Wearable Devices

By George Harding

This is a hot product category these days. There were quite a few products at CES last January, the field is expanding rapidly.

I saw advertised and bought a Bowflex Heart Rate Monitor for $13. It’s really a watch with lots of functions, time of day, day, month, year, timer, countdown timer, calendar, alarm and backlight, but with an additional function of pulse monitor. It’s pretty simple. You press one of the four buttons and hold until the monitor function shows up. Then place the back of the watch against any place your pulse can be sensed. The display shows a heart symbol which pulses in time with your pulse and after a few seconds, a number representing your heart rate shows up.

Popular Mechanics magazine had a brief article about a new product called Narrative Chip. It’s a white one inch square device that attaches to your shirt, belt or whatever and records one picture every 30 seconds. It’s about 1 ½ inches square and clips to your shirt, belt, headband or whatever. It has a capacity of 6,000 pictures and a battery life of two days. You download the pictures to save and display them. Price $229. See getnarrative.com.

Gear Fit from Samsung is a fitness band that not only tells you the time, but also monitors your heart rate, counts your steps,  plays your music, answers calls and much more. It connects with your smartphone where it gives you an extensive readout of results. Brief results are shown on the device itself. Price $200. See samsung.com/us/mobile/wearable-tech/

Google and Apple are both working on Health apps that will collect information that can be used in applications to display results on wearable devices. Google’s developer kit is called Android Wear. Apple’s is HealthKit. Both companies are expected to develop smart watches soon.