The world’s first completely integrated and fully featured smartwatch has launched – beating mobile giants Apple, Sony, Google and Samsung.
IT commentators widely agree that the next consumer tech revolution will be through the development of devices integrated with the consumer. While multinational companies race to cash in and develop smart watches and glasses, four ambitious entrepreneurs, all under 25, have developed Androidly; the world’s first fully-featured Android powered wristwatch.
Unlike previous smart watches, which have fallen well-short of customer expectations, Androidly is packed with features and runs on the Android operating system. It can be loaded with up to 100,000 apps of your choice, from the Google Play Store, and has a video camera, Bluetooth, built in Wi-Fi,GPS and even a USB port on its strap. Not just all that, but it can also be used as a phone for making calls with the watch’s speakerphone or with a bluetooth headset. It is driven by a powerful 416Mhz processor with 256 MB RAM and up to 16GB of expandable memory; all configured behind a stylish a two-inch touch-screen. It is the smallest device in the world, running completely on Android.
The only limit to what Androidly can do is the wearer’s imagination. Its developers call it the world’s first ‘digital limb’.
It can download apps and music from Google play via wifi or 2.5G. It can stream your media to your other integrated devices via Bluetooth. It can notify you of headlines, send and receive emails or Twitter and Facebook feeds directly from your wrist. It can access documents and contacts without the wearer having to reach for a device, leaving hands free for multitasking. Its GPS allows for easy navigation through towns and streets without the need to hold a phone. It even displays what the weather will be like at the desired destination. The wearer can check recipes online while cooking, capture video in an instant, play the latest games and monitor calorie count and workout rate using the built in accelerometer.
News of the launch of the Androidly Smartwatch comes only days after Sony unveiled its Smartwatch 2 at Mobile Asia Expo, which is due out in September. It also comes a week after Google and Apple highlighted the development of their own watch phones, due out next year.
Androidly co-founder Siddhant Vats, 17 from Barnet, London, who is a self taught inventor, said: “Androidly is the world’s first proper smartwatch in the true sense of the word. It has the unrestricted powerful flexibility of Android which lets the consumer free his world and not be dependent on the smartphone as the functionalities are enabled on the smartwatch!”
“Androidly has access to a massive marketplace of apps, most of them free, so it is infinitely customisable and adapts to the consumer’s pattern of use.”
Despite its high specs, the Androidly smart watch is priced at just £150 . They are available on Kickstarter and the company’s website www.droid.ly.