Although I’ve seen short demonstrations of Glass prior, this one is the most detailed and encompassing I’ve found yet. Jordan’s Glass is connected to a projector in this case, so the audience can see what he sees.

I knew that Google Now had a heavy influence on the Project Glass experience, and it’s easy to see why in this demo: Google Now provides the type of information that’s sized properly for the small screen while providing huge, immediate benefits.

The demo also illustrates how to interact with Glass using the side panel and head gestures. Tapping brings up the Home screen while sliding down on the small touchpad is similar to the Back button in Android. Voice activation is of course heavily used as are sound responses from Glass itself. But there’s no speaker in your ear to block out ambient sound; most impressive. That’s useful for the New York Times app, which can read news aloud, for example.

Jordan spends quite a bit of time discussing the Timeline cards that are supported in Glass; these are the screens of data users can see and interact with. While I’m not a developer, I found the presentation fascinating from a UI perspective, mainly because the Glass screen is limited in size and user interaction on wearable gadgets are so challenging.

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Watches enjoy a renaissance as accessories

A host of connected smart watches will emerge in 2013, with the phone becoming a new digital hub in this “personal body network.” Media poster child Pebble will be the tipping point for early adopters, while MuteWatch 2.0 looks likely to push functionality to new levels.

But creators face tough product choices between form and functionality, making 2013 the most interesting year in watches for decades. Meta Watch, for example, has taken the path of following form instincts, while Basis chases a pure functionality route. For the past 80 years form has won — will 2013 turn things in the other direction for watches?

What to watch for in 2013:

• Smart watch makers could stumble on a killer app
• Will touch disrupt the market with exciting experiences?
• Can Casio, Suunto and Polar shake their complex button legacies?
• How will Swatch react?

Functional jewelry as armbands takes off

The functional arm and wristbands pioneered by Nike FuelBand and Jawbone Up are setting a powerful trend and sidestepping the functional and aesthetic legacy of wristwatches. A flood of new wristbands is emerging such as Disney World’s Magic Band, which stores guest information and acts as ticket, room key, ride pass and more.

The smartest bands will track a user’s pulse, sleep patterns and more, helping to paint a holistic picture of wellness. However, a high degree of style will become increasingly important as functionality becomes standardized. Luxury brands like Vertu will create iPhone accessories costing far more than any phone. But flexible or curved ultra-bright OLED screens remain in the lab for another year.

What to watch for in 2013:

• Luxury brands enter the functional armband space
• Waterproof designs
• Personalisation and “charm” style options
• Wrist-based pulse sensors

Audio wearables shape luxury electronics

Prominent headphones have become a must-have accessory of the street-smart digerati, while in-ear systems are also pushing looks and fidelity to new levels. Now the pre-existing luxury brands are taking notice of these shifts. But changing the distribution landscape will be a challenge, and the traditional pure audio brands will start to feel the squeeze.

New high-end edgy brands like Monster, Jawbone and Parrot are shaping the market, while Logitech UE will continue to make a dent with a great price/quality/style ratio. The high margins of a luxury product, combined with niche tech desirability, is the goal.

What to watch for in 2013:

• Will luxury brands market themselves in the electronics sector?
• Will the breadth of the $250+ headsets grow?

Sensors connect our everyday objects

Retro-fitting smartness into everyday objects is one of the most fascinating trends we will be living through. It’s where the Internet of Things and wearable technology converge.

The beauty of this is that it gives users the power to decide which objects should be made smart, and developers can create the optimal software to track it: keys, a jacket – even your car.

Pill-shaped, cube-shaped and stickers will be typical form factors. The Nike+ sensor pills were simply the “Neanderthal” stage of this development. Bluetooth 4.0 is a crucial enabler, taking everyday objects into a new world.

What to watch for in 2013:

• Pioneering telecom companies to launch early solutions.
• Value to be unlocked in visualizing data based on objects around us.

