Items tagged with SmartWatch
Pretty much everybody is working on a smartwatch these days--no seriously, it’s a veritable smartwatch jamboree out there--and although some have already become a Real Thing, such as the Pebble smartwatch and Sony’s SmartWatch2 (pictured), most are still under development. However, according to Bloomberg’s multiple sources, Samsung is planning to announce its smartwatch on September 4th, ahead of IFA in Berlin. The device will be called the Samsung Galaxy Gear and will run the Android operating system. Sony SmartWatch 2 Ostensibly, the Galaxy Gear will allow users to browse the Internet, make phone calls, and use email; thus, it seems that it may act as a standalone device as...
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It hasn’t been all that long since the Pebble smartwatch took Kickstarter by storm, whipping up a cool $10 million in funds, but the device appears poised for genuine success. In a blog post, Pebble’s Eric Migicovsky dished out some numbers surrounding the smartwatch that bode well for its success. Pre orders for the Pebble smartwatch have reached 275,000, between Kickstarter orders as well as those taken directly from the company’s website and Best Buy stores. The company has already sent out some 93,000 Pebbles around the world, and Pebble owners have downloaded 1 million watchapps for the device. There are 29 Pebble employees, and Eric Migicovsky says they’re still...
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The Pebble smartwatch has come a long way. In the spring of 2012, the team behind Pebble racked up millions in funding on Kickstarter after launching a campaign aimed at raising just $100,000. Now, the smartwatch is available at electronics retailing giant Best Buy. The device is “coming soon”, but 9-to-5 Mac found a screenshot that indicates that Pebble would be in stock as of July 7th. The $149.99 smartwatch features more or less the same design Pebble has been teasing for over a year, although the only available color appears to be black, at least at this time. Pebble has a 2x1.3-inch face and weighs 5.3 ounces, and it’s compatible with Android devices running version 2.3...
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Google is looking to disrupt yet another market by developing an Android-based game console. Citing “people familiar with the matter”, the Wall Street Journal said that this might be a tactical move by Google--an effort to get the jump on Apple, which may also be planning to build some sort of game console with its next Apple TV update. What such a console from Google might look like is anyone’s guess, but the most obvious comparison would be the OUYA console, which runs on Android and has been met with a groundswell of support since it became a Kickstarter darling last summer. It’s far more likely that Google would try and develop something similar to OUYA rather than...
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There’s yet another entry in the smartwatch market, and this one’s from Poland, the effort of Reardon Technology. The company is launching an indiegogo campaign in an attempt to raise some funds to kick its Boddie smartwatch project into high gear. The device will feature a 1.44-inch display and an aluminum enclosure. Inside, there’s a pair of MSP430 microcontrollers, 2 x 16KB of RAM, Bluetooth 4.0/BLE, a microUSB port, and a 7-day battery. It also has a dedicated OS and an impressive array of extras including an accelerometer, gyroscope, digital compass, and two thermometers. The Boddie is designed to connect to iOS and Android devices via Bluetooth and will let the wearer...
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There’s just something about smartwatches and Kickstarter, isn’t there? The latest smartwatch to whip up crowdsourced funds fast is the Agent Smartwatch, which is designed for fashion as well as function. The device is compatible with Android 2.3 and up, the iPhone 4S and newer, and Windows Phone 8 devices. Inside, it has a dual-processor design (a 120MHz ARM Cortex-M4 processor and a secondary AVR co-processor), a 1.28-inch display, Qi wireless charging capabilities, and Bluetooth 4.0 + LE. It’s also waterproof and has a vibration motor, 3D accelerometer, and an ambient light sensor. The battery should last 7 days under normal use and 30 days when used only as a watch. The...
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For whatever reason, the smartwatch “craze” has been more of a low-level buzz than one might expect, but plenty of companies are getting in the game nevertheless. Google is no exception, and after a hearty helping of rumors to that end, Google has filed a patent application that indicates that the company might have one of its own in development. (The patent title is pretty clear: "Smart-watch with user interface features.”) This Google smartwatch makes no clear mention of Bluetooth-type connectivity, which has been something of a hallmark for these devices, although it does detail all manner of wireless connectivity such as WAN, LAN, satellite (indicating perhaps GPS capabilities),...
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Whatever is old, is suddenly new again. There's a reason people say that history truly does repeat itself, and here's another example of that happening. Years back, tablets were introduced with various versions of Windows on them. For a variety of reasons (battery life, weight, mobility, terrible touch panels, etc.), those never took off. Around a decade later, a little thing called the iPad was revealed, and Apple has been selling them by the boatload ever since. Fast forward beyond that, and you'll see Microsoft trying its best to re-invade a market that it failed to penetrate well over 10 years ago, while seeing very little traction with the Surface. That very scenario may be shaping up to...
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Rumors (and confirmations) about smartwatches continue to pile up, and the latest scuttlebutt surrounds Google. A “person briefed on the subject” told the Financial Times that Google is indeed working on its own smartwatch, which aligns with suspicions about such a device after a telling Google patent filing last year. It’s notable that unlike Google’s other wearable device, Google Glass, the smartwatch is not being developed by the Project X lab; instead, it’s reportedly under the jurisdiction of the Android folks. The Pebble Smartwatch, i.e., competition That’s perhaps a little disappointing, because if it was a Project X endeavor, the smartwatch would probably...
