- Fowconn wearable is....
- this device…The “Jumpy” smartwatch designed by Foxconn uses QuickLogic’s low power sensor hub to give he wearable a long battery life.
(Source: QuickLogic)
Friday, 28 November 2014
Taiwan’s Jumpy is betting on Foxconn smarts to crack the childrens wearables market
6cf96fe0b40ccd186e793e388c09f330_largeWith the now-fledging wearables market set to explode thanks to Apple’s upcoming smartwatch, many hardware startups are looking for creative ways own wristband real estate. Taiwan’s JoyRay is hedging its bets youngsters with Jumpy, a smartwatch for kids that’s currently raising funds on Kickstarter.Jumpy is a palm-sized cube that fits inside a wearable rubber wristband. It comes with several basic features like bluetooth proximity tracking, a step counter, an activity counter, and notifications, along with several educational games. Chang demoed some these features for Tech in Asia at JoyRay’s office space in Taipei, and it checks our box for “Working Prototype Completed.”Founder Jerry Chang tells Tech in Asia that he hopes to build an open platform around Jumpy, through which developers can create and submit their own apps. In his opinion, developing a strong ecosystem will help maintain high user retention.“In our side, we’ll try to make usage limitless. We will keep developing applications by ourselves and by our partners,” says Chang. We also don’t want this watch to only be used by kids. We want to have kids interacting with kids, and parents interacting with kids.”Keeping both children and parents happy is a core part of Chang’s vision for Jumpy. For one thing, parents are the ones with the wallet, Chang believes be more likely to purchase a product for kids that doesn’t come stocked with time-waster games. But if the app doesn’t engage the children who wear it, it could end up in the junk heap alongside last year’s Christmas toys.“When I studied the market, I realized there were three types of smart wristbands for children,” says Chang. “The first type was like Jawbone but for kids. I don’t think kids really want to calculate the number of steps they take each day. The next type I saw was a tracking device. But if you’re a kid who’s out playing video games when he should be at basketball practice, you won’t wear the watch. The third type is more focused on entertainment – but we want to do entertainment plus education.”Jumpy’s app suite is sparse at the moment, but impressive when one considers that product has been in development for just eight months. Chang envisions his software team’s “explore the human body” app, in which users place Jumpy on top of a tablet to peek at pictures of hearts and lungs, as the type of apps he hopes to fill the platform with.ParticipantParticipantAbout the company Joyray…Founder and CEO Jerry Chang, who was division head of Foxconn’s smartphone business before leaving last December, believes the key to creating a kids’ smartwatch with enduring appeal is to provide an open SDK and release new apps by JoyRay and third-party developers every month.The smartwatch’s Kickstarter price is $99 and it is scheduled to ship in March, a goal Chang is confident it can reach because Jumpy has a working prototype (which I saw demoed at JoyRay’s office) and a manufacturing partnership with Foxconn.I have not found if it is for sale yet- and don’t have too much free time tonight.the telepathy jumper is NOt the same device as Jumpy, though they both have jump in them - AuthorPosts
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