At the IDTechEx show, Sharp demonstrates Memory LCD technology that delivers high-contrast, high-resolution displays for outdoor use. They are already being used in the quite popular Pebble watch. These LCD modules embed 1-bit memory in every pixel to enable each pixel to hold state while requiring low power. This delivers an “always on” display that uses little power (only a single supply voltage is required), even when updating images. This helps designers create products with long battery life. It also eliminates sweeping images or “ghosting”, because only the part of the image that requires updating needs to be changed. The response time of Sharp’s Memory LCDs makes it fast enough to display motion video. Right now Memory LCD is thus a quite good contender for the Smartwatch market, with Android Wear being a possibility also, perhaps Smartphones could use Memory LCD also to design a smartphone with potentially weeks of battery life instead of a day or two.
Category: Wearables
Bainisha Body Motion Capturing using Printed Electronics
Bainisha is a high-tech start-up dedicated to the development of a new paradigm in Body Motion Capturing. This interview, taken at the IDTechEx event on Wearable Technology, shows some of the product they are working on. Based on a thin hyper-stretchable film version of an Inverse Artificial Muscle, it delivers a set of new and hitherto unattained functionalities in terms of accuracy, speed & differentiation. The on-body concept guarantees an Absolute Body References Frame and hence sets a new standard for Medical Quality Data. Because the system has no “wake-up”-threshold and no filtering and/or damping combined with a +kHz capturing speed, it allows capturing such minute displacements as muscle tremor, pre-natal contractions, fatigue induced tremble etc… as well as explosive kinetics. Learn more about the technology and event at http://www.wearabletechnologyinsights.com
Microdul at IDTechEx Energy Harvesting & Storage event
Interview with Microdul at the IDTechEx Energy Harvesting & Storage event. Microdul AG is a specialist for high quality microelectronics with three business lines: Modules, Thick-film and Semiconductors. Microdul’s core competence is the production of cutting edge individual solutions in close cooperation with their customers. Their Semiconductors Group has experience in ultra-low power design of mixed-signal integrated circuits, which is particularly appropriate for energy harvesting and low-power sensor applications. To learn more about the event and energy harvesting see http://www.EnergyHarvestingJournal.com
Enfucell Printed Battery Powering Golf Sensor, Temperature Sensors and More
Enfucell is a customized battery supplier to the printed electronics industry. The company has developed SoftBattery®, a thin, flexible and eco-friendly printed power source and at the IDTechEx Printed Electronics Europe event in Berlin it showcased a range of products based on this battery. It includes a powered wireless golf sensor patch which was developed in a joint project with Qualcomm. The patch is attached to a golf club head for measuring acceleration and angular velocity. The acquired data is transferred via low energy Bluetooth (BLE) to an application on a mobile device. Enfucell battery powers the BLE data transmission without additional capacitor demonstrating the highest peak power capability in the industry. Battery is also fully integrated to the system.
The disposable patch is helping golf players to improve their swing. This is the first time that a player can actually get feedback from the club head. A fully integrated printed battery enables thin and light construction which does not interfere with the normal stroke. Thanks to the BLE communication, data can be analyzed on site on the driving range during a training session. The data is collected to and processed on an Android tablet.
A similar patch can be tailored for other racquet sports, shooting, bowling, etc. Enfucell is looking for partners for commercializing the product. The new product platform completes Enfucell application range with previously introduced temperature logger (collaboration with NXP) and iontophoresis patch (collaboration with The Ionto Team, Spain). Also these products have fully integrated Enfucell battery technology. All of these are shown in the video. To learn more see http://www.PrintedElectronicsWorld.com
Mifree Memory LCD and E Ink Smartwatches
Using ST Microelectronics ARM Cortex-M4, MediaTek MT2502 ARM7EJ-S or Ingenic MIPS, using Sharp Memory LCD, E Ink or regular LCD, pricing from below $50 to $100 for an MT6572 dual-core ARM Cortex-A7 based Apple watch clone running Android. Mifree says that they are currently shipping more than 100 thousand smartwatches per month out of their smartwatch factory. Mifree also shows how they can add a PCB to a classical style watch to make it smart.
You can contact Mifree here:
http://en.m-free.cn/lxwm_detail/&i=1&comContentId=1.html
$70 GOCLEVER CHRONOS ECO Smartwatch with 20-day battery life and always-on Sharp memory LCD display
GOCLEVER CHRONOS ECO vibrates and displays notifications from the Smartphone. Using the dedicated Android/iOS application, users can choose which notifications from which app to vibrate and display. The display is always on using the Sharp Memory LCD technology, provides pretty impressive contrast for indoor and outdoor use with backlight that can kick in on touch and on lifting the wrist. With an amazing 20-day battery life with the always-on display always active, thanks also to the Nordic Semiconductor ARM Cortex-M0 processor, GOCLEVER CHRONOS ECO is to be available in May for around $70 on Ebay and Amazon in most of the EU.
