Pebble

Apple Watch: what makes it special

ianwaring Apple, Health, HomeKit, Low Energy Bluetooth, Medical, Pebble, Software, Watches

Edit

Based on what I’ve seen discussed – and alleged – ahead of Monday’s announcement, the following are the differences people will see with this device.

  1. Notifications. Inbound message or piece of useful context? It will let you know by tapping gently on your arm. Early users are already reporting on how their phone – which until now gets reviews whenever a notification arrives – now stays in their pocket most of the time.
  2. Glances. Google Now on Android puts useful contextual information on “cards”. Hence when you pass a bus stop, up pops the associated next bus timetable. Walk close to an airport checkin desk, up pops your boarding pass. Apple guidelines say that a useful app should communicate its raison d’être within 10 seconds – a hence ‘glance’.
  3. Siri. The watch puts a Bluetooth microphone on your wrist, and Apple APIs can feed speech into text based forms straight away. And you may have noticed that iMessage already allows you to send a short burst of audio to a chosen person or group. Dick Tracey’s watch comes to life.
  4. Brevity. Just like Twitter, but even more focussed. There isn’t the screen real estate to hold superfluous information, so developers need to agonise on what is needed and useful, and to zone out unnecessary context. That should give back more time to the wearer.
  5. Car Keys. House Keys. Password Device. There’s one device and probably an app for each of those functions. And can probably start bleating if someone tries to walk off with your mobile handset.
  6. Stand up! There’s already quotes from Apple CEO Tim Cook saying that sitting down for excessively long periods of time is “the new cancer”. To that effect, you can set the device to nag you into moving if you appear to not be doing so regularly enough.
  7. Accuracy. It knows where you are (with your phone) and can set the time. The iPhone adjusts after a long flight based on the identification of the first cell tower it gets a mobile signal from on landing. And day to day, it’ll keep your clock always accurate.
  8. Payments. Watch to card reader, click, paid. We’ll need the roll out of Apple Pay this side of the Atlantic to realise this piece.

It is likely to evolve into a standalone Bluetooth hub of all the sensors around and on you – and that’s where its impact in time will one plus to death.

With the above in mind, I think the Apple Watch will be another big success story. The main question is how they’ll price the expen$ive one when its technology will evolve by leaps and bounds every couple of years. I just wonder if a subscription to possessing a Rolex price watch is a possible business model being considered.

We’ll know this time tomorrow. And my wife has already taken a shine to the expensive model, based purely on its looks with a red leather strap. Better start saving… And in the meantime, a few sample screenshots to pore over:

Hooked, health markets but the mind is wandering… to pooh and data privacy

ianwaring Apple, Diet, Fitness, Future Trends, Health, Internet, Medical, Mobiles, Pebble, Politicians, Software, VCs, Watches Leave a comment

Hooked by Nir Eyal

One of the things I learnt many years ago was that there were four fundamental basics to increasing profits in any business. You sell:

  • More Products (or Services)
  • to More People
  • More Often
  • At higher unit profit (which is higher price, lower cost, or both)

and with that, four simple Tableau graphs against a timeline could expose the business fundamentals explaining good growth, or the core reason for declining revenue. It could also expose early warning signs, where a small number of large transactions hid an evolving surprise – like the volume of buying customers trending relentlessly down, while the revenue numbers appeared to be flying okay.

Another dimension is that a Brand equates to trust, and that consistency and predictability of the product or service plays a big part to retain that trust.

Later on,  a more controversial view was that there were two fundamental business models for any business; that of a healer or a dealer. One sells an effective one-shot fix to a customer need, while the other survives by engineering a customers dependency to keep on returning.

