Like It: CES
There was nothing explicit about Ftbit's plans at CES, but the dots were there to connect. Fitbit CEO James Park told The Verge at the conference that his company was building an app store, like the one for Pebble, the assets of which Fitbit bought a month earlier. The thing about Fitbit's product line is that there's no product for apps to run on, so Park's comment was … [Read more...]
How Accurate Are Walking Trackers? A Report from CES 2017
For the last few CES shows, we've been strapping on as many fitness trackers as would fit on our wrists, hitting the floors and conference rooms, and comparing results. We don't expect accuracy -- we don't do a manual count of steps -- but we hope for a degree of consistency. When we first did this three years ago, trackers showed error of more than 35 percent, which meant the … [Read more...]
Garmin Launches New Fenix 5 Line: CES
Alone among the Big 4 wearables companies, Garmin is launching new products at CES. It's introducing the Fenix 5 line, building on its rugged high-performance wristwear. There are three Fenix 5 models: the 5, the 5S, and the 5X. They've got a different look -- a bit smaller and less aggressively masculine. All the models come in a variety of colors and finishes and have … [Read more...]
Sensoria and Vivobarefoot Show Net-Connected Running Shoe: CES
Long-time readers know Sensoria, which pioneered weaving sensors into athletic socks. The company is announcing at CES a deal with Vivobarefoot, which calls itself "the leading global producer of barefoot shoes," to build the technology into those shoes. (Note that Vivobarefoot does not make those geeky five-toed running shoes that were all the rage a couple of years ago. … [Read more...]
New Wearable Tracks Pregnancy Contractions: CES
We spent some time on the phone in the weeks before CES with Eric Dy, CEO of Bloomlife, a new company with a wearable monitor that tracks uterine contractions during pregnancy. It's an interesting product and approach, one that's being unveiled at CES. Contractions can be an important indicator of fetal health but are often subtle things and can be missed. There are existing … [Read more...]
Osterhout Shows New Enterprise and Consumer AR Visors: CES
When an enterprise company takes funding from 21st Century Fox, it seems inevitable that they're going to produce a consumer product. That's what Osterhout Design Group (ODG) announced at CES 2017. ODG is best known for making heads-up displays for things like fighter jets, and its polished R-7 visor has been a player in the enterprise augmented reality market. Today, ODG … [Read more...]
K’Track Wristwear Monitors Glucose Without Blood Stick: CES
2017 will bring a flood of health-related wearables that should be able to live up to their claims, and PKvitality's is among the first out of the gate. Its K'Track line of wrist-worn trackers uses microneedles to "taste" fluid just below the skin's surface and analyze it for glucose or lactic acid. The K'Track Glucose and K'Track Athlete use the same mechanism: a capsule of … [Read more...]
Lenovo Intros New Glass C200 Enterprise AR Visor: CES
Lenovo, best known for laptop and desktop computers and the owner of the Motorola brand, popped a surprise at CES 2017: an enterprise-class monocular visor it's calling the New Glass C200. The lightweight (60-gram) visor connects to a pocket unit, which is driven by software on a smartphone. Lenovo says the pocket unit connects to the visor with over LTE, but photos provided … [Read more...]