You can read more about it at http://www.goclever.com/uk/products,c1/smartwear,c114/chronos-eco,a455.html
DuPont Microcircuit Materials and Wearable Technology, interview with IDTechEx
DuPont Microcircuit Materials (DuPont) shows some of their latest offerings in printed electronics at the IDTechEx Printed Electronics USA 2014 event, including a T-Shirt that monitors the oxygen level, heart rate and temperature of the wearer. This is enabled by their stretchable, washable conductive ink materials. Their materials are used for many applications, from glucose test strips, (where their sisters company DuPont Teijin provides the substrate) to antennas for wireless RF systems. This video was taken at the world’s largest event on Printed Electronics, hosted by IDTechEx. For more information see http://www.IDTechEx.com
Printed Electronics Europe takes place in Berlin April 28-29th 2015
Teiimo Wearable Leather Jacket at the IDTechEx Wearable Technology event
Teiimo shows an electronics system embedded in a jacket. The jacket has two zone heating embedded into it, in addition to a hands free system and speakers. This is aimed at convertible drivers. The battery system is a flexible lithium ion battery so that the users do not feel it. Learn more about this product in this video. This interview was made at the IDTechEx Wearable Technology event. For more information see http://www.IDTechEx.com
Printed Electronics Europe takes place in Berlin April 28-29th 2015
Canada R&D NRC Printable Electronics initiative – interview at IDTechEx Printed Electronics
The National Research Council (NRC) is the Government of Canada’s premier organization for research and technology development. NRC’s Printable Electronics (PE) initiative coordinates key industrial areas – materials, ink, printing, ICT and digital manufacturing – as a springboard for a competitive, sustainable and large-scale PE sector in Canada. Working with commercial partners, NRC has established a product development and demonstration capability to give its customers a decisive competitive edge in producing PE products for world markets. NRC seeks new partnerships for collaboration on product-driven applied research. NRC’s current PE research priorities encompass Functional Materials, Functional Devices and Functional Imprinting. Learn more in this interview made at the IDTechEx Printed Electronics USA show. For more see http://www.IDTechEx.com
Printed Electronics Europe takes place in Berlin April 28-29th 2015
Impressions of IDTechEx Wearable Technology event from Ortiz Industry
Wearable Technology LIVE! event interview hosted by IDTechEx. For more see http://www.IDTechEx.com
Printed Electronics Europe takes place in Berlin April 28-29th 2015
$199 Allwinner Glass, better than Google Glass on Allwinner A33 quad-core ARM Cortex-A7
Allwinner launches their sub-$200 Google Glass platform based on their Allwinner A33 quad-core ARM Cortex-A7, designed by Taiwanese design house Coretronic, it integrates the same optical prism engine optics and design as Google Glass, takes 5 megapixel pictures and 720p video with its built-in camera, with a built-in touchpad on the side for navigation in Android, it builds in a 680mAh battery. Also comes with WiFi, BT4, GPS and classic sensors, it could also work with voice control (all depends on Android support). The $199 end consumer price that I write here in the title depends on what the distributors and the brands decide to sell it for, it depends on design house costs to production volume to brand who sells it to consumer’s demand, the $199 price is me being enthusiastic and overly optimistic based on what I expect can be the demand, on what I expect some brand could decide to mass produce and sell large quantities for, based on what I know of the cost of Allwinner A33 (cheapest tablets sell below $30) and the expected cost of the microdisplay engine).
You can contact the design house for this Allwinner Google Glass here, thanks for letting them know you watched my video:
http://www.coretronic.com/en/company01.php
http://www.coretronic.com/en/contact.php
Sales Contact:
Ms. Reina Hu
TEL : +886-3-35772000 Ext. 7626
E-Mail : sales@coretronic.com
$28 Rudu Smartwatch, Smart baby diaper detector and RF Internet of Things
Rudu is a Smartwatch, Wearables and Internet of Things design house and factory in Shenzhen China. In this video Rudu shows some of their latest products and the prices for distributors to buy bulk.
You can contact Rudu here (thanks for letting them know you watched the video if you contact them):
Doris, Sales Manager
dorus.wu@rudu-int.com
Mobile: +86 13590413644
Lam, General Manager
Lam@rudu-int.com
Mobile: +86 13714315678
http://www.rudu-int.com
muRata sensors, capacitors for Internet of Things and Wearables at IDTechEx
Murata Electronics is a worldwide leader in research, design, manufacture and sale of ceramic based passive electronic components, power supply and wireless module solutions. Products include: Capacitors (monolithic ceramic, polymer aluminum electrolytic, Hi-CAP, EDLC), noise/EMI suppression products, inductors, resistors , resonators, filters, RF components, communication and wireless module solutions, sensors, thermistors, DC-DC & AC-DC power supplies, buzzers, piezo actuators, micromechatronics, RFID solutions.
Murata’s products are in various consumer, industrial and medical applications from mobile communications, smart-lighting, energy management, factory automation, computers/networking equipment, automotive electronics, smart grid, healthcare devices and in the latest Wearable technologies.
