Taiwanese startup bOMDIC will use CES to debut GoMore, the world's first wearable stamina fitness sensor, the company said Tuesday. The company tested GoMore for the past three years with professional athletes and will launch it through a Kickstarter campaign that begins in January, it said. “GoMore is breaking new ground in the wearable fitness sensor market by helping athletes understand in real time how much stamina is being consumed during a workout, when their bodies are fatiguing, and when to change the intensity of their workout for optimal performance,” the company said. It’s based on an algorithm that measures the athlete's heart rate by calculating 64,000 data points per second, it said. “The sensor, which is connected to a chest strap, detects the athlete's decreasing stamina when their pace slows down which may be caused by having to breathe harder, which in turn may lead to muscle fatigue and lactic acid build-up, it said. With a scheduled release date of April 15, GoMore operates on iOS 8.0 or later and is compatible with the iPhone 4S and higher and the third-generation and later iPad, it said. It has a battery life of 24 hours on a single charge through a micro USB charging cable and weighs 0.75 ounces, the company said.
Martian will use its CES exhibit at the Sands Expo Center to showcase "the crossroads of fashion and functionality" through its 2015 line of smart watches, the company emailed us Friday. Martian smart watches "allow you to stay connected with hands-free convenience via voice command control and customized vibration patterns that let you know what type of notification is coming in without even looking," the company said. At CES, the company will expand the line with "new rugged, classic, simple and elegant designs for men and women with lots of new features thrown in," it said. CES also will be the first public demonstrations of its co-branded "Guess powered by Martian" smart watch, it said.
Best Buy Canada is featuring Canadian comedian Debra DiGiovanni in a series of videos and blog posts to "de-mystify" wearables and trumpet what it claims is Canada’s largest selection of wearable technology and accessories for the holiday selling season, it said Monday. Best Buy Canada stores offer more than 200 wearables products, from fitness trackers and smart watches to brain-sensing headbands and pet wearables, it said. Best Buy stores across Canada have launched new in-store sections dedicated to wearable technology as well as a new online wearable tech hub with blogs, product reviews and videos to help consumers get up to speed, it said.
Wearables company Sensoria will launch in Q1 a line of $99 smart socks designed for runners. The socks, which incorporate textile sensors, pair with a Bluetooth Smart anklet that attaches to the cuff of one sock with a magnet. The sensors deliver standard fitness tracking data including number of steps, calories, altitude and distance and add information specific to the foot such as track cadence, foot landing technique and weight distribution, the company said. The socks “may help” runners identify poor running styles that could cause pain, the company said. The accompanying mobile app coaches a runner in real time with audio cues, it said.
TechAmerica will begin work to form a position on the classification of smart watch products for customs duty purposes, the group said on its website. TechAmerica's Customs Committee formed a working group "to develop common positions to provide in advocacy efforts" with Customs and Border Protection and other countries' customs officials, it said. The effort is in preparation for the World Customs Organization Harmonized System Committee meeting in March, during which one or more smart watches will be classified, it said Wednesday. The classification decisions are used to promote consistency in product tariff treatment around the world. The past few years have seen major progress in smart watch technology, and many TechAmerica members now sell the products, it said. "Due to the different functions included in the smartwatches," several classification categories are being considered, including classification as digital cameras, pedometers or wrist watches, it said: "Depending on how these products ultimately are classified, the rate at which wearable technologies and/or their components are assessed for tariffs can vary significantly."
Intel and Luxottica Group will collaborate on a multiyear research and development alliance "to fuse premium, luxury and sports eyewear with smart technology," the companies said in a joint announcement Wednesday. Luxottica controls a broad portfolio of eyewear brands, including Oakley, Oliver Peoples and Ray-Ban. Its licensed brands include Bulgari, Burberry, Chanel, Coach, Dolce & Gabbana, Donna Karan, Giorgio Armani, Michael Kors, Polo Ralph Lauren, Prada, Tiffany and Versace. The companies aim to push R&D "boundaries" to anticipate "what smart technology for eyewear will look like in the future," they said. The collaboration will yield its first product next year, they said. "The growth of wearable technology is creating a new playing field for innovation," said Intel CEO Brian Krzanich. Intel and Luxottica will mesh their "respective ecosystems" to help drive "a much faster pace of innovation and push the envelope of what’s possible," he said.
Consumer intentions to buy smart watches soared in recent months, said a consumer research report released Wednesday by Futuresource Consulting. The firm canvassed a total of 8,000 consumers in France, Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. in two "waves" -- once in May and again in October -- and found interest in buying a smart watch jumped 125 percent between the two waves, it said. Consumer intentions to buy fitness trackers jumped 50 percent, it said. However, interest in smart glasses and heart rate monitors has "stalled," it said. "The overall wearables market has seen significant growth so far in 2014, with Futuresource forecasting full year sales of more than 51 million units worldwide," the company said. "However, it's only just warming up, and wearables sales are expected to accelerate from 2015 as new brands enter the space." The "most marked change" since May is the strong growth in the number of iPhone owners intending to purchase wearable devices, Futuresource said. In terms of purchase intentions on wearables, "iPhone owners now lead the way in all categories," particularly in smart watches, which 17 percent of iPhone owners expressed an intent to purchase in the next 12 months, up from only 6 percent in May 2014, it said. "This increase coincides with September's announcement of the Apple Watch. As Apple customers are typically some of the earliest adopters of new technologies, their increasing engagement with the smart watch category is a strong positive for the Apple Watch release in early 2015."
Wearable electronics are poised to become a $25.2 billion global market, with a volume of 142.6 million units, by 2020, based on a 26 percent compound annual growth rate through the end of the decade, said Allied Market Research in a report. North America currently has the largest share of the global wearables market, but Europe will grow the fastest to become the largest market by 2020, it said. It estimated that wearables were a $4 billion market globally last year. The market is dominated by large players such as Adidas, Google and Nike, but companies like Fitbit and Jawbone "have raised a lot of capital through funding based on their business ideas and are now competing with large players in the wearable electronics space," it said.
Toshiba is using this week’s electronica 2014 show in Munich to showcase a new addition to its TZ1000 series of ApP Lite application processor chipsets for wearable devices, the company said Monday. The new chipset, the TZ1021MBG, integrates a processor and flash memory, but not the Bluetooth Low Energy and accelerometer that Toshiba built into its previous chipset, the TZ1001MBG, Toshiba said. The result is a "smaller, slimmer package," it said. Toshiba will start sampling the TZ1021MBG this month and begin mass production in March, it said.
New metal offerings, watch faces and wellness features are the latest enhancements to the Moto 360 smart watch, Motorola said Thursday in a blog post. The Moto 360 now comes with metal bands crafted from "aircraft-grade" stainless steel, making them as "durable as they are beautiful," the company said. It’s also offering customized watch face options that will be available soon through an update on the Moto Connect app, it said. As for new wellness features, Moto 360's Moto Body, also available through the app update, can track steps, distance, heart rate and calories burned, it said.