Wearables get dressed up

The Fitbit Zip (see disclosure below) and Misfit Shine are the first generation of transformational wearables that can be “dressed” with covers and ornamentation. We’ll see this trend rapidly extend to more products: for example, footwear covers for bicycling, or watertight wristband covers for swimming, as well as style-driven covers for social situations.

Initially the covers will be non-functional, but eventually they will inform the wearable inside, enabling instant adaptation of sensor software. We will see covers become more valuable than the sensors they encase.

What to watch for in 2013:

• Hobbyists produce covers for online sale.
• Jewellery partnerships for style covers emerge.

Sensor platform wars begin in the bedroom

The quantified self movement is the living lab of the wearables business, with thousands of personal guinea pigs tracking everything in their lives. Its impact in shaping the next data agenda will be crucial as privacy concerns grow. Owning a personal data platform is seen as a strategic control point, but monetization remains unclear.

There is the question of who owns the habit-creating interface. Withings’ smart scale has moved into the bedroom, aiming to shape daily habits and becoming a clear trendsetter here. My data, and how can it be used, remains in flux, as handsets strive to gather ever richer levels of information.

What to watch for in 2013:

• How are proprietary platforms of Nike, Fitbit and Withings opening up to developers?
• Will platforms like Evernote create Evernote Life?
• Can open source platforms gain momentum in time?
• Will we see context-aware phones in the second half of 2013?

Apps make wearables’ data actionable

Wearables will also begin to disrupt app development. This has already started with fitness apps, and is set to branch out to life recording and social features. And although users may perceive the cloud and the PC interface as mainly a passive back-up for their data, these will also become crucial for community data analysis and social media enablement.

Development platforms are now mature, and will soon provide additional sensors for data collection. The phone becomes the new digital hub, as its bigger canvas allows for more personality and a bigger overview, and high-resolution screens help enable rich data visualizations.

What to watch for in 2013:

• Jawbone UP app overhaul
• Popular apps get sensor front ends (home sensors, scales, bike pods)
• Will leading app creators like RunKeeper create own line of wearables to increase loyalty?
• Will Facebook come to you, on a wearable?

Sensors in labs reveal our souls

Sensor development is exploding in labs and startups around the world. For example, the Muse headband provides a real-time view of the brain emotionally shaping your e-mails, while the Vibe necklace shows your stress levels — and these are just the beginning.

We will see 6-axis and 9-axis accelerometers. New forms of wrist based pulse sensors will make pulse reading an everyday thing. Hacks of favorite objects will emerge in new forms like Oyster card rings. These are providing inspiration for the future and most importantly they are simply ideal platforms for learning.

What to watch for in 2013:

• How will the ear be used as a sensor hub?
• Will we see the first flexible display in 2013?
• Will we change our habits from 5,000 readings per second?

Google glass becomes a social transformer

Transforming sunglasses from a fashion accessory into a functional interface will herald a social revolution. Google’s decision to build Project Glass “in public” is a brave one, as changing consumer perceptions will take years. That’s partly because the intimacy of an embedded user interface transforms all our perceptions of privacy. We can’t assume that everyone will readily accept being recorded all the time, or will welcome the idea of an interface between them and the world at every point.

Hopefully Google will have the patience to persevere, while inviting early adopters to participate in 2013 should steer Project Glass in new creative directions.

What to watch for in 2013:

• Reactions from the earliest adopters
• Direction, size and profile of the privacy movement
• User behaviour around recording and recollection
• Response from developers
• How will Luxottica react?

Disclosure: Fitbit is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.

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Unlike some wearable displays that function only with a smartphone, the WIMM One is a mini-computer in its own right. Inside the 22-gram, cube-like unit is a small low-power CPU, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi radios, an accelerometer, magnetometer, and up to 32 GB of storage memory. A capacitive touchscreen takes up the front face.

In other words, the WIMM One has similar components to an Android smartphone, albeit less powerful and not meant to replicate all of the functions of a handset. In fact, to set up the WIMM One, you don’t need a smartphone. Using the included Wi-Fi radio, you connect to a network, link the watch via a code on WIMM’s website, and you’re off and running.

