Making jewelry that incorporates tech seems to be the next big thing. We are thrilled! You now can choose from a wide range of smart jewelry and most of the time people won’t even notice that you are wearing a piece of high tech. See our favorites below:
As Beyoncé says: “If you like it put a ring on it” – So let’s do this wearable techie style! Trellie is a company from Kansas City and originally a B2B tech platform that intends to help fashion brands to design and launch their own wearable tech. Now they are launching their own smart jewelry. Paired with an app the ring recognizes calls, texts, and calendar events and sends a subtle, unobtrusive alert to your jewelry. The official launch is set for March/April 2015.
New York based company Smart Siren Technology launched a line of rings with a patent pending technology which, when activated, emit a loud alarm. SIREN may serve as a powerful deterrent during the first few critical moments of an attack, or whenever a protective advantage feels necessary. To activate SIREN, the wearer simply twists the top of the ring 60 degrees until the top locks firmly into position and can no longer rotate.
Moodmetric is a Finnish company which claims to monitor emotions. The gemstone ring, designed by one of the foremost jewelry designers in Finland has some engaging objectives, such as calming the mind, learning about past emotions and positively raising the current and future emotional state of the wearer. It does this by subtly monitoring activities by using its built-in sensors to monitor your skin conductance and autonomous nervous system signals. Then it gives detailed feedback about your expended emotional energy via an accompanying app and also features meditation and mind calming exercises. The idea is once the wearer learns about own emotional patterns, he or she can start to make progress in taking control of emotional intelligence.
Ōura ring is a wellness ring. It measures how your body responds to your sleep, rest and active life. Analysing quality of sleep and daily physical activity combined with user input, Ōura gives personalized guidance on how to improve sleep, achieve balance and perform better in everyday life.
Another beautiful ring example is Ringly. More rings you can find in our article “Put a ring on it” article.
But there’s more jewelry out there! Ear-O-Smart are earrings that monitor the wearers activity. Ear-O-Smart poses to be a fashionable accessory but can also track heart rate, calories burned, and overall activity throughout the day. It connects to smartphones with Bluetooth 4.0 wireless technology. The best part about is that you can create your own designs and have Ear-O-Smart matching your clothes everyday while keeping the same circuit underneath. Ear-O-Smart will ship with surgical steel post but own material can be used and it is easy to create custom earring using the available DIY kit. So get your bling on with that earring using diamonds or gold! The Ear-O-Smart will come all the way from Canada and present at our WT | Wearable Technologies Conference in Milan the 29th of April! Don’t miss it!
While Ear-O-Smart is the only earring concept we know so far there are several bracelets out there in the smart jewelry category. Like the one from the company Liber8 Technology which will also be speaking at the fashion edition of WT | Wearable Technologies Conference in Milan. Their bracelet is called Tago Arc smart bracelet and it puts fashion first and before the the usual notifications and activity tracking. The smart jewelry accessory with a curved, slim build E-ink display can match different outfits by changing patterns and images which are transmitted from a smartphone. The images and patterns displayed on the bracelet will be available in the Tago app, some of them will be free and others paid for, plus users can further customize what the bracelet displays by creating their own patterns and images. The bracelet has no buttons, no cords , and you won’t have to charge it.The smart bracelet uses Near Field Communication (NFC) to communicate with its companion app.
Funded on Indiegogo Olive is a bracelet that aims to manage stress (this sounds familiar, didn’t I tell you here stress seems to be the trend for 2015?). The wearable stress management device uses a variety of sensors to gauge heart rate, skin conductance (i.e., moisture on the skin, which implies excitement), ambient light, motion and skin temperature. When Olive notices higher-than-normal stress levels, it gives the wearer gentle haptic feedback or activates an LED light. The bracelet does the same when the wearer has scheduled a stress management exercise. Working with a companion smartphone app – although the bracelet also can exist as a standalone device – the wearer can help Olive get a fuller picture of stress factors by tapping on it to signify stressful moments. Olive promises a tailored stress management experience for wearers – it learns from your daily activities and patterns, thereby improving the bracelet’s ability to rescue the wearer from stress overload.
Other examples of fashionable tech bracelets are the ones from Rebecca Minkoff and Intel and Opening Ceremony with the MICA which we already reviewed here.
What about jewelry that you can wear as a bracelet and as a necklace? Company Bellabeat recently came out with Leaf, a device with the capability to track reproductive health. Leaf will be able to monitor and notify about ovulation, contraceptive intake and incoming period, making it a valuable tool for those who want to conceive (and those who don’t). In is also an activity monitor that can also track activities, steps, calories burned and even sleep. Bellabeat’s Leaf is part of a trio of wearables designed for women, including Shell for expecting moms, and a smart scale called Balance.
Another brand with bracelets and necklaces is Cuff, one of our speakers at the WT | Wearable Technologies Conference 2014 in San Francisco. More about what this jewelry can be found in our interview with the CEO Deepa Sood.
Elektrocouture is a German agency to pioneer bespoke innovative electronic wearable technology for the ready-to-wear fashion industry. One of their projects is the ElektroNecklace, a device with LEDs integrated to light up the necklace!
We didn’t forget about you guys, the Huawei TalkBand B2 is the piece of jewelry for you, something that you can wear for a formal dinner or to the office, use it as a fitness band or an earpiece! The Vector Watch is a Smartwatch which claims to have a 30 day battery life with the look of a traditional watch. Brand Christophe & Co is also entering the jewelry world exclusively for men with wearable tech bracelets.
Future looks bright like a diamond for jewelry makers. Now my only problem is to choose from all these new devices – they all look kind of good.
