WATCHES’ TURN TO GET SMART
With other wearable devices still years away, conference focuses on advances in innovations in function more than fashion
While the quest for slimmer smartphones and tablets and lighter, sleeker laptops will no doubt march on, an increasing number of companies are touting technology that’s not only portable but also wearable.
“We’ve seen the last year become sort of a tipping point around what’s happening with wearables,” Intel’s Mark Francis said at WTconference, a wearable-technologies gathering started four years ago in Germany that took place in San Francisco for the first time in late July.
As more wearable-tech products head toward production and more investors become interested in the promise of electronic devices integrated into clothing or worn on the body, the industry is expected to grow to between $10 billion and $40 billion by 2016, Francis said.
One of the most visible examples of wearable technology is Project Glass eyewear from Google. When the frames eventually become widely available, which most reports say won’t happen until at least 2014, they’re expected to enable wearers to do everything from receive social-media messages to map directions, take pictures and video-chat.
Wearable-tech products now on the market are largely confined to the health and wellness realm and include Nike’s Fuel Band, as well as devices from San Francisco companies Jawbone, which makes the UP wristband, and FitBit, whose Ultra can be slipped into a pocket or discreetly clipped onto clothing. Each keeps tabs on daily movement and activities and syncs with a smartphone app to record such metrics as steps taken, calories burned and distance gone. Up and FitBit Ultra also track sleep quality.
There’s also the Sportiiiis, an audiovisual display device athletes can wear on their heads to view workout and performance data without taking their eyes off the road. Los Angeles company AiQ is at work on clothing capable of monitoring heart rate and blood pressure, playing music and providing armor-like protection by stiffening upon impact.
While fashion is bound to become a factor in the look and feel of wearable-tech products, that hasn’t happened yet. Most wearable devices put the focus on function. That’s not surprising, considering that the vast majority of products available today are used for fitness, health or medical monitoring.
But it is likely to change, especially as more competing products become available in coming years. After all, what’s a great way to get a leg up on a competitor whose product is similar to yours? Make it look better than theirs, of course.
A customizable smart watch due out early next year from Palo Alto’s Pebble is as stylish as it gets in the wearable tech realm. That was no accident, says Pebble’s creator, Eric Migicovsky.
“The look matters quite a bit. You don’t want to put something on your wrist that’s ugly,” he said.
Sporting a minimalist design and rectangular watch face with a variety of “electronic paper” displays that can be changed instantaneously, the device comes in three colors and, along with showing the time, syncs wirelessly over Bluetooth to Android and iPhone smartphones and allows wearers to control music and view e-mail, weather alerts, social-media updates, calendar notifications and caller ID. A variety of apps make it possible to use the watch as a GPS device, to track distance and speed, or calculate the distance to the green at more than 25,000 golf courses around the world.
Pebble’s Kickstarter campaign gained attention this spring when it exceeded its $100,000 fundraising goal by collecting more than $1 million during its first 28 hours. By the end of the campaign on May 18, the fledgling company had amassed over $10.2 million in pledges for the watch.
Migicovsky says the ability to customize both the tasks the smart watch performs, as well as the way its e-paper screen looks, was key to attracting so many pledges.
“That’s really one of the reasons it took off,” he says.