With that, I sometimes agonise on what the future of health services delivery is. One the one hand, politicians verbal jousts over funding and trying to punt services over to private enterprise. In several cases to providers of services following the economic rent (dealer) model found in the American market, which, at face value, has a business model needing per capita expense that no sane person would want to replicate compared to the efficiency we have already. On the other hand, a realisation that the market is subject to radical disruption, through a combination of:

  • An ever better informed, educated customer base
  • A realisation that just being overweight is a root cause of many adverse trends
  • Genomics
  • Microbiome Analysis
  • The upcoming ubiquity of sensors that can monitor all our vitals

With that, i’ve started to read “Hooked” by Nir Eyal, which is all about the psychology of engineering habit forming products (and services). The thing in the back of my mind is how to encourage the owner (like me) of a smart watch, fitness device or glucose monitor to fundamentally remove my need to enter my food intake every day – a habit i’ve maintained for 12.5 years so far.

The primary challenge is that, for most people, there is little newsworthy data that comes out of this exercise most of the time. The habit would be difficult to reinforce without useful news or actionable data. Some of the current gadget vendors are trying to encourage use by encouraging steps competition league tables you can have with family and friends (i’ve done this with relatives in West London, Southampton, Tucson Arizona and Melbourne Australia; that challenge finished after a week and has yet to be repeated).

My mind started to wander back to the challenge of disrupting the health market, and how a watch could form a part. Could its sensors measure my fat, protein and carb intake (which is the end result of my food diary data collection, along with weekly weight measures)? Could I build a service that would be a data asset to help disrupt health service delivery? How do I suss Microbiome changes – which normally requires analysis of a stool samples??

With that, I start to think i’m analysing this the wrong way around. I remember an analysis some time back when a researcher assessed the extent drug (mis)use in specific neighbourhoods by monitoring the make-up of chemical flows in networks of sewers. So, rather than put sensors on people’s wrists (and only see a subset of data), is there a place for technology in sewer pipes instead? If Microbiomes and the Genetic makeup of our output survives relatively intact, then sampling at strategic points of the distribution network would give us a pretty good dataset. Not least as DNA sequencing could allow the original owner (source) of output to connect back to any pearls of wisdom that could be analysed or inferred from their contributions, even if the drop-off points happened at home, work or elsewhere.

Hmmm. Water companies and Big Data.

Think i’ll park that and get on with the book.

Apple iWatch: Watch, Fashion, Sensors or all three?

ianwaring Apple, Fitness, Google, Gym, Low Energy Bluetooth, Medical, Pebble, Watches Leave a comment

iWatch Concept Guess Late last year there was an excellent 60 minute episode of the Cubed.fm Podcast by Benedict Evans and Ben Bajarin, with guest Bill Geiser, CEO of Metawatch. Bill had been working on Smart watches for over 20 years, starting with wearables to measure his swimming activity, working for over 8 years as running Fossil‘s Watch Technology Division, before buying out that division to start Metawatch. He has also consulted for Sony in the design and manufacture of their Smart watches, for Microsoft SPOT technology and for Palm on their watch efforts. The Podcast is a really fascinating background on the history and likely future directions of this (widely believed to be) nascent industry: listen here.

Following that podcast, i’ve always listened carefully to the ebbs and flows of likely smart watch releases from Google, and from Apple (largely to see how they’ve built further than the great work by Pebble). Apple duly started registering the iWatch trademark in several countries (nominally in class 9 and 14, representative of Jewelry, precious metal and watch devices). There was a flurry of patent applications from Apple in January 2014 of Liquid Metal and Sapphire materials, which included references to potential wrist-based devices.

There have also been a steady stream of rumours that an Apple watch product would likely include sensors that could pair with health related applications (over low energy bluetooth) to the users iPhone.

Apple duly recruited Angela Ahrendts, previously CEO of Burberry, to head up Apple’s Retail Operations. Shortly followed by Nike Fuelband Consultant Jay Blahnik and several Medical technology hires. Nike (where Apple CEO Tim Cook is a Director) laid off it’s Fuelband hardware team, citing a future focus on software only. And just this weekend, it was announced that Apple had recruited the Tag Heuer Watches VP of Sales (here).

That article on the Verge had a video of an interview from CNBC with Jean-Claude Biver, who is Head of Watch brands for LVMH – including Louis Vuitton, Hennessey and TAG Heuer. The bizarre thing (to me) he mentioned was that his employee who’d just left for a contract at Apple was not going to a Direct Competitor, and that he wished him well. He also cited a “Made in Switzerland” marketing asset as being something Apple could then leverage. I sincerely think he’s not naive, as Apple may well impact his market quite significantly if there was a significant product overlap. I sort of suspect that his reaction was that of someone partnering Apple in the near future, not of someone waiting for an inbound tidal wave from an foreign competitor.

