The founders of Kiwi Wearables set out about a year ago to build a wearable computer controlled through state-of-the-art motion sensors and gyroscopes, says cofounder Ali Nawab.
“We basically were looking to build a product that relied on the power of all the sensors that were available,” he says. “Kind of like how voice became popular with Siri, we were looking to push motion as the source of interaction.”
Of course, they also wanted to build a machine consumers would actually find useful. In the validation process, they found potential customers were definitely interested in some of the features a wearable smartwatch could deliver, but they had major misgivings.
Their research indicated people wanted to be notified of phone calls and texts without having to pull out their phones, and they worried about missing calls from their phones when deep in a pocket or purse. They wanted to be able to interact with other electronics–dim lights, advance PowerPoint slides, find a missing iPhone–using something always available at their fingertips.
“We spent a fair amount of time with focus groups and people just trying to figure out what problem or issues they have on a day-to-day basis,” Nawab says.
But, Kiwi found, a big part of their target audience already wore a traditional wristwatch they were quite happy with and they weren’t necessarily looking to trade it for a newfangled gadget–even it came with “smart” features. So, Kiwi created something it calls Glance, billed in an ongoing Kickstarter campaign as “a smart accessory for your watch” that attaches unobtrusively to an existing timepiece’s watchband.
“We thought there needs to be a product that works with your watch that you already have to give you all the notifications and features that you would expect with the smartwatch,” Nawab says. “It shouldn’t disturb the aesthetic of the watch that you have or the comfort level that you already have with the watch that you’ve been wearing for a little bit.”