While the added components bring convenience, they also makes the WIMM One a little thick, at 12.5 millimeters. I have an early release unit — stay tuned for a full review — and find it to be fairly chunky on my wrist. But, as hardware matures, the components will continue to get smaller, if not more powerful at the same time. And the WIMM One can easily be popped out from its included wristband, so perhaps a clip accessory could be used in the future.

I spoke with WIMM Labs at our recent Mobilize event and was told the product focus was more than just smartphone-type notifications: something the competing MetaWatch offers as a core competency. Like the InPulse device I recently wrote about, the WIMM One is meant as a true multi-purpose wearable device due to software add-ons.

WIMM calls these “micro apps” as they typically won’t include a wide array of functionality in any single app, but instead will offer high-value single functions. Included with the WIMM One are beta apps: a world clock, weather, a timer, alarm, calendar app and a stopwatch. Nine watch faces are also available by default.

We’ll have to see if developers bite on the new platform, because without such micro apps, the WIMM One is a nice, but expensive, smartphone complement. I like what I’ve seen so far — the color display is nice and the touchscreen navigation is effective — but I’ll have to use the WIMM One for a few more days to see if developers’ interests should be piqued.

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Since the inPulse relies on a smartphone for these notifications, it has to stay connected to the handset for maximum benefit. Using a wireless Bluetooth connection, the watch and phone communicate in real time. There are third-party apps that can be installed on the inPulse — one lets you check in to a place on Facebook, for example — but the watch has very limited storage space, so you can’t load it up with dozens of software titles.

Aside from running apps, the inPulse’s two main features — telling time and providing notifications from a smartphone — work very well. There’s little to no delay between when the connected smartphone receives a message and when it appears on the smartwatch. The single button interface is easy to use for navigation as well: Tap once to move through menus; tap and hold to select an item.

The easy-to-configure wireless connection range is also solid, and that’s key. I routinely had connection issues when using a Sony Ericsson Live View watch, but no such issues with the inPulse. I also like the color OLED display, which gives the watch some pizzazz over the MetaWatch, a similar device I recently reviewed.

However, the watch is fairly thick and possibly too bulky for some, and I noticed some glitches when trying to change watch faces. After downloading one on my Nexus One smartphone and having it pushed over to the inPulse, I couldn’t get any additional watch faces installed. The same applied to installing applications. I found that I had to do a factory reset of the watch on a few occasions as a result.

That’s not a situation most consumers will want to face, so hopefully, the experience will prove more stable in the future. All in all, however, the inPulse is a nice take on a new type of wearable display: one that provides plenty of benefit by helping manage smartphone notifications.

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MotoACTV is small, square 46mm device that attaches to a wrist band or fits on bike mounts, arm bands and shirt clip accessories. The idea is that it’s a purpose-built device designed for fitness types or people who want to improve their health. MotoACTV uses GPS, a 600 MHz processor running Google Android, an accelerometer and a Bluetooth 4.0 connection to help create a smart device that can track distance, steps and calories burned. It also works with a special sports Bluetooth headset that can measure a user’s heart rate.

Users can load up up to 4,000 songs on the device, which will come in 8 and 16 GB versions selling for $249 and $299. The songs aren’t just to pass the time: MotoACTV recalls what songs you work hardest to and builds a playlist with the songs that have the best effect on you. Performance data can be automatically linked to MotoACTV.com via Wi-Fi so your runs and other exercise can be tracked, analyzed and shared with friends. The online portal can analyze a user’s results and offer tips and training from experts based on their performance.

As a health device, it’s got an appealing size and because of its accelerometer and GPS sensors, it can do a better job than an iPod Nano in improving your health. It also looks pretty snazzy and should get buzz when people see it. Motorola said the device can run for five hours outdoors with the GPS on or 10 hours indoors without GPS and can run on standby as a watch for three days. You can also link the watch to an Android device with a MotoACTV app so users can see incoming text messages and receive alerts for incoming phone calls, which they can take on their Bluetooth headset.

