Be Excellent To Each Other

Is wearable tech going to be the next big thing? It seems to be in the news a fair amount these days...

The Apple iWatch, which might turn out to be a fitness band tracker, or a watch, or something.
Google Glass, which has been around a while now, will it ever come out and take off?
Nike Fuel, Fitbit, etc... Health trackers, that are already out there and working. I wear a Fitbit Force every day.
Android Wear API. That looks pretty cool actually, especially in conjunction with the Moto 360 watch which has just been announced. http://time.com/28923/android-wear-goog ... e-clearer/
Moto 360, a smart watch that actually looks ok and nice enough to wear. http://moto360.motorola.com/

Do you have any wearable tech? Do you plan on getting any?

No, no.

I was very close to getting a Pebble purely because I was sick of missing emails/texts/calls while the phone was in my pocket but then I started using my phone as an mp3 player and that pretty much took care of that. I'm still vaguely interested but with that main use case killed stone dead I can't bring myself to drop any cash.

Mrs B would be interested in some kind of fitness band thing if you could load it with mp3s and/or if it would do tracking stuff independently of her mobile phone but I don't know if such a thing exists at a reasonable price as yet because I don't care enough to wade through the flood of these things that are appearing.

You need to change your name to Mr Grumpy.

I could see how a watch could help if you keep your phone in your bag.

The fitness stuff has been out a while, it is just getting smaller, and more featured. If I start doing more running and swimming etc I might get one.

I almost got a pebble, but they look awful. Tempted with a Moto360, depending on how it works and what it can do, and if it can replace the functionality that my fitbit provides.

I'm interested to see what Apple do in this space, but it's fair to say that I'm not quite as excited nor expecting a magic game changing device as a fair number of the various Apple forum folk...

I don't think I've seen any wearable tech that I would find useful and does anything different to what my phone does.

The new Pebble Steel looks much better to be fair.



They'll bring out something that other devices already do then throw some superlatives at it and pretend they invented the whole idea. People will believe them because idiocy.

Yes, it does look better than the original...

NFC tag rings. I saw those the other day.

http://blog.nfcring.com/

I don't wear a watch, because I have a phone. Years of muscle memory also means that I can have my phone out of my pocket and in my face in about as much time as it would take to look at a watch. I like the idea of wearable tech, for me I just can't see a decent use. Other than Glass - I want life to have a HUD.

Battery life will always be the killer.

This is the nub. I have a watch with a battery effectively lasts forever - why would I want to swap to something that lasts a day or so?

I've actually made retrograde steps recently. I've moved away from 'one device fits all' and started having multiple devices again. Vita for gaming, iPad for surfing, Kindle for reading, watch for telling the time. It's less convenient, but I don't have to stress about my phone's battery running out all the time anymore.

Maybe I'm just getting old.

I think I must just not be busy or important enough to even remotely feel the need to get notified within the nanosecond whenever anyone sends me some sort of communication.

I wouldn't mind getting a fitness tracker of some description. My current job situation is leaving me too tired to go to the gym when I get home in the evenings (oh, I'm so chuffed I took out that year's membership now in fucking January), so I'm just trying to do things like using the stairs rather than the lift and going for a 2-3 mile walk in my lunch breaks. A fitness tracker would at least let me see if these small efforts are making any sort of impact.

That Moto 360 looks like the first smart watch I'd be interested in, as it's a nice looking watch. But battery life also puts me off these things.

Yeah, that's a mug's game. The potential saving over a year compared with how much you'll actually use it just isn't worth it. I pay an extra £5 a month just so that I can cancel at any point with a month's notice.

I was using it plenty, but then the silly arsehole who's meant to do this job in London fucked off without any notice and I got called in. I've been here since and just don't have the energy anymore after I've spent 90 mins every evening trying to drive home.

That's what I mean. Your personal circumstances can change at any point. I don't like tying myself into any sort of contract where you'll notionally save money, but get stuffed if things change.

I was burnt enough times in the past with things like car finance!

You'd probably feel better if you spent those 90 minutes actually driving rather than just trying. Maybe some lessons would help if you're struggling?

( )

My local gym has a clause that if you move house or job you can cancel your contract at no cost.