Google, at their I/O Developers Conference last week, duly announced Android Wear, among which was support for Smart Watches from Samsung, LG and Motorola. Besides normal time and date use, include the ability to receive the excellent “Google Now” notifications from the users phone handset, plus process email. The core hope is that application developers will start to write their own applications to use this new set of hardware devices.

Two thoughts come to mind.

A couple of weeks back, my wife needed a new battery in one of her Swatch watches. With that, we visited the Swatch Shop outside the Arndale Centre in Manchester. While her battery was being replaced, I looked at all the displays, and indeed at least three range catalogues. Beautiful fashionable devices that convey status and personal expression. Jane duly decided to buy another Swatch that matched an evening outfit likely to be worn to an upcoming family Wedding Anniversary. A watch battery replacement turned into an £85 new sale!

Thought #1 is that the Samsung and LG watches are, not to put a finer point on it, far from fashion items (I nearly said “ugly”). Available in around 5 variations, which map to the same base unit shape and different colour wrist bands. LG likewise. The Moto 360 is better looking (bulky and circular). That said, it’s typically Fashion/Status industry suicide with an offer like this. Bill Geiser related that “one size fits all” is a dangerous strategy; suppliers typically build a common “watch movement” platform, but wrap this in an assortment of enclosures to appeal to a broad audience.

My brain sort of locks on to a possibility, given a complete absence of conventional watch manufacturers involved with Google’s work, to wonder if Apple are OEM’ing (or licensing) a “watch guts” platform usable by Watch manufacturers to use in their own enclosures.

Thought #2 relates to sensors. There are often cited assumptions that Apple’s iWatch will provide a series of sensors to feed user activity and vital signs into their iPhone based Health application. On that assumption, i’ve been noting the sort of sensors required to feed the measures maintained “out of the box” by their iPhone health app, and agonising as to if these would fit on a single wrist based device.

The main one that has been bugging me – and which would solve a need for millions of users – is that of measuring glucose levels in the bloodstream of people with Diabetes. This is usually collected today with invasive blood sampling; I suspect little demand for a watch that vampire bites the users wrist. I found today that there are devices that can measure blood glucose levels by shining Infrared Light at a skin surface using near-infrared absorption spectroscopy. One such article here.

The main gotcha is that the primary areas where such readings a best taken are on the ear drum or on the inside of an arm’s elbow joint. Neither the ideal position for a watch, but well within the reach of earbuds or a separate sensor. Both could communicate with the Health App directly wired to an iPhone or over a low energy bluetooth connection.

Blood pressure may also need such an external sensor. There are, of course, plenty of sensors that may find their way into a watch style form factor, and indeed there are Apple patents that discuss some typical ones they can sense from a wrist-attached device. That said, you’re working against limited real estate for the devices electronics, display and indeed the size of battery needed to power it’s operation.

In summary, I wonder aloud if Apple are providing an OEM watch movement for use by conventional Watch suppliers, and whether the Health sensor characteristics are better served by a raft of third party, low energy bluetooth devices rather than an iWatch itself.

About the only sure thing is that when Apple do finally announce their iWatch, that my wife will expect me to be early in the queue to buy hers. And that I won’t disappoint her. Until then, iWatch rumours updated here.

A first look at Apple HomeKit

ianwaring Apple, Future Trends, HomeKit, Pebble, Privacy, Software, Watches 1 Comment

Apple HomeKit Logo

Today’s video from Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference viewing concerned HomeKit, which is the integration platform to control household appliances from your iPhone. Apple have defined a common set of Accessory Profiles, which are configured into a Home > Zone > Room hierarchy (you can define several ‘home’ locations, but one of them is normally selected as the primary one). Native devices include:

  • Garage Door Openers (with associated lighting)
  • Lights
  • Door locks
  • Thermostats
  • IP (Internet Protocol) Cameras
  • Switches

Currently, there are a myriad of different per vendor standards to control home automation products, but Apple are providing functionality to enable hardware (or software) bridges between disparate protocols and their own. Once a bridge has been discovered, the iPhone sees all the devices sitting the other side of the bridge as if they were directly connected to the iPhone and using the Apple provided interface protocols.

