Head to Head in Tech

These days, there’s no such thing as a completely unique product—there’s only the most advanced as of one particular moment. Let’s take a look at some examples of innovative gadgets and the newcomers that are giving them a run for their money:

                                  Image from Pebble Technology                                      

Smartwatches

The Original: Pebble by Pebble Technology

While Pebble isn’t exactly the first smartwatch ever, it is the first to get the public really interested in the concept. In fact, it ended up being the most successful Kickstarter project of all time—for now, at least. Pebble acts a bridge between you and your smartphone, allowing you to receive notifications, control your music and even monitor your exercise stats without the hassle of having to reach for phone. It boasts of a customizable watch face with a glare-free e-ink display and connects to your phone via Bluetooth.

The Contenders: Hot Watch by PHTL and TrueSmart by Omate

There’s no question about it—the smartwatch is this year’s Big Thing (or maybe it’s wearable technology in general). Samsung and Apple are expected to get their own pieces of the pie, but in the meantime, several startups have turned to Kickstarter to fund their own computing wristwatches. Hot Watch and TrueSmart are two such examples, and they’ve both surpassed their targets with plenty of time to spare.

Like Pebble, Hot Watch makes use of an e-ink display, though instead of buttons, it’s operated via touch. A cool development is that it can make and receive both calls and text messages, giving it an edge over Pebble. There’s also the Hot Gestures, which automatically accepts a call when you raise your palm to your ear and dials your favorite contact with a tap, among others. Then there’s the emergency feature, which sends a text to your emergency contact should you slip and fall.

TrueSmart, on the other hand, takes things further by functioning as a stand-alone device. That’s right; you won’t need to connect it to your smartphone. Aside from being able to send and receive calls and messages, you can use it to take photos, run apps such as your favorite social networks, and it has a touchscreen color display. Basically, it functions as a mini smartphone that you wear on your wrist. How’s that for your new business phone?

                                       Image from Google                                             

Smart Glasses

 The Original: Google Glass by Google

There’s no question that most anyone’s heard of Glass by now. It’s that somewhat odd-looking head-mounted device that brings your smartphone experience pretty much right in your line of vision. It lets you send messages, search the web, look up directions, and capture images and videos that you can share real-time—all via voice command. If that isn’t enough, it even has its own growing list of apps. It gives hands-free a whole new meaning, just as it does always connected.

The Contender: Telepathy One by Telepathy

Despite the controversy generated by Google Glass in terms of privacy issues, other companies are more than eager to jump onto the wearable technology bandwagon—like Telepathy. As of August 21^st, it officially raised enough funds to take on the Internet giant. There’s not much that we know right now, other than that it has a sleeker design, can be worn with regular glasses, and will have its own software developer kit.

3D Pen

The Original: 3Doodler by WobbleWorks

 While 3D printers aren’t all that special these days, 3Doodler has the distinction of being the world’s first 3D printing pen. It won’t give you a wearable running shoe or an organ replacement, but it will allow you to make your own mini Eiffel Tower or one-of-a-kind necklace. This glue gun lookalike does this by extruding heated plastic that becomes a solid structure after it cools off. You might knock it as a kid’s crafts tool but it raised more than $2.3M from its original $30K goal.

The Contender: SwissPen by Swiss 3D Print

Proving that a 3D pen is not just a gimmick, SwissPen was announced late this August as a direct competitor to 3Doodler. If there’s a difference between the two products, it’s yet to be seen—at least, aside from the fact that SwissPen’s made in Switzerland (of course) and costs a few dollars more than the latter.

Can you think of a unique product that we might have overlooked? Clue us in in the comment box below!

AUTHOR’S BIO

Leslie Young is a Blogger, web designer and developer for 3years.  She contributes her work to some blog sites that is related to her field of work. She usually writes about business communication, telecommunications such as business phones and cloud phones, as well as all the latest gadgets including smartphones and tablets.  Follow her on Twitter & Facebook