UPDATED 09:32 EDT / DECEMBER 02 2014

NEWS

Cicret bracelet could make other smartwatches redundant… if it’s real

cicretA group in Europe is currently pitching the Cicret Bracelet, an armband that projects the content of your phone onto your arm, and allows you to interact with the projected content.

The Cicret comes with an embedded memory card, processor, accelerometer, vibrator, USB port, Bluetooth functionality, and Wi-Fi. But the ingenious part is the inclusion of a pico-projector and an array of proximity sensors.

The projector allows the armband to beam the screen down onto the users arm, with the proximity sensors tracking finger movement to enable interaction with the content.

The genius of the concept is that the combination of the various features would negate the need for a smart watch; sure it doesn’t tell the time on the band but a projected image from a mobile phone is far more usable than an Apple and Android smart watch, let alone being less bulky and more presentable.

cicret2The video (below) demonstrating the Cicret is a mock up, but it does give you an idea of how it would work, and even in an age of Dick Tracy-style gadgets, it does impress.

But there’s a catch: something doesn’t sit right about the project.

The technology to build it definitely exists, but the people behind the project however don’t seem terribly professional.

The Circet team first went to Indigogo to raise funds….then canceled after they’d raised $1,357 of a target of $500,000. They now have a very basic-looking, WordPress-powered page up where they are asking for donations…with nothing offered in return for the donation. At the time of writing they claim to have hit 11 percent of their $500,000 goal.

Even the contact email for the project screams more unprofessionalism: they offer a gmail address, and there’s no details of the team behind it listed on their site, not exactly endearing trust in the armbands development.

It would be great if this whole project was real and came to fruition, but I wouldn’t be wasting money giving them a donation.

With time, we’ll more likely see a similar product offering from an existing and established manufacturer.


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