Porsche showed off its new 911 Targa recently, and it features a very cool new top mechanism that brings back the look of the original, but with much greater simplicity (to the user, not to the car). Check out the video below to see it in action. At a price starting at $101,600 (and being a Porsche, options are numerous and expensive), the video might be the closest you get to one.
The emerging wearable technology craze has spread…to socks. Crazy idea? Well, not really, when you dig deeper. Sure, they act as an ultra-precise step tracker. However, with multiple sensors in the sock communicating to your smartphone via an anklet, they can help warn people who are excessively heal-striking. This might even be of some use to barefoot runners (few of which run truly barefoot, so they’d be used to wearing socks already), though barefoot runners instinctively avoid heal striking already. It can also monitor your cadence and notify you of changes needed to meet goals there.
You can read more about them at SenSoria’s website or preorder here. Check out the video below.
Sensoria Fitness Smart Sock Tracker from Heapsylon on Vimeo.
As expected, CES saw the introduction of a few new smartwatches, all hoping to grab marketshare and build sales momentum before the rumored Apple iWatch hits the market later this year. Intel showed off a reference design powered by their new Edison chip, which is likely to be popular with OEMs.
The Meta smartwatch is targeting the premium end of the market with style and a higher price (TBD, but likely more than $200). Functionally, it offers similar remote-display capability as other smartwatches, though it sounds like Meta is putting a lot of attention into producing a watch that is comfortable and more easily integrated into your life. We’ll see.
Pebble took the guts from their smartwatch and wrapped it in a couple of different metal options at a $250 price point. It sounds so far like a pretty welcome change that was done right. The bigger news, though, is that Pebble will finally be opening up an App store soon, and it’s the apps (or lack thereof) that have been the bane of every smartwatch on the market to date.
The Polar V800 integrates GPS with a typical smartwatch feature set, to provide all around functionality for those with active lifestyles. I regularly use a Garmin Forerunner to track my running so at first glance this sounds great, but users of those Garmin devices will be familiar with how quickly the battery will die when GPS is active. Polar claims a 14 hour battery life when GPS is active (or 50 hours in what they call lower power GPS mode…I’m not sure what that is, I assume just infrequent GPS updates). So it might work OK as a smartwatch, but I’m not convinced that the bulk of this will be worth it, I’d rather strap on my Garmin when going for a run, and use that in conjunction with a slim smart-bracelet instead. Maybe when I see the V800 in person I’ll change my mind.
On the smartwatch horizon for 2014 are two 800lb gorillas ready to enter the ring. The first up will be Google, expected to release their smartwatch very soon. Later in 2014, it’s almost certain that Apple will release a smartwatch as well, and if you ask me, that’ll happen before WWDC to help get developers on board with it – the strength of any smartwatch is ultimately measured by how the apps use it, so Apple will want to tap that resource to help them dominate the market.
2014 is shaping up to be a fun year in wearable technology!
Yes, it’s yet another wrist-worn activity tracker, this time the Movea G-series. They’re claiming to be the most accurate wristband, able to even detect the posture of the user. However, this is only a reference design at this point, awaiting a manufacturer to step forth and bring this to market or incorporate its technology into their own product. A vaporware product like this is readily dismissed, yet if you poke around Movea’s website, you’ll see they’re also providing the platform to OEMs to incorporate gesture-based control into interactive TV experiences. With this wristband, they’re showing off one of the critical pieces of the puzzle, to allow for gesture-based TV control…and I think this is a market we’ll see devices addressing in 2014 (Apple iWatch). Read more at The Verge.
It’s time like these that I remember what technology is all about…to amaze us and make us smile. That’s exactly what’s accomplished in the video below, where two Tesla coils perform the theme from Inspector Gadget, accompanied by some off-screen percussion support. My faith in humanity is restored.
