Toronto-based Kiwi Wearables just launched their first consumer product called the Kiwi Move today. The Move is not a watch or an activity wristband. It doesn’t just count steps or alert you when your smartphone rings. It refuses to be defined because it wants to do it all.
The Move is a connected multi-sensor device that may be the one wearable to rule them all. And in a space where there seems to be a never-ending amount of single purpose devices, Kiwi Wearables is just as refreshing as the fruit it is named after.
The Move uses a combination of movement, gesture, location and voice to perform a number of applications. It has an active battery life of up to 4 hours or up to 120 hours of standby time. It works with both iPhone and Android and has a range from your phone about 50-150ft.
Kiwi has a number of apps that can be used with the Move right out of the box. The Kiwi Move app lets you count steps and track your activity. The Kiwi Gesture app lets you perform specific or custom gestures to talk to connected devices or control your smart home. And the Kiwi Sound app lets you speak to the Move to take notes, track your diet and identify your favourite songs.
The Kiwi When. Do. app is Kiwi’s version of IFTTT. Users can create recipes to seamlessly automate activities with the Move. Kiwi’s marketing spot shows a couple of these recipes in action. You can do things like have Kiwi Move automatically updates your grocery budget when you leave the grocery store or identify a song when you draw a musical note in the air.
In addition, Kiwi’s website states that that they are working on plug-ins for the Move for the Pebble, Philips Hue, Google Glass, Strava and Run Keeper.
Kiwi’s multi-faceted functionality is echoed in its design. The Move is a sensor that comes with one clip and one strip which means that it can be worn on your arm, wrist, waist, ankle, collar, cuff or chest (the latter may be for the Trekkies since the sensor’s shape looks a lot like the Star Trek Comm Badge in my opinion).
What I have always liked about Kiwi is their focus on being a platform. Since the launch of their company last year, the team has been consistent with their vision to deliver a wearable that can perform an endless amount of use cases depending on the consumers needs. It’s one of the reasons why I think Kiwi could possibly do for wearables what Apple did for the smartphone.
Kiwi is currently accepting pre-orders for the Move for $99 on their website with a target shipping date of July 2014. Developers can still nab an alpha Dev Kit for $80.
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