This, and all the other stories you may have missed this week
Welcome to this week’s instalment of And finally, your one stop shop for all the wearable tech news from the week.
On the site this week, we found out why it’s so difficult to make a kids smartwatch, talked to a startup making a football wearable for the FIFA generation, and last and by no means least, announced the Wareable Tech 2018 awards shortlists.
We’ve saved up three more stories to tuck into, plus give you a quick recap of all the biggest stories from the week. Enjoy.
Huami’s planning a “revolutionary” smart wearable for 2019
Huami is planning to go big on wearables in the coming year according comments made by the company’s CEO Wang Huang at TechCrunch Shenzen 2018.
While Huang didn’t go into more details other than say that it had something “revolutionary” in store he did also make the bold statement that he believed smartwatches would eventually replace smartphones.
Earlier this year, Huami (makers of the Amazfit and Xiaomi wearable ranges) launched its own in-house built Huangshan-1 wearable A1 chip with serious health monitoring at the heart of the chipset. With Apple, Fitbit, Garmin and Samsung all now playing in this space, maybe this revolutionary device could be health related. Or maybe even a pair of smartglasses to beat Apple to the punch? Hopefully we won’t have to wait too long to find out.
WT2 translation hearable set to land in January 2019
We’re looking ahead again, this time to the world of real-time translation wearables, and Timekettle’s smart buds are almost ready to land in your ears.
The WT2 earbuds, which offer real-time translation between English, German, French, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese and Japanese completed a successful crowdfunding campaign back in 2017. Backers have started to receive the buds and if you pre-order now, the hearable should land on your doorstep in January.
It’s been a bit of a mixbag on the translation hearables front so far. While we were fans of Waverly Labs’ Pilot buds that offer similar features to the WT2, the Google’s translating Pixel Buds massively underwhelmed. Here’s hoping the folks at Timekettle can show that the best of translation hearables are yet to come.
BodyRocks lets you feel the music
We’ve written about wearables that help you feel the music before, but BodyRocks claims to do things a little differently.
BodyRocks is a wearable system that uses individual stone-shaped devices and something called a BassBelt which receives music from your smartphone via Bluetooth and a companion app.
It can relay music to third-party speakers and headphones as well as sending select frequencies to the wearable stones that can be worn anywhere on the body. They’re secured using adhesive tape so you can feel the music on your thighs, shoulders or your arms.
BodyRocks is currently raising funds for the system on Indiegogo with backers securing a two-stone system for $99 that ramps up to $149 when you opt for a four-stone package.
In case you missed it
We get it, you’re a busy person. And while you’d love to keep up with all the latest happenings in the world of wearables, sometimes it’s just not possible.
Away from the Black Friday madness, we’ve heard rumors of next-generation Snap Spectacles, with the new Specs set to feature augmented reality-style features.
Luxury Swiss watchmaker Alpina unveiled a collection of new hybrids. The Shadow Line is a mix of automatic and Quartz movement watches that all include a smart strap that offers features like activity tracking and sleep monitoring. A new Alpiner 4 sports watch is also getting the smart strap treatment.
We finish on a sad note and news that the makers of the GameBand smartwatch that promised retro gaming from the likes of Atari on your wrist, has cancelled the project. The need for a redesign and spiralling costs meant the startup canned the idea and is looking for a way to refund backers.