This makes me want to run out and buy my own Tesla coil…I’d been eyeing one from oneTesla that’s a ready to go kit with MIDI interface to facilitate musical ventures such as this. The video below shows that $330 kit playing the Pirates of the Caribbean theme song:
The best thing about crock pots is how incredibly dumb they are. The best, most basic slow cookers just have three settings – off, low, and high. Set it and come back later when your meal is done. Given how great those simple ones work, I’m really questioning the logic behind Belkin’s WoMo Smart Slow Cooker. You can use your smartphone to change the temperature, but really, this is a strange product to add any sort of connectivity to. I use a crock pot all the time…and just can’t see how this is worth $99, not when you can get a barebones (yet incredibly effective) crock pot for $20 from Amazon.
Ok, so you know the ‘internet of things’ has truly arrived when someone starts bringing activity tracking to toothbrushes! That’s exactly what Kolibree has done with their connected toothbrush. It’ll analyze your brushing habits and display the information on your smartphone (naturally). I’m a bit skeptical…but it does say it can help track the zones you’re brushing in, which can be nice for those of us who tend to neglect some of the harder to reach areas. It’s expected to be launched this summer via Kickstarter, with prices ranging from $100-200 depending on the model.
Withings is really taking sleep tracking to the extreme, with the new Aura system (shipping in Spring 2014). Pads under your mattress detect body movements to help determine sleep quality, and a bedside device records environmental conditions (noise, light, temperature), as well as producing light and sound patterns to either help you sleep, or help wake you gradually. It’s such a departure from peoples’ normal lives that I expect it’ll be slow to be adopted, but does offer an easy way for technology to influence how we spend a third of our lives.
Read more at TechCrunch or Withing’s website.
As expected, CES saw a bunch of new activity trackers announced, all of which should be for sale later this spring. First up is the Garmin Vivofit, pictured here, offering a curved always-on display and the usual step and sleep tracking functions. One different feature is adaptive goals, where once you hit a milestone, the goal for the next day is adjusted upwards to keep pushing you. Nice idea, but not so good for someone like me who runs five days a week and wants some rest days in between. I also don’t like the fact that it doesn’t have a rechargeable battery. While the disposable batteries are said to last around a year, it’s still wasteful.
Next up is the Wellograph, watch-like activity tracker that also includes a heartrate monitor. Unlike the Withings Pulse‘s heartrate monitor though, it appears this can monitor that data closer to real-time. It’s pricey at around $300 but does offer features in a form factor that’s different than the usual bracelet styles.
Similar to the Wellograph, though, is the Basis B1, shown here, that monitors heartrate but also attempts to identify phases of sleep (light, deep, REM). It’s cheaper too ($200) and in my opinion, looks nicer.
iFit showed off it’s iFit Active band (also available in clip-on form, see link above), which promises to work with internet connected gym fitness equipment to help you track those activities. Of course, it also tracks steps and sleep, syncing the data to your smartphone.
LG’s Lifeband Touch is another me-too product, tracking activity etc in a bracelet-like form factor looking a lot like the Nike Fuelband.
Last up is Mother from Sen.se…a product that bridges the connected self with the connected home. A central base station communicates with ‘cookies’ that detect location, movement, and temperature. In a sense, it’s like the activity trackers, in that each cookie can track steps taken and sleep, but it seems like there’s a lot of potential on the software side of things when a whole family of activity trackers is communicating with a central base station. When that base station can be programmed to send notifications or other actions based upon events, it could get interesting. What’s not clear to me is how useful the cookies would be if scattered throughout the house in stationary locations…there’s potentially a lot of data that could be collected this way. Imagine for example, if ‘Mother’ knows there is a person nearby a stationary cookie…and can see that cookie is reporting a low temperature…can it be programmed to interface with a Nest thermostat to turn up the heat in the house? Or if all the ‘person’ cookies are on one floor, turn down the heat to the other floors? Since cookies can communicate with other cookies, it does raise the potential of a very smart house…but this is heavily software-dependent so is theoretically possible, but also very easy to make it complicated and of limited use. Looks really promising though.
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