Every device type has a set of characteristics, such as:

  • Power State
  • Lock State
  • Target State
  • Brightness
  • Model Number
  • Current Temperature
  • etc

When devices are first defined, each has a compulsory “identify me” action. Hence if you’re sitting on the floor, trying to work out which of twelve identical-looking lightbulbs in the room to give an appropriate name, the “identify me” action on the iPhone pick list will result in the matching bulb blinking twice; for a security camera, blinking a colour LED, and so forth.

Each device, it’s room name, zone (like “upstairs”, “back garden”) and home name, plus the common characteristic actions, are encoded and enacted using Siri – Apple’s voice control on the iPhone. “Switch on all downstairs lights”, “Set the room temperature to 20 degrees C” and so forth are spoken into your iPhone handset. That is the default User Interface for the whole Home Automation Setup. The HomeKit resident database is in turn also available for use by vendor specific products via the HomeKit API, should a custom application be desirable.

There are of course extensive security controls to frustrate any attempt for anyone to be able to do “man in the middle” attacks, or to subvert the security of your device connections. For developers, Apple provide a software simulator so that you can test your software against a wide range of device types, even before the hardware is made available to you.

Most of the supporting detail to build compliant devices is found in the MFI (Made for iDevices) Guidelines, which are only available the other side of a license agreement with Apple here. The full WWDC presentation on HomeKit (just under an hour long) is called “Introduction to HomeKit” and present in the list of video sessions from WWDC here.

Overall, very impressive. That’s the home stuff largely queued up, just awaiting news of a bridge I think. Knowing how simple the voice setup is on Android JellyBean for a programmer (voice enabling an app is circa 20 lines of JavaScript), i’m sure a Google equivalent is eminently possible; if Google haven’t done their own API, then a bridge to Apple’s ecosystem (if the licensing allows it) should not be a major endeavour.

So, the only missing thing was talk of iBeacon support. However, that is a different use case. There are already pilots that sense presence of a low energy bluetooth beacon, and bring specific applications onto the lock screen. Examples include the Starbucks payment card app coming forward to make itself immediately available when you’re close to a Starbucks counter, or the Virgin Atlantic app making your boarding card available when you approach the check-in desk at an airport. Both are features of Apple’s PassBook loyalty card app – which is already used by hundreds of retailers, supermarkets and airlines.

The one thing about iBeacon is that you can enable your iPhone 5S to be a low energy beacon in it’s own right. You have full control over this and your presence is not made available to anything but applications on your own iPhone handset – over which, in the final analysis, you have total control. One use case already is pairing your Pebble Smartwatch with your iPhone 5S handset, so that if your phone leaves your immediate location by a specified short distance (say, 2 meters), you’re aggressively told immediately.

So, lots to look forward to in the Autumn. Quite a measured approach compared to the “Internet of Things” which other vendors are hyping with impunity (and quoting staggering revenue numbers which I find difficult to map onto any reality – starting with what folks seem to suggest is even a current huge market size already).

My next piece of homework will be to look at CloudKit, now that Apple are dogfooding it’s use in their own products while releasing it to third party developers. Hopefully, a good sign that Apple are now providing cloud services that match the resilience of competitive offerings for the first time – even if they are specific to Apple’s own platforms. But that’s all the other side of finishing my company’s end of year tax return prep work first!

Watches? Give me a Hearing Aid that knows when to psst… in my ear

ianwaring Apple, Google, Pebble, Samsung, Watches Leave a comment

iWatch Concept Devices

Speculation is still rife on the nature of Apple’s upcoming iWatch device, the latest of which was speculation of a $1000 price tag or a positioning against Rolex. If it is, I may need quite a bit of advance warning before Jane sends me to collect hers (if indeed Apple release such a device).

