Razer’s CEO Min-Liang Tan is excited about wearables, but his company is not in it to make a smartwatch or fitness band, instead they want to make a “smart band”, something that will be able to make mobile life easier.
The Razer Nabu has three core components, first is the dual-interface, one that shows a notification symbol and the other “private” screen to reveal all the information on the notification. For instance, if a call is coming in, the public interface will show the symbol and the private will show the caller ID.
Second is tracking, the Razer Nabu is able to track steps taken in a day and sleeping patterns. This is done through the various sensors in the smart band and will be available to look at through Razer’s utility application, which they will be providing on iOS and Android.
The third is gestures and this is where the Razer Nabu really tries to differentiate itself from other wearables. Razer has imported various gestures, allowing the user to dismiss calls, swap information with other Nabu users and has a “pulse” finder, where it will actively search for other Nabu users in an area.
Social features and gestures can be the future of wearables and the Razer Nabu is a keen step in the right direction, but we cannot see this becoming a widespread product and the social features may become a little redundant.
It is quite odd to see Razer step in on the wearables market, considering they are best known for laptops and gaming gear. The company has been trying to change the look of its products to the standard of Apple in terms of design and has been working hard on getting their edge in the PC market.
The question is will the smartwatch and “smart band” market become saturated, before the big players like Apple, Google and Microsoft even step in to show their own concepts.