Printed Electronics Europe takes place in Berlin April 28-29th 2015
Wearable Sports Technology from Decathlon
Antoine Ravise of sports brand Decathlon talks to IDTechEx at the Wearable Technology LIVE! event about some of their innovations involving wearable technology, such as monitoring player performance during tennis. A sports top is also shown which monitors the heart rate of the player.
Printed Electronics Europe takes place in Berlin April 28-29th 2015
Best of MWC: MediaTek MT2601 Smartwatch and Smart Glass!!
MediaTek launches their MT2601 Android Wear ready (soon) Smartwatch platform, and also they show off their Kopin micro LCD Smart Glass solution on MediaTek Aster MT2502. In my opinion, these are the best looking Smartwatch and Smartglass at Mobile World Congress 2015. The Smartwatch that MediaTek is showing is designed by GoerTek and it runs Android 4.4 for now but Android 5.0 with Android Wear UI is coming soon for the MT2601 platform according to MediaTek. MediaTek MT2502 is running an ARM11 core to run the MediaTek LinkIt OS while MediaTek MT2601 is a dual-core ARM Cortex-A7 to run a full Android Lollipop with Android Wear soon supported! This is perhaps the optimal low cost Smartwatch and Smart Glass solution for the market, finally available from MediaTek, with soon to come Lollipop thus Android Wear supported.
Specs of the GoerTek MediaTek MT2601 Smartwatch:
– 1.5” circular TFT LCD 320×320
– IPX7 waterproofing
– BT/BLE, Wi-Fi, GPS, 3G cellular supported
– Android 4.4 OS (Lollipop Android Wear soon!)
– PPG heart-rate sensing
– Built-in microphone and speaker
Atmel QTouch Surface Platform, Eirik Slettahjell
World’s lowest power capacitive touch, the new Atmel QTouch Surface platform builds on the market-proven QTouch capacitive touch button sensing technology supported by Atmel | SMART MCUs. The new solution includes an on-chip peripheral touch controller (PTC), the cornerstone technology that enables higher performance capacitive touch on Atmel MCUs. Consuming less than 4µA, the QTouch Surface technology is perfect for wearables and other battery-powered applications that require a capacitive touch user interface.
LG Watch Urbane Android Wear
LG’s nicest yet Android Wear watch has a circular 1.3″ P-OLED display with 410mAh and runs on Qualcomm Snapdragon 400.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 custom Kryo ARMv8 architecture, and Qualcomm MWC2015 Booth Tour
Qualcomm announced their upcoming Snapdragon 820 processor, introducing their newest Kryo custom ARM 64bit design, to be available in the second half of the year, built on FinFET technology. Qualcomm introduces their cognitive computing which is a sort of artificial intelligence making mobile computing easier. This video is also a 28-minute booth tour of the Qualcomm booth at Mobile World Congress 2015, where they are showing Cat9 450mbitps LTE and even Cat11 LTE at up to 600mbitps! Qualcomm shows their advanced 4K and Graphics on the Snapdragon 810 Octa-core 64bit ARM Cortex-A57/53. We also get to see some of Qualcomm’s Allseen Internet of Things demos, augmented reality, mantis vision’s MV4D world scanning, the Snapdragon 400 powering Android Wear and more.
Related articles
- Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon 820 and Zeroth Platform (anandtech.com)
- Qualcomm unveils Snapdragon 820 SoC with Kryo CPU cores (HEXUS.net)
- Qualcomm announces Krait successor with Kryo-powered Snapdragon 820 (mobilesyrup.com)
- Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 will feature Kryo CPU, Krait’s 64-bit successor (arstechnica.com)
- Qualcomm puts silicon brain in flagship Snapdragon 820 chip (computerworld.co.nz)
- Qualcomm confirms Snapdragon 820, details 64-bit Kyro CPU (trustedreviews.com)
- Qualcomm teases Snapdragon 820 and ‘thinking’ camera tech (wired.co.uk)
- Qualcomm launches Snapdragon 820, new ultrasonic fingerprint scanner (pocketnow.com)
- Snapdragon 820 Revealed in Qualcomm’s Leaked Roadmap (technobuffalo.com)
Huawei Watch, 42mm Android Wear on Qualcomm Snapdragon400
Gold plated, also to be available in other colors/prices, Huawei is putting final touches to their Android Wear Smartwatch product, to be released by the middle of this year, their highlight for the MWC show and also quite an attraction and loved by tech media, it runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, comes with a 1.4inch 400×400 AMOLED display for an impressive 286ppi pixel density. The question is what price Huawei plans to sell it at, it may not be sold for cheap.
Related articles
- Huawei Watch May Be the Best Looking Android Wear Smartwatch So Far (cnx-software.com)
- Darrell Etherington: The Huawei Watch Brings Serious Style To Android Wear (techcrunch.com)
- Huawei’s Android Wear Watch Is Handsome, But Still Too Bulky (gizmodo.com.au)
- Huawei Watch is a Stunning Android Wear Device (mobileburn.com)
- Huawei launches the most beautiful Android Wear Smartwatch yet (pc-tablet.com)
- Huawei’s watch is stylish as well as smart (money.cnn.com)
- Hands-on preview: Huawei Watch (pcauthority.com.au)
