Category: Wearables

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Kids/Babies Wearables

Starling helps babies’ vocabularies shine bright

There have been several wearable devices for babies. But Starling is a newcomer with a twist –- a smart device that tracks the number of words that a baby says and hears each day.

patent-claimedStarling is shaped like a star and can be clipped onto a baby’s clothes or wherever he or she is sitting. The small, patent-pending device has been designed for parents who want to take advantage of research showing that early vocabulary development can impact a child’s success in life because a significant amount of brain development happens before the age of three, according to its Indiegogo campaign.

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Wearables

Modoo helps moms to be with dos and don’ts of pregnancy

A wearable pregnancy monitor that would allow mothers-to-be to monitor and record fetal heart rate and movement at any time sounds like a no-brainer.

Modoo does exactly that, and also sets fitness tasks and provides diet advice that its maker says will allow expectant moms and their babies to be healthier. The small, circular wearable device is light and, according to its Indiegogo campaign video, easily sticks to the user’s stomach area. It works in conjunction with an Android and iOS app. Modoo’s maker set a goal to raise $50,000 by Nov. 7. The device is expected to ship in April at $199, but Indiegogo backers can get one early for $129.

There’s a huge potential audience for Modoo. But it remains to be seen how accurate the information it provides will be. It’s also hard to tell from the campaign video how comfortable it will be to wear Modoo all day.

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Wearables

Eyecatcher E-Ink wearable blends jewelry and tech with fashionable results

editors-choiceThe intersection of technology and fashion has long been a wave bound to crash, and crash it has. Wrist-worn wearables are by far the most popular, with Android smartwatches, the Apple Watch, and a bevy of bands worn for the well-being of various facets of the body all vying for dominance.

Looksee Labs has a different conception of what a wearable should be, and its Eyecatcher is the example. The five-inch e-ink display wraps completely around the wrist, displaying everything from images to patterns to text messages to Twitter feeds. Unfortunately, that display isn’t a touch interface, so a companion iOS app is required to control the bangle. Through it, users can upload photos, specify what types of notifications are desired, and generally tinker with the wearable’s settings.

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Sleep Wearables

Oura ring puts a finger on how your sleep affects your day

Since the success of Fitbit, there’s been an endless parade of activity trackers offered through crowdfunding platforms and via traditional channels.

While many of these either treat sleep monitoring as a secondary feature or focus exclusively on the sleep experience, the Oura ring starts with sleep experience monitoring as a foundation for determining optimum activity levels. The ceramic scratch-resistant finger adornment gets an impressive three days of battery life from its tiny battery and charges in about an hour.

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Health and Wellness Wearables

YONO lets you know core body temperature for pregnancy planning

Many omen seeking to optimize their chances of conceiving are well-acquainted with the idea of monitoring their core body temperature.Some of those solutions can be very costly. Underarm sensors can also be affected by ambient temperature and other external factors, say the makers of YONO, an in-ear thermometer that calculates core body temperature for pregnancy planning.

patent-claimedThe patent-pending YONO measures and records core body temperature while sleeping –- particularly basal body temperature, the body’s lowest temperature, which usually happens while sleeping in the early morning hours. Because YONO’s sensor gets placed inside either ear, it’s not impacted by external factors that could affect the temperature, its makers say. The data synchs with the user’s Android or iOS mobile device in the morning.

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Music Wearables

Helix bracelet touts extractable Bluetooth earbuds

Just because earbuds are easier to travel with than standard headphones doesn’t mean that carrying them is so simple. After all, earbud cords frequently get tangled, especially when they are thrown in the bottom of a pocket or purse. They also have a tendency to get misplaced.

patent-claimedOut to resolve that dual dilemma is Helix, a bracelet that comes with extractable stereo earbuds. The earbuds are easy to extract from the bangle and because their cords are so short, they won’t get tangled like typical earbud cables. The earbuds can then be connected to the user’s smartphone via Bluetooth. Helix will ship in December at $199, although early bird Kickstarter backers can get it at pricing that starts at $99. Its makers set a Kickstarter goal of raising $100,000 by Sept. 18.

The design of Helix is simple and appealing enough so that men and women might not mind wearing it as an everyday bracelet. It also does indeed seem to solve the problem of making it easy to travel with earbuds without the cords getting tangled up. Helix, meanwhile, definitely makes it much harder to misplace earbuds. One problem, however, is that — like most audio products being sold through crowdfunding sites — there is no way to tell from its campaign video alone just how good its sound quality is.

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Wearables

Lap the competition with the TUNE running system

People play the long game when they run, seeking to better themselves over time for races and marathons that may be a year or more out in addition to staying healthy.

Made up of a connected inner sole and a clip-on wearable device, the TUNE running system has a ground-level view of all the nuances of a user’s feet while active. It analyzes ground contact time, heel contact time, footstrike and cadence all in an effort to reduce total contact time.

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Connected Objects Health and Wellness Wearables

SmartCardio keeps you a heartbeat away from your loved ones

A growing number of health monitoring devices that send information to mobile devices are being introduced on crowdfunding sites.

SmartCardio features a wide range of bells and whistles, and follows similar devices that include MOCAheart. SmartCardio lets users monitor their cardiovascular systems, as well as those of their loved ones. It also allows users to view electrocardiogram (ECG) analysis in real time and enables around-the-clock surveillance by cardiologists. One battery charge is sufficient to operate the device for up to seven days, its maker says. An accompanying app will be available for Android, iOS and Windows Phone devices.

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Displays Wearables

Vufine takes a pass on Glass, shows any content in nerdy style

Although Google Glass (and its successor) have attracted the most attention in the growing wearable display market, it’s clearly not a product for every consumer due to factors including its high price.

Vufine is a much cheaper alternative to Google Glass that works in conjunction with any device capable of outputting a 720p HDMI signal. The clip-on microdisplay attaches to one side of a standard pair of eyeglasses via a magnetic docking station that allows it to be adjusted for the user’s comfort. Vufine can be plugged into mobile devices to act as either a second monitor to view movies and other video content or to display information including GPS directions, emails and text messages. Wearers can also use it as a viewfinder for cameras, or to see everything that their drones are seeing in flight. Vufine costs $149 and ships in November. Its maker has set a Kickstarter goal of raising $50,000 by July 22.

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Input Wearables

Note to Self: Myle Tap captures your brilliance, spreads it around apps

The smartphone has become the main conduit to the cloud that stores many of our precious expressions — photos, e-mails and notes. It’s nearly always with us, but not always so easily accessed, for example, when we’re driving. And so smartwatches have emerged as a way to quickly get little bits of information out of the smartphone without removing its increasing profile from our pockets.

Myle Tap is, in some ways, the opposite of a smartwatch in that it’s focused almost exclusively on input, specifically, the jotting down of notes, random thoughts, to dos and short messages that often escape our memory . But the clippable microphone isn’t just a modern-day smartphone connected voice recorder once associated with reminders. The folder organization of those devices have been replaced with a host of app integrations for services such as Evernote and OneNote (which seem like naturals), Box.com, social stalwarts Facebook and Twitter, team app darling Slack and to-do list Wunderlist, which was recently acquired by Microsoft, with more on the way. Because of the intelligent crowd it hands with, Mlle Tap identifies at least 15 different kinds of tasks with which it can help, from adding a to-do to your list to controlling the Internet of Things.

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