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| Wear your tech on your own terms. |
Ok, ok. I know the smartwatches look cool and Google glass will definitely rock our worlds and open up a crazy new world of blended digital and physical realities.
And, Yes I know we're kinda at the start of this wearable revolution so the products and services haven't had time to evolve yet but I think we're missing something.
Conversely to what you may believe following my semi defensive opening above, I love the current wearable tech out there and and am pacing with a fever in anticipation of Google Glass however what has kept me from shelling out the big bucks for, say a Galaxy Gear smartwatch from Samsung, is the price tag, £250 and up, cross matched to the function it offers.
What I mean to say is would I pay an additional £250 to be able to interact with my phone via my watch?
Yes. I think I would be willing to pay for such a luxury.
However, that's not really the case is it?
No.
Unfortunately the range of function offered from most smartwatches on the market is quite limited allowing interaction with only the basic functions of your phones such as calls, messaging and so on.
So now the question has become am I willing to pay that additional £250+ to be able to see who is communicating with me in real time, calendar apps and such?
Even simple biometric fitness tracking devices such as Nike's Fuel bands come with a smooth £120+ price tag attached.
Well, I'm afraid my answer has changed!
The range of smartdevices washing over us utilize the processing power of our phones to facilitate a greater interaction via Blootooth at the ongoing cost of our already strained batteries!
Why don't we just cut out the middle man and find a way to affix our actual smartphones to a conveniently and accessible part of our body?
This way we can use ALL of our smartphones apps and stay connected in real time to the our digital lives.
Well, and here comes the self promotion, that's exactly what we have endeavoured to do.
We've sought to develop a strong and secure wrist binding for your wrist that houses your phone including a model that actually incorporates biometric sensors turning your phone into a fitness tracker itself!
Joining the growing trend we're hoping this will be a crowd funded project and have created a Kickstarter campaign to produce two models.
We made a prototype at home once the idea had taken shape and started wearing it around.
The shocking thing was how the phone went unnoticed under our sleeves; the extra weight made no difference at all and I have a Samsung S3, not the smallest of phones!
One thing that came to light right away was the fact that you couldn't snap a pic very easily and so we inserted a pivot action into the phone housing unit to separate the base plate from the housing unit and allow the phone to pivot on it's axis ninety degrees upwards.
This meant you could pivot the phone so easily and use your camera or flashlight in a second!
The next idea was to stick some biometric sensors into the base plate of the unit as it would allow constant access to the skin and be great for fitness tracking from the smartphone via a simple app.
(I won't lie, if the design patent process for the pivot was taxing the one for the biometric model was trying! )
As this thought expanded we realized this could open up a new market for app developers themselves.
Think about it; processing power of the average smartphone + continuous biometric readings = massive potential to capture and analyse a whole new range of user data and where there's user data there's gold ;)
Say sweat could be captured and analysed via a small sensor; could this information be used to inform a diabetes sufferer of potential pitfalls?
The idea isn't so strange, Google have just announced a contact lens that does exactly that using tear drops as the source for the data!
Also, I wasn't loosing my phone around the house any more!
That alone made this a winner in my eyes!
The point, I guess if there's a point at all to blogs other than semi-narcissistic ramblings, is that maybe we shouldn't be focussing on making new devices but finding ways to better interact with the ones we already have.
Most smartphones are massively underused because of their very nature.
We don't have constant access to them and so they reside in our bags or pockets out of sight and out of mind so we can forget what a huge resource they are.
Just having instant and continuous access to the gargantuan library of information on the web should swing this vote.
We even found we could stay connected while on the go exercising or even roller-blading!
If you're interested in our Kickstarter campaign check us out or follow our social sites.
