Bia - A Kickstarter project to produce a GPS watch for women

[Darren]

For those of you unfamiliar with the site, Kickstarter is a web based funding platform for creative projects. Individuals can choose to back a project they like and, if the project meets its published funding goal, the project will become a reality. Think of it as an internet version of Dragon's Den where you get to be the judges.

You vote up a project by pledging an amount of money. The project owners will normally offer a variety of pledge options and each comes with a benefit to you such as custom Kickstarter only versions, discounted prices etc,

Bia is a project I spotted a few days ago and it caught my eye. Bia is a GPS Sports Watch. Although aimed at women us men can use it too and has been designed to be smaller, more comfortable and much easier to use than traditional GPS watches.

The project is looking for $400k of funding and has already reached $96,000 with 14 days left to run. With a team built up from Apple, Nike, Jawbone and Zoot it looks great.

There is a lot more information on the project, the pledge rewards, a blog on the development so far etc at Kickstarter. Hit the source link below to read all about it.

Source: Kickstarter - Bia

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Darren Griffin - Editor

[M8TJT]

[MaFt]

If you watch the video it's easy to see how they've managed to make it smaller and lighter than, say the Garmin Forerunner they show as being so 'bulky'. The Bia watch itself does NOT have any GPS chipset in it. In fact, you have to buy the GPS unit separately and then either clip it to your pocket or to your tshirt. Without the extra GPS unit it's just a glorified stopwatch!

Watching the video the GPS clip looks like it could easily be lost - while it's hard to see the detail of the design it didn't look securely fastened at all and on a 'running start in water' could easily be knocked?

Still, it's a neat idea. GPS watches are generally rather bulky but I'm sure they could get the GPS stuff into the watch itself with only adding a couple of mm to the thickness?

MaFt

[Darren]

The separate GPS isn't necessarily a bad idea but the 'never needs charging' claim is a bit rich. The GPS needs charging and the watch presumably needs power of some sort. Hard to see how it can communicate wirelessly with the GPS using the power of a normal watch battery alone?

Still, I like the form factor. Most GPS watches are bulky and the GPS receiver isn't always as sensitive as it can be.

Goof luck to 'em
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Darren Griffin - Editor

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