Smart Wearables: Two Nifty Wearable Gems
These then can be transferred and then onto Instagram or Facebook. It also has Bluetooth audio for phone calls with gesture controls for volume, song skip, etc
It is rare that one comes across technology which has the
power to change the world, sometimes in both good and bad ways. I have been
using two very different wearables which add value to everyday life in
remarkable ways. The first is Ray Ban and Facebook’s smart glass eyewear called
“Stories”. It is a pair of sunglasses, available in both polarised and
non-polarised variants, and can do many things. Once turned on, it pairs
rapidly with the View app (which can be downloaded via a VPN in India). Then a
single click on the right records a reasonably high-quality video and a long
press takes photos. These then can be transferred and then onto Instagram or
Facebook. It also has Bluetooth audio for phone calls with gesture controls for
volume, song skip, etc. It features dual 5-megapixel camera sensors, embedded
Bluetooth 5.0 and Wi-Fi and enough storage for 500 pictures and links to Google
Assistant. It costs $299-$379 and is tough to lay one’s hands on it right now.
What doesn’t work well is the connection to transfer photos
from the frame to the app, as it has glitches and takes time to connect. Also,
the battery life is decent but not exceptional. Simply place it in the case for
charging. Facebook is obviously putting in place the building blocks to move
towards an AR/VR/MR platform and eventually the metaverse.
This would set the bar for Snap’s Spectacles 4 to supersede
when it comes out next year and there is enormous anticipation around it. Given
that a lot of electronics development has moved to India and Vietnam, Snap and
Facebook should consider both a premium line with partners such as Persol, Ray
Ban, Burberry, etc., and an affordable mass market version with brands such as
Lenskart or Warby Parker, to develop the broader metaverse ecosystem and
thereby encourage creators to engage deeply to build for this next phase of the
new economy. Luxoticca and Facebook have a winner in their hands and can create
a whole new BlueSky range of products and sub product lines, pretty much like
what Apple and Google did with their respective smart watches.
The second product is Oura’s new smart ring. It is in its
second iteration and looks extremely promising. It costs about $299 upwards and
tells you most of the stuff a smartwatch would but is much less obtrusive and
looks like a regular ring. It is perhaps the best sleep tracker in the market,
far better than most of the smart watches for it gives a measure of heart rate
variability (HRV) which is a barometer of one’s health. It tracks sleep
wonderfully and has a long battery life on a single charge. Its upcoming Oura
Ring 3 pushes the boundaries further and does SPO2 continuous monitoring (not
spot monitoring like the watches do) but when you sleep. In the post Covid-19
era this would be of immense value. Oura helps users view post-workout
insights, as well as data such as location, distance, and heart rate recovery.
Oura is a Finnish company headed by an Indian-origin CEO,
which has succeeded where many others have failed. It could perhaps add
continuous glucose monitoring, and perhaps an AOD (always on display) to show
just the time (instead of having to wake up in the middle of the night and
search for your watch). It is perhaps the best smart wearable ring out there
and one hopes Oura 3 will add to the aura of the blue skies market that it has
succeeded in creating for itself, globally. It remains to be seen what other
new features they will add to make it even more desirable.
In sum, both above wearables give one a quick insight into
what the future will look like especially with the world going the metaverse
way which promises to give us an alternate land, and alternate world with
avatars of ourselves as soon as in the next five to 10 years and these would be
perfect companions to hang out in that other world.
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