Sometimes products are dead on arrival because they "surprise" the user with a fundamentally different implementation than the one they expected.
In this case, the "phone-shaped" object isn't a phone at all. In fact, you can toss it in the trash if you like. Instead, the bulky, underpowered wrist piece is the one you need to keep track of and care about.
If your "phone" (watch) is dying, you can save battery by using the "monitor" (phone?). Or if you feel awkward talking to your "watch" (phone), just talk instead to the "phone" (monitor).
It won't surprise me that as components get smaller and smaller, these communications devices change over time, but as for today...
I've worn several "wearable" devices - the Jawbone UP (more than a year) and a Basis watch (4 weeks). Surprisingly to me I found that my life - as sedentary as it is - didn't play well with expensive, breakable, things on my wrist. I've just gotten used to not having something there. My children ripped it off, I smacked it on door frames, accidentally showered with it, and scratch/banged them pretty badly when doing random car work or goofing off in the backyard. While the wearables were expensive, they aren't nearly as expensive as my phone, which does hold up much better. I'm pretty wary of the idea of putting that on my wrist now.
This concept is exactly where I predict things will/should go. No idea if this particular product is any good though.
It's wasteful and expensive to duplicate components across many devices. Have them in one device, with other devices sharing them / as dumb terminals to them. If I want to do something on my phone, but on a big screen, I should be able to pull out a big dumb screen that talks to my phone. Of course in this scenario replace "phone" with "hub."
Counterpoint: as we gain the tech to do this kind of things, the hardware may become so cheap that we gain very little cost savings from not duplicating most of it.
Isn't this essentially the model for wearables already? Except with the opposite relationship: the phone is the smart device and the watch is relatively "dumb". This makes sense since it is easier for my phone to be much larger and more powerful, I can also take it out of my pocket if it gets too hot, etc. It looks like in this case they've made the watch smart and the larger screen dumb, which is novel, but I'm not sure I see the advantages. Also, I am much more apt to lose my watch than my phone, but maybe that is just me.
Great, now I have two things I need to carry around with me. If I forget the wrist device, the phone is useless? No thanks. The phone as it is right now works great. Wearing something on my wrist seems kinda archaic at this point. Having to look at my arm for information seems so dated. A more interesting thing is to have that information come to me when the context deems it. Why do I need to check what time it is? My phone should alert me that my next appointment is in 20 minutes and I need to start walking there. Why are we trying to ape 400 year old technology when we have things ambient, always on internet for every device in our possession?
The battery life isn't "long" its at most a few days, looks about what the android wear watches have. Leaching off the pocket viewer battery is a good idea but doesn't add that much to the total package.
Its a hard plastic shell almost completely around your wrist, technically you are using words that make a point but practically you completely missed my point.
As long as it's comfortable, why is it important for it to be soft? And how long is "long"? And you can always carry more chargers around with you. If you only need a few days of battery life there's no point weighing yourself down with more.
I think hammerandtongs is saying if you go to type and one of your wrists is a couple of centimeters higher than the other, that's not very comfortable.
I just learned about the Neptune Pine from another HN post. Neptune just announced their latest device, the Neptune Duo. I was hoping for something like the Neptune Pine, but smaller and slimmer. This fits that bill, but once again it's two devices, almost like today's smartphone and smartwatch pairing. This just moves the phone part to the wrist. And it's much more expensive, without any specs at this point. I'm disappointed, but maybe someone else here might be interested.
Mhm, they seemed have swapped the master/slave relationship between the smartwatch and the smartphone that most recent systems use. Now the watch unit has the data and the connectivity interfaces, instead of the other way around. Looks promising, if battery life of 'the Hub' is somewhat decent.
Well, from the product page, the pocket screen actually has more battery capacity than the armband. In fact, the screen can be used as a on-the-go charging station for the armband.
Personally, I don't know how I feel about this. Their battery benchmarks are assuming you're going to use the pocket screen to charge the hub, but I don't necessarily want to be tethered to this pocket screen either.
As of right now wearable is still pretty thick, but style and implementation wise this is superb. As usual I reserve final judgement, until I will be able to see reviews.
Not commenting on the overall value or quality of the thing (not having used it) but seeing as it replaces a more traditional setup of smartphone and tethered smart watch, the price isn't terrible.
My Moto X cost around $450 and my Moto 360 retails for $250 (though I got it on sale for $175). If the end result of this setup is one object on the wrist and one in the pocket, it's only a bit more expensive than what I've got. Likewise, if I had bought a more expensive phone (iPhone, Galaxy, etc) then the total would have been a couple hundred dollars more.
Combine this with the novelty of the Neptune and I can see how they wouldn't charge drastically less than a current smartphone/smartwatch pair. In this situation, the main "brain" is just in the wrist part instead of the "phone" part.
I don't imagine I'd be in the market for this mostly because it seems a bit too "ooh future!" looking for me but I can certainly appreciate the concept.
In this case, the "phone-shaped" object isn't a phone at all. In fact, you can toss it in the trash if you like. Instead, the bulky, underpowered wrist piece is the one you need to keep track of and care about.
If your "phone" (watch) is dying, you can save battery by using the "monitor" (phone?). Or if you feel awkward talking to your "watch" (phone), just talk instead to the "phone" (monitor).
It won't surprise me that as components get smaller and smaller, these communications devices change over time, but as for today...
Just, no.