Bluetooth Event Shows Wide Range of Applications Enabled by Bluetooth Smart
The Bluetooth NYC Media & Demo Event, sponsored by Bluetooth Special Interest Group in New York, Wednesday, showed the wide range of applications for Bluetooth communications with a focus on the specific capabilities of Bluetooth Smart, also known as Bluetooth LE (Low Energy). Items on display ranged from smart socks with built-in sensors for tracking the elderly to beacons that offer a museum-like audio trail to give room details on a new home tour.
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The Sync Smartband, an Indiegogo crowd-funded device, is an armband designed for tracking children ages 2-10. It distinguishes itself by the number of devices that can be scanned and tracked, up to 30, making it usable for classrooms, day care centers and nursing homes, CEO Vikas Murali told us. The software includes healthcare monitoring, he said, so that by clicking on a name of a child and his or her band using a smartphone, a teacher could view health information including allergies, emergency contacts and other personal information. A location safety feature tracks location, and if children move out of prescribed range, a teacher would be alerted, he said. Range is 150 feet, he said. For family use, a four-device Actv software monitor allows parents to run the app in the background to keep tabs on kids while doing other activities with their phones, he said. They can set the app to send a notification and ring the smartphone if a child goes out of range, he said. Actv is taking pre-orders for the smart band for $69 each with shipping slated for February, Murali said. No monitoring fee is required, he said.
On the smart home front, Ninja Blocks showed its Ninja Sphere, a curved half-sphere that rests on a table and responds to hand gestures and taps to control functions including lighting, music and temperature. Ninja is an integrated platform that can replace control of a lighting app from a smartphone for times when it's not convenient to bring out a phone, a company spokesman told us. With the Ninja controller, swipe functions can turn lights on and off and play or pause music. The controller has an ARM Cortex A8 processor with 512 MB RAM, which a company spokesman called a “full smartphone-spec sort of device.” The system doesn’t rely on an Internet connection and will work if Wi-Fi in the home goes down, although it does support Wi-Fi, along with Bluetooth, Bluetooth Smart, ZigBee and Z-Wave via an add-on dongle, he said. The Sphere learns the patterns of household members and once a schedule has been established, the system will alert users “if something appears out of place,” he said. If the lights and heat are on late on a Monday morning and no one is home, it could prompt family members to turn both off, he said. The Sphere is available with an app for iOS and Android and will begin shipping in February. Starting price for the Sphere and a smart tag is $329, he said.
Qardio showed a smart blood-pressure monitor that stores information in the cloud. The pocket-size unit has a magnetic closure that turns on the device when it’s opened and turns it off when closed. The automatic powering feature provides energy savings that allows the unit to last for 300 readings on a single charge, a spokesman told us. The monitoring technology is built into the cuff, which doubles as the case for the device. All interaction with the device occurs on a smartphone app for Android or iOS devices, and a feature in the app allows users to share readings with a doctor or family member, he said. Price is $99 at Getqardio.com or Amazon, he said.