Malc

Not sure this counts but its the closest I've got to date

We are getting rid of the old style phones at work and everyone is moving to Lync with headsets

So I got one that goes in your ear, find it useful in the car as it supports answer\reject voice commands so I can take mobile calls on the way home.

The other week I was in Tesco and my wife called with a list of baby things she wanted so we had a conversation for around 15 minutes, the earpiece is quite discreet and I was getting looks from people as it would have appeared I was talking to myself!

More details of the Moto 360 are starting to emerge, or more rumours at least.

http://www.techradar.com/news/portable- ... es-1244426

July release, $249, water resistant, compatible with any android device that has BT 4.0, wireless charging, always on watch face screen.

Interesting, I wonder how many of those rumours will turn out to be true, if all of them then i'm very interested.

I'd be damned tempted to pick one up at that price.

Skimming through that article it talks about how there's no standard charge port on the thing as it uses some kind of wireless charging. I don't know if that's necessarily a good thing though, what if you're at work or whatever and need to charge it? You can't just use the µUSB chargers you'll already have everywhere and would need to spring for multiple Qi charging mats. To my mind you're gaining a very small amount of convenience ('chuck watch on mat' instead of 'plug in µUSB connector') in exchange for much greater inconvenience (i.e. either be unable to charge your watch outside the house at all or the need to buy more charging equipment).

I'm not sure that'll be an issue to be honest, as i'd expect a 3-4 day battery life, so if you pop it on the pad every night you shouldn't need to charge it at work.

Me, too. It looks really good.

I've got a galaxy gear. It's a bit shit.

What are you basing that expectation on though?

I'm not surprised, it's big, square and ugly, and you have to press its button to make it do anything.

But enough about your mom...

Just a hunch It'll certainly last for at least a day though.

I've been trying to wrangle a go on one, without success (although our team is involved so fingers crossed). I think it has a lot of promise, a lot depends on exactly what feature set we achieve for the v1.0. I'd very much like one.

Could the seiko kinetic charging tech be used in something like this? Does that even generate enough to light a screen?

Without knowing a single thing about the physics involved in either systems, I'd be very sceptical the power output's anything like enough. Not least because if it was it's surely something they'd have built into mobile devices already. Something that tops up the battery of your mobile just from being carried around the place would be fucking genius if it was worthwhile, so I presume it's not.

Yeah I think the output of the kinetic system is micro amps at best.

I want one of those bands that tracks distance, heart rate and so on. When I went to the doctor he said my heart rate and blood pressure were low, but that it might have been that I was unwell. I've been recommended an app that tracks your heart rate quite accurately and it send to suggest that my heart is just slower than average, but obviously I only use it in quiet moments, as I don't think if it when go out walking and so forth. I have heard such mixed reviews, though, so I'm unsure of what to believe.

The app is cool, mind

I tend to use my heart all the time, especially when walking.

I mostly only use mine when making impassioned speeches about the environment. Other times I'm mostly Lego.

Finally wrangled a demo of one of these.

A beard?

A face. He's done really well in life for someone with no skin on his skull.

I had a very brief play with Google Glass last week. Gave me a headache

I have the same one and yes its cool since it just shines a light on your finger and gets everything else from there.

you should *never* google anything health related but the average for heart rate should be from 60 to 100 and many top athletes have lower 'resting' rates apparently

http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-livin ... q-20057979

My resting heart rate is 56 - BOOM.

Mines 50 just now. But it was usually about 42 when I was doing more running and stuff. I even asked one of our cardiology chaps if it was anything to worry about since I'm pretty fucking far from being a top athlete. He said it was probably ok.

Diddy BOOM Diddy BOOM Diddy BOOM, Diddy BOOM Diddy BOOM Diddy BOOM BOOM BOOM.
BOOM Diddy BOOM Diddy BOOM Diddy BOOM.

42? Were you in a coma?

I just just had a look on my Garmin software to make sure and it was actually 46-48 when I'd checked it at rest. Still very low, though. Just checked it again now and it's up at 60.

Thats just the stress from worrying that 40 is too low :-)

Well goodness gracious me.

Thank fuck for that.

Should be more details of the Moto 360 released today at the google I/O event.

I've seen one of the Wear smartwatches but I was too shy to ask for a demo.