Skip to footer

How one startup wants to make the smartwatch smarter

Blocks Wearables is working to design a customizable smartwatch that would let users choose from modules with different features.

|
Tom's Guide
The startup company Blocks Wearables is working on developing a smartwatch that would allow users to customize its features and design.

Most smartwatches try to have as many key features as possible, but none will have all the things you're looking for. A startup called Blocks Wearables wants to change this: It will let you make your own modular smartwatch out of pieces you can mix and match to get the features you care about most.

The company has been working on a customizable smartwatch since last fall, but recently announced that its product will be powered by an Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 chipset, with modules using low-powered ARM processors. It will also run a modified version of Android Lollipop  rather than Google's Android Wear.

MORE: LG Watch Urbane Review

Blocks' concept gives users the power to not only customize the features of a smartwatch, but also the design. On its website, Blocks offers square, round or rectangular screens, in addition to modules that provide basic features such as motion tracking (using the traditional accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer sensor trio), microphone access, GPS tracking and heart rate monitoring.

There are more unique modules that include features such as NFC/RFID sensors, blood-oxygen monitors, fingerprint sensors, a camera and a SIM card to turn the watch into a phone.

Modularity in wearables is a growing idea, as we saw at CES 2015, where Pebble announced it would let developers create interchangeable "smart straps" that would add specific functions to smartwatches. However, this is the first smartwatch running a Google OS that wants to be truly modular, mimicking Google's Project Ara for smartphone customization.

A big issue to consider is price. With the Apple Watch starting at $349, and most Android Wear watches listed above $249, it's unlikely that a smartwatch with the freedom of customization would be priced less than those competitors.

While a modular smartwatch seems intriguing on paper, we have yet to see a working model from Blocks. According to The Verge, the company stated it would be launching a Kickstarter campaign in June. Interested potential customers can sign up on the Blocks website for information as more becomes available.

Valentina Palladino is a senior writer for Tom's Guide. Follow her at @valentinalucia. Follow Tom's Guide at @tomsguide and on Facebook.

Copyright 2015 Toms Guides , a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to How one startup wants to make the smartwatch smarter
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/2015/0602/How-one-startup-wants-to-make-the-smartwatch-smarter
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe