Tag: wearable technology

Fossil Group moves further into wearable technology with Misfit acquisition

| November 18, 2015

The fashion design house has only just recently launched its first wearables and is now jumping in faster.

Despite the fact that Misfit remains a startup that has been around for only four years, its successes in wearable technology have caught considerable attention from the industry, to the point that it is now being bought out by the fashion giant, Fossil Group.

Among Misfit’s most popular wearables have been the Shine, Shine 2, link, Flash Link and EKOCYCLE Field Band.

Misfit’s wearable technology has been focused in the highly successful fitness category. It was founded by veterans of the industry such as Sonny Vu, AgaMatrix’s Sridhar Iyengar, a well as the former CEO of both Pepsi and Apple, John Sculley. It has managed to carve such a significant name for itself in this already competitive industry that Fossil Group has been watching it and has now decided to buy it.

The purchase of Misfit will set Fossil up to make some much more sizeable steps into wearable technology.

Wearable Technology AcquisitionRecently, Fossil launched the Q Founder based on Android Wear, which was its first ever smartwatch. That said, a partnership with Misfit will make it possible for future wearables from the designer to be able to offer a broader spectrum of different features that consumers may find to be appealing and useful.

Misfit has been a wearables innovator, making it possible for it to help Fossil to place itself into a more important position within the wearable tech industry as a whole. This is particularly important as Chinese devices makers are now aligning themselves to start to release alternatives to the current options, which will likely appear at a lower price point. Large companies and watchmakers such as Fossil, that are hoping to make and hold an important position in the industry will need to ensure that their products are both stylish and that they will stand apart from the rest of the offerings.

Misfit will bring a number of wearable technology advantages to Fossil, including a spectrum of products, its own devices, its hardware and software engineering team, and a scalable cloud and app platform.

EasyJet embeds wearable technology into uniforms full of sensors

| November 16, 2015

New uniforms for crew have now been debuted by the U.K. airline, which are lit with LED.

New uniforms have now been released for EasyJet crewmembers to wear, which are embedded with wearable technology in the form of sensors and LED lights that are designed to offer several features and benefits.

The cabin crew now have high tech uniforms that include many features of embedded wearables.

The airline was first founded in 1995 by Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou and is the largest airline in the United Kingdom, based on the number of passengers it carries. It is now using the company’s 20th anniversary as the opportunity for cabin crew and engineers to be able to don uniforms that have wearable technology features woven into them. Both of these types of uniforms have features such as microphones built into them. The microphones were chosen to make it possible for pilots, crew and engineers to communicate with each other.

Cabin crew uniforms also feature dots of LEDs along their shoulders among their wearable technology features.

Wearable Technology - EasyJet airbusThe LEDs indicate the flight number and the destination of the plane. The lights provide illumination along the hemlines and also offer additional lighting for visibility in case of an emergency.

On the other hand, the wearables laden uniform meant for engineers has both LEDS and reflective panels in the hood. The idea is that the clothing itself will provide lighting to a work area so the engineers won’t be required to have to try to direct a light while trying to complete their tasks at the same time. This will leave both hands free to complete a job, replace panels, and do everything else that is required to keep aircraft in top shape.

Furthermore, built-in video cameras make it possible to send images to other engineers in order to receive a second opinion about complex problems and the best course to take in order to correct them. At the same time, barometers and air quality sensors are meant to help engineers keep up with the safety of their work environments. It even becomes possible to use this wearable technology to create air quality maps for various cities.