Mobile World Congress | Evolving Consumer

Mobile World Congress: Samsung Gets in Gear

At this week’s Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona Spain, Samsung introduced the Gear Fit, the first curved, Super AMOLED wearable device. Aimed at active consumers, this device features a pedometer, stop watch and can monitor heart rate.

It is IP67 rated to be water and dust-resistant, and features an accelerometer and gyroscope. The Gear Fit can connect to Samsung Android-powered mobile devices via Bluetooth 4.0. We hope to hear more about the Gear Fit leading up to its launch in April.

Press Release: Samsung Expands Industry-Leading Wearable Line with Samsung Gear Fit

Mobile World Congress: Motion Interface Technology Opens Possibilities for Health and Fitness

The world is in motion, and at this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, InvenSense is showcasing its latest integrated 6-axis and 9-axis MotionTracking technologies. While motion interfaces have rapidly become a key function in many consumer and mobile electronic devices, such as, smartphones, tablets, gaming, smart TV and many other devices, there are health and fitness applications as well.

This week InvenSense will be demonstrating its recently announced health and fitness wearable sensor SDK and its latest motion interface, This could provide for a more intuitive way for users to interact with electronic devices. We’ll be very interested to see where this motion tracking takes us.

InvenSense Official Website

Panasonic to Introduce Waterproof Phone

This week Panasonic announced that will re-enter the European mobile phone market with a waterproof, dustproof phone called the Eluga. While pricey – as much as $650 in American currency – the phones will utilized the Google Android OS.

The Eluga smartphone’s features include a 1GHz dual-core CPU, 1GB of internal RAM plus 8GB of internal flash memory (there is no mention of a microSD slot) and a 4.3″ 540 x 960 pixel qHD touchscreen display. It is reportedly waterproof and dustproof rated to IP57 standards, and it can be immersed in a maximum of 1.5 metres of water for 30 minutes.

Panasonic is currently the leader in the UK market for “ruggedized products” and the company is looking to build on the success of the products in its Toughbook laptop line. No word on whether the Eluga would arrive in America, but we’re sure to hear more about it at next week’s Mobile World Congress from Barcelona.

MotionFit Ready For Developers

Motion tracking devices have made some major strides in the last couple of years, and now InvenSense, a provider of motion tracking technology, announced this week the availability of its MotionFit System Developers Kit (SDK). This promises to help accelerate design and commercialization of wearable sensor devices for the growing fitness and remote health monitoring markets.

And while this is big news it comes ina small package, as the SKD consists of a small 40mm x 37mm development board incorporating the InvenSense MPU-9150 single chip 9-axis MotionTracking device, a pressure sensor for altitude tracking, a TI MSP430 microcontroller with external serial flash for data logging, a 110mA/hr rechargeable battery, and communication via USB or Bluetooth interfaces enabling real-time streaming of data to smartphones. Continue reading MotionFit Ready For Developers

Mobile World Congress: New Chip Could Aid Fitness Devices

This week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Broadcom announced the development of a new wireless combination (combo) chip designed to support more media and data applications without impacting the size or battery life for various devices including smartphones and tablets.

The BCM4330 integrates Broadcom’s 802.11n Wi-Fi wireless technology with Bluetooth and FM radio technologies all onto a single silicon die. This will be the first combo chip solution certified with the Bluetooth 4.0 standard, and it further will feature dual-band capabilities to allow Wi-Fi users to leverage the 5 GHz spectrum. This could be particularly useful for wireless sensors in fitness and medical applications.

We have seen a lot of development with Bluetooth in the fitness gear space, and now Broadcom’s new chip could further allow for all sorts of combinations thanks to its combo chip.

Broadcom Official Website