I played with the device a bit and found it very responsive, clean and appealing. You can set a song to play when you start workouts and you can view a screen with four metrics that you program to chart your progress. You can also tap on each metric to pull up a full screen. The device has volume buttons, a jack for a wired head set, a power button and two buttons, one for music and one fitness actions.

It’s not surprising that Motorola has gone this route. There’s a bunch of emerging devices aiming at the mobile health market. I’ve written about the Basis watch, which packs in a heart rate monitor into the actual device, as well as Jawbone’s upcoming Up fitness wrist watch, which will offer similar features to MotoACTV. And Affectiva, an MIT spin-off, also recently released Q, a wrist sensor that monitors motion, temperature and electrodermal activity, which can measure stress, relaxation and arousal. There’s also devices like Striiv, Fitbit and smartphone-based solutions like RunKeeper that are also tackling this market. And MotoACTV also pits Motorola against new smart watch makers like the team behind the Meta Watch as well as accessory makers creating wrist mounts for the iPad Nano. 

I’m not sure how popular MotoACTV will be at that price, which at a starting price point of $249 is nearly twice an iPod Nano. You’ll need to get the Motorola SF700 wireless or SF500 wired headsets with heart rate monitors to get the full effect and while they’re better than strap on heart monitors, they up the cost. Motorola will also have to ensure that its online service is robust because it’s not just about gathering data but it really comes down to analysis and good tools to break down exercise performance and tips to improve health.

Still, Motorola has a chance to take a leadership position in this new market if it advertises heavily and opens people’s eyes to the opportunity in using a wrist watch to improve a user’s health and connect to a smartphone as a second display. But overall, it shows that sensors are getting smaller and smaller and that it’s now inviting a lot of people to build sophisticated watches that take on a lot of tasks.

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I’ve been following the market for wearable displays and smartwatches for some time now. These small devices either act as remote displays that interact with your smartphone over a wireless connection or have smartphone guts of their own. With them, you can run apps, manage messages, check your calendar or view the weather, for example. My first foray in this area was back in 2004 with a Microsoft SPOT watch; it used FM radio waves to shoot news updates, text messages, event notifications and weather to my wrist. The service was quickly leapfrogged by smartphones and cellular wireless technology.

More recently, I tried a Sony Ericsson(eric) Live View watch, but it lost connectivity to my Android handset far too much. The MetaWatch prototype I reviewed back in June worked far better and is a reliable solution. And the folks at WIMM Labs are working on a wearable touchscreen device based on Android that has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and various other sensors.

The new nano can’t do nearly as much as these devices. With the software update, it gains new watch faces. The integrated accelerometer can measure how far and fast you run or walk; there’s no external Nike+ sensor needed. Since the device has no wireless radio, you’ll need to physically connect the nano to a computer for offloading the Nike+ data. And you can’t run third-party apps, so you can use any exercise software you want, provided it’s Nike+.

Now Apple isn’t positioning the nano as a smartwatch. But I could easily see the nano slowly morph into one with incremental upgrades. For the mass market audience, there isn’t yet a market for smartwatches. Few see the need, as they get all the information they need from a smartphone. But I see future merit in this market. Being able to triage or manage email and messages with a glance at the MetaWatch on my wrist is a huge time saver that doesn’t require me to pull out and power on a smartphone, and as we depend more on mobile devices, that’ll become increasingly important.

If this market does gain traction, I’d expect Apple to leverage the nano and iOS. Similar to past approaches with other products, Apple would likely create a smartwatch based on what it feels consumers need most in a wearable device. And because so few consumers are thinking about a product like this, it would be perceived as magical and revolutionary, much like the iPad is, despite the earlier presence of other consumer tablets.

