The wearable tech market is set to soar this year, with Google Glass being released for one day only in the US before a general release and new smart watches popping up faster than you can say Galaxy Gear.
With more than 90,000 wearable devices predicted to ship in 2014 according to ABI Research, there seems to finally be an appetite for this new wave of products to take the power from the mobile phone and add it into new areas of the body.
But it wasn't always this way, and as much as you might hate the way that Google Glass looks, you can at least be thankful it doesn't look like some of the horror shows from the past. But like any good failure, we can't help but look again; so join us as we take a look back at some of the biggest wearable electronics failures of years gone by - and see how they influenced today's designs.
Private Eye and Twiddler keyboard
Launch date: 1989
Cost: Unknown
Reflection Technology's Private Eye head-mounted display was one of the first wearable computers, although its mobility was a little limited.
Mounted on a pair of glasses, with a 720 x 280 pixel red monochrome screen in a 8.89 x 3.81 x 3.18mm casing, the actual display measured 1.25-inches diagonally but appeared as though you were viewing a 15-inch monitor from 18-inches away.
The Private Eye's display was made up of a row of LEDs and a rapidly spinning mirror to give the illusion of lines of text and there was little you could do with it except read or write text.
The Private Eye screen was attached to a 12Mhz Intel 286 processor with 2MB of RAM and an 85MB hard drive, connected to a car mobile phone, powered by a motorbike battery and was carried around in a shoulder bag to make it a little more mobile.
Unlike Google Glass that is controlled by your voice, Private Eye was used with the Twiddler wrist keyboard for text input.
Why it should have been awesome: Being able to edit documents and do, you know, computer things on the go should have been amazing - and the twiddling finger pad must have felt brilliant to master.
Ultimate reason for failure: There wasn't a whole lot of use for the Private Eye. Although it was an alternative to a computer monitor, the equipment was heavy and not many people wanted to mount a monitor on their glasses.
MSN Direct Smartwatch
Launch date: January 2004
Cost: $200 (about £118, AU$215) + service subscription of $39.95 (about £24, AU$43) a year
The MSN Direct Smartwatch was part of Microsoft's initiative for Smart Personal Object Technology (SPOT), using FM radio signals to broadcast news, weather and other text-based information to watches.
It took a while for Microsoft to get the SPOT service up and running. When it finally was working the service cost $39.95 per year or $9.95 per month, plus tax. You also had to buy the watch itself, with options manufactured by Suunto, Fossil, Tissot and Swatch retailing for around $200 each.
As one of the first smart watches to come to market, the MSN direct Smartwatch had pretty limited capabilities. It didn't connect to your phone like the Samsung Galaxy Gear, nor did it do much else other than beam RSS feeds to your wrist.
You could get text messages sent to the device, with the service being run by MSN Messenger. However, you couldn't reply to messages, so it was hardly a solid mobile phone companion.
Why it should have been awesome: The same reason we persist with smartwatches today. Instant info on your wrist? That's the future, that is.
Ultimate reason for failure: The MSN Direct was only available in limited areas of the United States and the fact you had to pay for information you could find on the internet for free was a little pointless.
Xybernaut Poma Wearable PC
Launch date: January 2002
Cost: $1,500 (about £886, AU$1615)
The Xybernaut Poma Wearable PC was another foray into the head-mounted display market that launched way before Google Glass.
The wearable comprised of a 309g Windows CE device, running on the Hitachi 128MHz Risc processor with 32MB of RAM.
Xybernaut offered pocket versions of Internet Explorer, Outlook, Windows Media Player and Word pre-installed and there was an optical mouse to control it, with a colour display mounted on a headband.
The head-mounted monitor allowed you to view 800 x 600 pixel images, giving the impression of a 13-inch monitor.
Hitachi thought people would use the computer to work, surf the Web or play games when they were out of the office or away from home. But with the mini screen in front of one eye it was a little hard to also concentrate on what was happening around you.
Why it should have been awesome: A) the ability to do things you'd normally need to wield a very weight laptop around for, meaning plane trips are much simpler and B) you'd look like a Borg.
Ultimate reason for failure: Like the Private Eye, the Xybernaut Poma Wearable PC added a lot of bulk to carry around. It wasn't particularly mobile, ran really slowly (even to 2002 standards) and looked a little silly.
Fossil Wrist PDA
Launch date: 2002 (2003 general release)
Cost: $250 (about £148, AU$269)
Fossil's Wrist PDA was essentially a watch running a read-only version of the Palm OS, and received positive reviews when it was first released, with Wired.com calling it "revolutionary".
The Fossil Wrist PDA featured a touch-sensitive 160 x 160-pixel screen with 8MB memory.
There was a stylus that tucked into the strap for input via handwriting recognition or a virtual keyboard and the watch also featured an infrared port for connecting to other Palm devices.
The first edition Fossil Wrist PDA was removed from Fossil's website just a year after it went on sale. The company later released a slimmer design with the Fossil Abacus FX2008 and FX2009 which were on-sale until 2005 when they were all taken off the market.
Why it should have been awesome: Inexpensively bringing the power of the PDA to the wrist, and with a fashion brand attached. In fact, how did Fossil and Palm screw this up?
Ultimate reason for failure: The watch was too bulky, weighed almost as much as a standard PDA and its small, dim screen wasn't particularly useful for everyday use.
Vuzix Wrap 1200DX
Launch date: 2010
Cost: £499.99 (about US$295, AU$538)
Between 2006 and 2011, Vuzix launched a range of projector glasses that allowed you to watch video from your mobile, in widescreen.
Each model allowed you to project videos into the interior eyepieces, giving the impression of watching a film on a TV - anything from 42-inches up to 75-inches - from around 3m away.
The Vuzix Wrap 1200DX was the last model to hit UK shores and the glasses allowed you to stream either 2D or 3D video from any HDMI-enabled device including mobile phones, Blu-ray players, video game consoles, and your computer.
At the top of the range, Vuzix claimed the experience was the same as watching a 75-inch display from 3m away.
Why it should have been awesome: They don't look totally foolish (like other versions of the tech do), and who doesn't want two massive TVs in front of their eyes on the commute to work?
Ultimate reason for failure: The glasses were heavy and let's be honest, who wants to spend their train ride into work with a massive pair of sunglasses on?
No comments:
Post a Comment