all the talk
on the gadget grapevine is
that the next big thing will be, well, rather
small. The buzz started in February, when
a former Apple employee revealed that the
tech giant was developing a ‘smart watch’.
Then Samsung, the world’s largest smartphone-maker,
confirmed it had one in production.
It begs the question: is the world ready?
After all, many people have ditched watches
altogether in favour of a phone and, in these
frugal times, it’s hard to persuade folks to
stump up big money for a toy. There are also
several good reasons why the smart watch
–
of which there have been numerous attempts in the
past – never had its moment. First, it’s proven nigh on
impossible to shoehorn the right technological innards
into a sexy chassis. More complex still is the task of
making such a small gadget easy to master. And would
you really want to chat into your sleeve, Dick Tracy style?
There are good reasons, however, why nowmight
be the right time. For a start, instead of trying to replace
the smartphone, this gadget will simply complement it,
letting you access information from your handset, most
likely using Bluetooth.
And, while Apple and Samsung are still flirting with
the idea, a bunch of 30-something geeks have actually
shown it can be done. This gizmo, dubbed the Pebble,
doesn’t enable you to make calls or reply to
messages, but it performs some impressive
tricks. For starters, its e-Paper screen (think
Kindle) looks great, even in sunlight, and the
watch face can be customised into several
funky styles. It’s able to tap into your phone’s
GPS to show, say, your pace information as you
cycle or run, and you can even control the music playing
on your handset straight from the shower with a deft poke.
Despite all this, the Pebble is far from perfect: it’s
slightly glitchy and is far from the design artefact that
Apple would surely concoct as the iWatch. What it does
illustrate is that such a gadget could work really well –
which means that some of us will now be waiting, wrists
at the ready, to see what the big boys have to offer.
vital
statistics
pebble
€115
getpebble.com
“
Is it time for the era
of the smart watch?”
It may well be, says our tech editor,
Alex Pell
,
who’s been trying one out
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