For those currently developing smartwatches, there’s no immediate danger for two reasons. First, the nano isn’t yet a serious threat. Second, all the existing smartwatch efforts are based on Google Android; they don’t connect to iOS devices. That means as long as Android is around and popular — a safe bet — they can continue to mature their products for non-iOS users. But for those that have Apple products, the only smartwatch likely to connect to an iPhone is going to come from Apple, likely in the form of a nano successor.

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So where are corners cut in terms of hardware? The Conquer 4G uses a 3.5-inch touchscreen, which is fairly common, but the resolution is a lower 320×480 pixels; most Android phones today have a minimum of 480×800. The screen may not be as clear as most other phones then, but the Conquer 4G does have some compelling features at this price: It’s GPS-capable and has front and rear cameras, 1 GHz processor, Bluetooth, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi. A microSD card slot can handle up to 32 GB memory cards, and the phone comes with a 2 GB card pre-installed. In addition, the 3G and 4G radios can be used as a wireless hotspot for up to five Wi-Fi devices.

Although Sprint is a national carrier, the Conquer 4G could do better in the south and west regions of the U.S. A detailed look at ad clicks on the Jumptap mobile advertising network this week painted an interesting picture of the country. Android users tended to click more ads in these parts of the country while iOS devices showed a higher bias in the northeast corner of the U.S. Obviously, ads are clicked on various mobile devices and platforms, but the map shows that advertisers want, and can get, more granular information on mobile users. That could help them better target specific platforms, devices and locations in the future.

Speaking of the future, I expect we’ll see more wearable displays and watches in the coming years. The latest is a module by WIMM Labs, which was introduced this week. The WIMM module runs on Android, so developers can create “micro-apps” for the 1.4-inch capacitive touchscreen.

Inside the module is essentially the basic guts of a low-end smartphone, minus the capability to connect to a cellular network. The WIMM does have Wi-Fi, however, so it could interact with the web in a hotspot. The idea behind the WIMM and others is to provide information at a glance, so don’t expect to play Angry Birds on it — at least not yet.

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WIMM’s device is akin to a chunky iPod nano; the 12.3 millimeters thickness gives it more girth than most smartphones of today. But that’s likely because it has smartphone-like components inside: a 667 MHz processor, accelerometer and magnetometer for tracking, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and up to 32 GB of storage capacity. Information is shown on a low-resolution, 1.4-inch capacitive touchscreen. The company claims support for Android, iOS and BlackBerry handsets, but software for the device is built on Android. Instead of direct sales, WIMM will license its technology.

The idea behind small wearable screens is intriguing and one I’ve experimented with for several months. I purchased a Sony Ericsson Live View, but promptly placed it in a drawer after just a few days. The small device was buggy and lost its Bluetooth connection with my Android phone dozens of times during the course of a day. Next I turned to the Metawatch prototype and found much more success. Thanks to a super Bluetooth radio and software, it solved the connectivity issues; I’ve walked 80 feet away from my phone while wearing the Metawatch before the connection drops. And that’s key because both of these devices, and the apps on them, get their data through a smartphone.

The addition of Wi-Fi in a small wearable display could help remove that limitation, however. Certain functions of WIMM’s display generally must leverage a smartphone: Caller ID and text messaging alerts, for example. But developers could potentially build small Android applications that pull data directly from the web over Wi-Fi networks, making the device less reliant upon a handset to act both as brains and connection. Support for multiple connections could challenge battery life, however.

While I wouldn’t browse the web on a 1.4-inch capacitive touchscreen, there might be a market for standalone, bite-sized apps waiting to be discovered by developers. Of course, such software would have to be more compelling than similar apps that already run on smartphones, or else consumers would simply stick with the phone in their pocket. I could envision a WIMM wearable device acting as a Wi-Fi remote controlling a smart television, for example. One of the discussions at next month’s Mobilize event will focus solely on these connected device opportunities with executives from Fossil, PARC and Vitality sharing their thoughts.

