Another wearable wristband device made its debut at CES in Las Vegas, but it came from an unexpected source. Razer is known for producing laptops, tablets, peripherals, and accessories for gamers, in fact the company’s tagline is “For Gamers. By Gamers.” But it clearly fancies it can make a splash in the wearables market too, and so we have the Razer Nabu SmartBand. This device is a kind of blend between a fitness tracker and a smart watch.
“Smart watches in their current form are too bulky and fitness trackers are easily forgotten after the initial novelty wears off—we have fixed all of that…” claimed Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan.
The Razer Nabu sports a dual OLED display that comprises a 32 x 32 pixel notification screen and a 128 x 32 pixel private message screen. It can hook up to Android or iOS devices via Bluetooth 4.0 LE (Low Energy). Inside there are sensors including an accelerometer, an altimeter, and a cylindrical vibration motor. It promises to keep on ticking for seven days between charges, and it can handle a bit of rain or sweat.
In terms of data it will track your workout activity, your sleep, and your location. It can also deliver texts and email alerts, and there’s support for gesture controls, so you can shake your wrist to dismiss an alert, for example. The other cool feature is the ability to swap data with another Nabu wearer by shaking hands.
It’s brand new, so right now the attractive $49 price is just for developers. Razer will be hoping to get some big app partners onboard, so that the data it collects can be fed into top fitness apps and it can pull in alerts from Facebook and Twitter.
The worldwide release is expected before the end of March and we expect the price tag to be a little higher than the $49 developer edition. We’ll keep you posted.