Probably the best overview of the watch industry i’ve heard was a Cubed Podcast featuring Bill Geiser, the CEO of MetaWatch, but who previously did work for Fossil and before that for Sony on their email capable watch ranges. If you have a spare hour in a car or train journey, it’s well worth the listen; it’s Episode 11 of the Cubed Podcast, downloadable from iTunes or listen here.

One of the statistics Bill cites is that the watch market is worth circa $1.2Billion per annum, with 85% of this revenue attributable to watches costing more than $500. He is also at pains to point out that they are a very visible fashion accessory, have many variations and focus on doing just one thing well – which is telling the time. A lot of forays into putting more intelligence into them in the past have failed to make a large impact.

Since the time of that Podcast, Pebble have come out with the second iteration of their popular watch (known as the “Pebble Steel“, Samsung have sprung out two attempts at their Samsung Gear, and Motorola (who are in the middle of transitioning ownership from Google to Lenovo) have “pre-announced” their Moto-360 concept device.

The Motorola concept looks impressive (the core competence of high technology companies is normally far removed from consumer-attractive fashionable design). A few samples are as follows (you’ll need to click on these images to blow them up to full size in order to see them animate properly – or alternatively, see all the related demos at https://moto360.motorola.com/):

Moto 360 Speed Reading

 

Moto 360 Set Alarm

The only gotcha is that space constraints usually kill the size of battery you can install in these devices, and the power required to drive the display and supporting electronics – while doing any of these applications – will empty their capacity in minutes. The acceptable norm would be at least a working day. As someone whos found their phone running out of power while trying to navigate myself around unfamiliar streets in Central and West London, this is something of a show stopper. And these Moto 360 concepts appear to be destined for science fiction only, as modern day physics will stop these becoming a reality – yet.

So, at face value, we may need new display technologies, and/or new batteries, and/or moving as much as possible away from the wrist and into powered packaging elsewhere on a person. I’m not sure if you can cast the display (like a TV using Google Chromecast, or using Apple Airplay) over low power Bluetooth, or if there are other charging mechanisms that could feed a decent display using the movement of the user, or daylight.

It’ll be interesting to see what Apple come to market with, but we may all have it wrong and find their device is a set of health sensors coupled with a simple notifications system.

While technologists may think a watch spewing the already compelling “Google Now” type notifications would be impressive, many should be reminded that looking at your watch in a meeting is often a social no-no. It’s a sign that the person doing so is disinterested in the subject of conversation and is keen to move on.

Likewise for the current generation of Google Glass, the devices look dorky and social norms around the presence of sound/picture/video recording have yet to be widely established. Sticking the glasses on top of your head is the one norm if you’re using public conveniences, but usage isn’t wide enough outside San Francisco and various tech conferences yet. And the screen real estate still too small to carry much data.

My Nexus 5 handset has one colour LED on the front that blinks White if i’ve received an email, Blue for a Facebook update, Yellow for a Snapchat and Green for an SMS. Even a service like IFTTT (“If this then that”) sitting in front of a notifications system could give a richer experience to help prioritise what is allowed to interrupt me, or what notifications get stored for review later.

Personally, i’d prefer an intelligent hearing aid type device that could slip the “psst…” into my ear at appropriate times. That would me much more useful to me in meetings and while on the move.

In the interim, the coming wave of intelligent, mobile connected electronics have yet to get evenly distributed across a very, very wide range of fashion accessories of all kinds. From the sound of Google’s work, it sounds like they are aiming at a large number of fashion OEMs – folks primarily fashion providers but who can embed licensed electronics that talk to the hub that is an Internet connected smartphone. I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple’s approach will be similar, but allowing such devices to hook into Apple provided app platforms than sit on an iPhone (such as the widely expected HealthBook).

We’ll hopefully have all the answers – and the emergent ecosystems running at full clip – this side of Christmas 2014. Or at last have a good steer following Apple’s WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference) and Google I/O (the Google equivalent) before mid-year, when developers should be let loose getting their software ready for these new (or at least, class of these new) devices.