The closest Microsoft has come to a smartwatch in recent years is the Nokia Moonraker project that it cancelled after acquiring Nokia’s device business in 2014. While rumours of a Microsoft smartwatch surface every once in a while, the company has instead focused on its Band and Band 2 fitness bands. What if it decided to broaden its wearables portfolio with […]
Concepts
Concept Sunday: Arc neck wearable
The wrist has quickly established itself as a favourite location for wearables. Smartwatches are unlikely to be found anywhere else. The same is true for many activity and fitness trackers. The wrist not only offers a convenient way to track a number of biometric data points (like your heart rate) but many consumers are already used to wearing jewelry and watches there. The Arc neck […]
Concept Sunday: b,air wearable tracks air quality
Air quality is becoming a health concern in many areas of the world. For example, Beijing issued its first ever red alert for air pollution last month. With smog at levels 10 times higher than the World Health Organization recommends, many cars were kept off the roads and schools and construction sites were closed. Beijing is by no means the only […]
Concept Sunday: Glent assistive reading wearable
We have featured a number of concepts that could eventually help the visually impaired. These included everything from devices that provide navigation assistance such as the BuzzClip and Sunu Band to Braille smartwatches such as the Dot that provide similar functionality to traditional smartwatches. A new wearable concept, the Glent, could soon help those who are not visually impaired but facing the challenges […]
Concept Sunday: Watch Bf 109 Limited Edition
Watches have been intertwined with the history of flight ever since Cartier came up with the first pilot watch for Alberto Santos-Dumont in the early 1900s. Pilot watches and timepieces inspired by planes have remained faithful companions ever since. Even concept designs reach into the world of aviation for inspiration. The Watch Bf 109 Limited Edition by Brazil’s Itamar Salles is such a concept […]
Concept Sunday: BayerFlex diabetes management smartwatch
We recently featured the Simplo glucometer smartwatch on Concept Sunday. A second project, also sponsored by Bayer Healthcare through the Center for Design Research at the University of Kansas, offers a slightly different take on diabetes management. The BayerFlex concept was designed by Taylor Jay and a partner. The full BayerFlex solution consists of a pocket-sized kit, a smartwatch with built-in glucometer and a […]
Concept Sunday: HTC 2020 wearable smartphone
The promise of flexible displays and other components suggest that future smartphones will escape from the constraints of the current designs to take on a range of form factors. The idea that it could take the form of a wearable bracelet is not new. For example, we featured the convertible Google Nexus 360 smartphone on Concept Sunday back in 2014. Russian industrial designer Philipp Skorobogatov […]
Concept Sunday: Simplo glucometer smartwatch
A number of concepts we have featured on Concept Sunday have been devices looking to overcome some kind of medical condition. Most recently, we featured the stylish Embrace smartwatch which can detect epileptic seizures. Earlier, we featured the Glycount, a wearable diabetic management device that relied on an unspecified future technology that would “enable us to measure blood sugar level instantaneously and continuously.” Today we […]