There are still hurdles for the WIMM device and others in this space. Input becomes challenging as displays get smaller; output is hampered by tiny screens; the more “smarts” you put inside, the thicker a device can be. But, WIMM’s development module and concept images show that you can fit more, powerful components into a wearable form-factor. And as those components shrink and gain more functionality over time, the specifications of today’s smartphones could be on tomorrow’s wrists.

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My experience with the MetaWatch, a prototype watch project backed by Fossil , couldn’t be any more different. The reason is because the MetaWatch takes a different approach, which I’ve come to see is more effective. Instead of trying to cram extensive application functions into a small screen on the wrist, the MetaWatch offers useful information at a glance without the need for scrolling. MetaWatch isn’t trying to replicate or replace smartphone functions; it supplements them. And the connection is rock-solid and reconnects by itself.

Less Is More; Convenience Is a Feature

Bill Geiser, VP of Watch Technology, and David Rosales, manager of product development and engineering, both from Fossil, recently told me the watch is an exploration for the company. “Some may overlook the convenience, which to us is a feature. Think of Netflix and microwaves: each takes an existing concept and makes it easier to use, for example,” Geiser said.

A perfect example of that convenience is how I’ve used the MetaWatch to help me triage the near-constant flow of email coming to my phone. When a message arrives on my handset, the MetaWatch vibrates two times as an alert. That tells me some type of message is about to appear on my wrist. A few seconds later, the watch vibrates once and shows the sender’s name, subject line and a few words of the email. That’s all I get, but I’ve learned that’s all I need.

From that one glance of minimal information, I can tell if the mail is important enough to pull out my smartphone (cat videos can wait) and take action or if I can simply ignore the message until I have more time later in the day. It doesn’t sound like an earth-shattering change, but after two weeks with the MetaWatch, I find it an effective time-saver. The alternative is taking out the smartphone with every notification, unlocking the device and then scanning the email, which may not even warrant immediate action; a much more disruptive activity.

This same at-a-glance functionality works with incoming text messages, incoming phone calls and calendar event notifications. The watch face can also show local weather, and of course, the time and date, in addition to the number of unread emails, messages and missed phone calls. The current music track and artist can also be shown, although on the prototype, that function hasn’t worked for me.

MetaWatch Is a Platform, Not a Product

The “secret sauce” behind what the MetaWatch displays is actually an open-source solution, aptly named OpenWatch. I’m using the software on my Android handset, but it supports other platforms as well: BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Java handsets, for example. The MetaWatch pairs quickly with the OpenWatch software using Bluetooth, and the wireless range itself is far better than what I experienced with the Sony Ericsson Live View. In contrast, I’ve worn the MetaWatch at least 80 feet from my handset and still received notifications. That’s likely due to both the software as well as the low-power Bluetooth solution used in the MetaWatch, which is a wireless chip from Texas Instruments .

As a reminder, this is a $200 prototype for developers and other watch manufacturers to leverage so don’t get hung up on size, form factor and other physical features. The device uses a 96 x 96 reflective display, has six function buttons, backlight capability, vibrating motor, leather strap, accelerometer and rechargeable battery. The beta software I’m using is specific to stress test the messaging, so it hits the battery harder than a production version would. I was told to expect a day per charge and I can easily see that. With final software, the watch should run for a full week.

Developers can instrument their applications to leverage the MetaWatch with very little code; since the device is essentially a remote display, applications simply need to provide output to the MetaWatch through the OpenWatch software. And that’s partially why Fossil is backing the project as a platform, instead of driving their own individual sales. “We think there are 1,000 killer apps for this,” Rosales said, and by licensing the effort, Fossil stands to gain back the last few years of effort and research dollars to pair a smart watch on the wrist to nearly every smartphone out there.

My conversation with Geiser and Rosales and the last few weeks of using a MetaWatch, have taught me that the MetaWatch team “gets it” when it comes to smart watches. There are many visions of what a smart watch ought to do, but the more functionality added, the more complex and disruptive the technology can be. Perhaps one day we’ll all be talking into our wrist for a phone call, but for the coming future, a display-at-a-glance device with a simple, intuitive interface is saving me much time.

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