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There’s a quiet race to produce smartwatches--there are rumors and bits of news from a number of companies including Google, Sony, Apple, and Pebble--and Samsung is most definitely in the thick of it. We saw leaked screenshots of an alleged Samsung “Altius” smartwatch (that frankly seemed rather fake), but according to a Bloomberg report, a Samsung executive confirmed that company is indeed working on a wrist-mounted device. There are no details on the impending smartwatch, but it’s reasonable to assume that it will run a version of Android and may run some lightweight apps on its own as well as offer a measure of Bluetooth-enabled control over your smartphone, too. Artist...
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The Pebble smartwatch first gained attention when it raised millions on Kickstarter; plenty of folks were interested in the smartphone companion that let users control several apps and receive notifications all from the convenient controls of a fashionable timepiece. Now, the product is nearly ready to ship, and the cool cats at iFixit got their hands on a Pebble and ripped it apart, as they are wont to do. They found a waterproof (up to 50 meters) device with a 144x168 display of black and white e-paper, a vibrating motor, a 3-axis accelerometer with gesture detection, and low-energy Bluetooth 2.1+ EDR and 4.0 for connectivity that is exceedingly difficult to repair. There are no screws on the...
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The next big thing in mobile could be the smartwatch. It's already been rumored that Apple's working on a smart, curved glass watch (more than once, actually) based on iOS, and now there's evidence Samsung might be showing interest in the category as well. SamMobile posted more than half a dozen screenshots of what the tipster claims is from a Samsung smartwatch test operating system called Galaxy "Altius," though there are some red flags that the pictures might be fake. It starts with the codename Altius, which has already been attached to Samsung's upcoming Galaxy S IV device. Two of the pictures contain a mis-spelling of the codename in the upper-right corner, referring to the OS as "Altios"...
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Believe it or not, this isn't the first time we've heard that Apple was toying with the idea of disrupting the watch market. But this time, the timing may be right. As with the iPad, Apple has a tendency to feel out the market and then strike when the iron's hot. Tablets existed for years prior to the iPad, but seemingly, the world wasn't quite ready for them until the original iPad hit. Ever since, they've been eating away at the laptop market. Smart watches have a similar tale. Even Fossil had a Bluetooth watch years ago that operated with Sony Ericsson handsets, but that eventually went nowhere. These days, smart watches are all the rage. Pebble, a Kickstarter project, amassed gobs of money...
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The Pebble smartwatch is most certainly in the limelight. After raising bookoodles of money on Kickstarter, the crowdfunded smartwatch has garnered the attention of the masses in a major way. And now, after it missed its September ship date, it's in the spotlight for another reason: ruining Christmas for some. All jesting aside, there's no doubt that pundits are feeling a little uneasy after seeing a company grab so much cash and then miss a ship date by months and months, but there's a ton of red tape in developing new hardware, and more specifically, getting that hardware ready for action in the U.S. That whole "FCC clearance" thing is a chore unto itself, but it looks like the folks behind...
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Although we expected the Pebble smartwatch’s SDK to emerge sometime in August, the team released a developer preview of it at Google I/O. The document will help devs get cracking on configuring apps to play nicely with Pebble and includes code to push and receive notifications and data to and from Pebble. The document will continue to evolve between now and the final SDK release. Pebble became an overnight Kickstarter sensation, demonstrating the power of a compelling idea to elicit grassroots support through the fundraising site. Though requesting just $100,000 in funding, Pebble eventually raised more than $10.2 million with 68,929 backers. The device works with devices on both the iOS...
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A few months ago, a Kickstarter project by the name of "Pebble" made some huge waves by raking in over a million dollars in funding sales. Suddenly, intelligent watches seem to be all the rage again, despite being a product category that largely died years back due to flaky support and bad battery life. Is it time for the segment to make a comeback? Sure seems it, as even Sony's getting back in the loop. The company's new SmartWatch is now available at Verizon Wireless, making it majorly accessible to millions of customers who already rely on VZW for cellular service. Specifications: Screen Size : 1.3” OLED display Resolution : 128 x 128 pixels Digital watch face : Always visible, even...
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Last month, the Pebble smartwatch project was the darling of Kickstarter, raising $3.7 million in mere days; at this moment, the project is poised to top the $8 million mark at any time. Amid the swooning the Pebble devs are no doubt experiencing, the group is finding time to strike deals with other developers. The group announced that the first app partner for the the Pebble smartwatch is RunKeeper. RunKeeper, which is available on both the iOS and Android platforms, helps athletes track fitness data during workouts, and with a user base of 10 million, it’s both a lucrative partnership for the Pebble team and a sensible use of the device, which can display data from the app so a user can...
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When the team behind the Pebble smartwatch launched a fundraising campaign on Kickstarter, they were looking for $100,000. To date, and with just over a month of fundraising time to go, the group has already raised over $3.7 million with over 25,000 backers. They claim it’s the most-funded Kickstarter project ever. The Pebble is a smartwatch that uses e-paper for its screen, and the device is both compatible with iOS and Android and capable of running its own apps, which users can load via Bluetooth. The little four-button device is waterproof and offers customizable faces, an application switcher, 3 axis accelerometer, and an ARM Cortex-M3 microcontroller. Although the Pebble is itself...
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Remember when everyone was strapping those iPod nanos to their wrists? Sony saw an opportunity for a product there, and it’s the Sony Smartwatch. Technically, the SmartWatch is just an accessory, not a standalone device (unless you only want to use it as a watch), but it’s still a sweet little gadget. The device connects to your smartphone via Bluetooth, notifies you of things like incoming calls and emails, and allows you to respond. The SmartWatch has a 1.3-inch OLED touch screen (128 x 128) and works with most devices packing Android 2.1 and up. The dust- and splash-proof SmartWatch comes with a black rubber wristband, although there are five other colors (pink, white, mint, grey,...
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