Haptic technology might be the coolest ever
This tech will reach out and touch you, in a good way.
Mobile devices do so many things these days. But everything you do is through a screen and, usually, a sound. One company aims to tap into another human sense: touch.
Not a horror movie
Moment is a wearable that vibrates in different patterns to give you information. It has four motors that allows for all sorts of combinations of haptic feedback. But all that technology is useless unless it has something to say, right?
Imagine if your GPS directions were being drawn on your wrist, telling you which way to turn next.
“You actually feel a shape being drawn on your skin as if someone was taking their finger and tracing out a triangle or an arrow in a certain direction,” says CEO Shantung Bala.
Other features
Besides navigation from the wristband, which will ship in early 2017, Moment will also do message notification and have a metronome feature. But the directions is where it really shines. The phantom drawings will start out light and then increase in intensity as your turn approaches.
I can immediately see the appeal of getting directions without looking at your phone, especially as a devout, but uncoordinated, cyclist.
You can assign different vibratory patterns to contacts so you know who a message is from without looking. But, let’s face it, you can also do that with your phone and keep it in your pocket.
The Moment is aesthetically similar to an Apple watch, which will only look awkward if you’re also wearing an apple watch. And one of these tap keyboards. And maybe a Fitbit if you don’t like Apple’s health interface.
In the quest for us all to become part time cyborgs, I predict this all of this technology will soon be integrated into one streamlined gadget.
