ClearGrass, a Phoenix-based startup founded by ex-Foxconn engineers, launched a Kickstarter campaign for an Apple Watch charging case called Amber. The Amber case has a cord management system that can store a two-meter Apple Watch charging cable and has an additional 5-volt/2-Amp USB output to charge an iPhone, said the company. The portable dock charges Apple Watch up to eight times or the iPhone 6 Plus once, the company said. Colors are black, silver, gold and rose gold to match iPhone colors, and the case is made of aluminum and plastic. Features include remaining battery status, charging complete notification, software update capability, abnormal temperature change alert and battery health status, said ClearGrass. Users can locate Amber using Bluetooth, said the company. Price is $99, or currently $59 for Kickstarter backers. The campaign reached its $65,000 goal with two weeks remaining, said the company. Shipping is slated for December.
U.K.-based optical company Adlens is launching an analog mechanical solution to two problems of the digital age -- eye fatigue from prolonged monitor viewing and discomfort from the high levels of blue light that LED-backlit panels emit. Adlens Interface reading glasses have lenses that are made as a sandwich, with the two halves having different optical characteristics, the company said. Controlled by small screw dials tucked into the edges of the lens frame, the lens halves are free to slide smoothly over each other, Adlens said. Sliding the lenses alters the overall power continuously from 0 to +2.75 diopters, it said. So the wearer can adjust the spectacles to suit viewing distance and time-of-day eye condition, it said. The lenses also have a marked yellowish golden tint that filters out much of the blue light coming from a display, it said. The glasses will soon be available for sale at about $50 a pair, it said.
Smartwatches will drive the integration of wearables into smart homes, even though fitness trackers were two-thirds of all wearable device shipments in 2014, ABI Research said in a report released Tuesday. The smart home market is expected to reach $34 billion in 2020, said ABI, and wearables integration will be a catalyst for more smart home proximal network communications. The integration is beginning to occur as device vendors open up their application programming interfaces and increasingly share data between wearables and devices such as thermostats or connected appliances, the researcher said. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi "are likely to gain significant traction with wearables penetration in the smart home market," said ABI.
Garmin pushed further into the health and fitness space Tuesday, announcing a smart scale that measures weight, body mass index, water percentage and muscle and bone mass. The scale automatically uploads data over Wi-Fi to Garmin’s Connect online training managing software, said the company. The Index Smart Scale can recognize up to 16 users automatically when they step on it and then automatically upload data to their individual Garmin Connect accounts or mobile app, said the company. The $149 Index Smart Scale, due in stores next month, will be supported by a global advertising campaign around the theme “Beat Yesterday” covering TV, print, digital and social media, said the company.
The second-generation Microsoft Band wearable fitness activity tracker has a curved OLED screen and Corning Gorilla Glass 3 cover glass, Lindsey Matese, senior communications manager-Microsoft Band and Health, told a New York media briefing Tuesday where Microsoft’s introduction of its Surface Book laptop garnered most headlines (see 1510060029). “When we set out to design this version, we had a couple of design principles, optimized for the individual who goes to work and enjoys working out,” Matese said. Microsoft wanted to make its second-generation wearable “breathable and flexible,” with no “hard edges” and no “rigidity in any direction,” she said. “Above all,” she said, Microsoft required that the device “must curve nicely around the wrist,” she said. “We figured out a way to optimize the screen size, and we redesigned the screen itself so it curves.” With Gorilla Glass 3, “the OLED screen is scratch-resistant and optimized to be more responsive to touch, which is amazing,” she said. Gorilla Glass has a trademarked feature called “Native Damage Resistance,” a Corning fact sheet says. Gorilla Glass 3, fashioned from alkali-aluminosilicate, is thin-sheet glass “that is better able to survive the real-world events that most commonly cause glass failure,” it said. “With its new core composition, this glass enables improved damage resistance and toughness by helping to prevent the deep chips and scratches that cause glass to break.” Microsoft Band’s curved OLED display measures 32x12.8 mm and features 320x128 resolution, a Microsoft fact sheet said. The device’s lithium-polymer battery can power the wearable for 48 hours on a full 90-minute charge, it said.
Lacking hard data on how consumers plan to use wearable technology is the biggest challenge app developers face in building support for those wearables, Clutch said in a Wednesday report. The research firm interviewed 15 app developers and found designing support for the Apple Watch “is not an easy task," it said. "Because user patterns are totally new, there is no known and established interaction model for the smartwatch user interfaces that works,” it said. Other development challenges include the difficulty of developing support “without the wearable device on-hand for testing,” it said.
AT&T added three wearables Friday targeted at fitness enthusiasts. Citing the rise in health-related information available, the company said wearables are a big part of helping consumers make healthy decisions based on heart rate, sleep and activity sensing. The Basis Peak ($199) packs four sensors to measure heart rate, motion, perspiration and skin temperature and tracks duration, stages and quality of sleep, AT&T said Thursday. The GPS-enabled Garmin vivoactive ($249) smartwatch comes preloaded with running, biking and golf apps. Users can pair it with their smartphone to receive alerts for incoming texts, calls and social media notifications, AT&T said. The Garmin vivofit 2 ($99) fitness tracker monitors steps and calories burned and tracks sleep quality that can be displayed on a smartphone app, AT&T said. The devices are available in select AT&T locations and at att.com.
Voxx signed a letter of intent with S4 Worldwide for exclusive rights to manufacture and distribute the Sentry BodyCam wearable body camera, it said. The BodyCam is a real-time HD streaming wearable body camera designed for military, police and law enforcement officials, said Voxx. S4 Worldwide provides mobile real-time situational awareness technologies using solar- and wind-powered trailer-mounted systems. Video, audio and sensor data is gathered from remote sites and electronically sent to users through a secure website and onto their laptops, tablets, or smartphones, said a news release. S4 CEO Paul Soult said partnering with Voxx will allow his company to offer customers a full range of services and “increase the possibility of future product developments."
As the market grows for dedicated connected fitness trackers, “expect competition to mount not only from within but especially outside the market from other devices,” including smartwatches and smartphone apps, said Harry Wang, Parks Associates director-health and mobile product research, last week in a CEA blog post. “Some customers might not see the need to buy a separate fitness tracker device if they already have a smartphone or smartwatch,” Wang said. “Most smartphones already support fitness tracking via built-in accelerometers and access to thousands of fitness tracking apps. These customers may feel that a smartphone with a fitness app is all they need.” However, CEA market research has found that consumers “endorse variety and options when it comes to technology solutions,” he said. “So while fitness trackers are ascendant today,” expect these devices to be part of “a mosaic of solutions addressing health and activity monitoring,” he said. “In addition, while fitness is the marketing focus today, the positioning of these products is already shifting to emphasize other measurements like sleep monitoring/tracking.” Though most high-end fitness trackers have incorporated basic sleep-tracking functions, “this feature has begun to find its home in mid-tier and low-end devices as well,” he said. Wang estimated 40 percent of fitness trackers on the market “have built-in sleep tracking features and among high-end models, more than 90 percent have integrated this feature.”
The Food and Drug Administration approved a wireless glucose monitoring device built by Dexcom, which uses Bluetooth to transmit data from the on-person monitor to an app on iOS-enabled devices, the company said in news releases Monday and Tuesday. The G5 Mobile Continuous Glucose Monitoring System allows users to share their glucose information with up to five recipients, who can then remotely monitor the patient's information and receive mobile alerts, Dexcom said. The company previously introduced the G4 glucose monitor and apps for use on the Apple Watch, it said, and expects to begin shipping G5 devices in late September. Dexcom also said it plans to release an Android app for the G5 device in early 2016.