Can you remember the Sony Ericsson LiveView? It was a clever bluetooth device that you could wear as a watch that would show you alerts from your phone. Great idea, full of bugs and initially too expensive.
Well Sony have updated the Liveview and come up with a few other smart products to go with.
First up we have the Smart Watch which again is a bluetooth device that you can clip onto your clothes or wear as a watch. Again it will show you alerts from your phone or let you control music that you’re listening to. Here is a quick video from Sony showing what it can do.
[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7C-XuSEBPA’]
The interesting thing about the watch is that third party developers can create apps to run on the Smart Watch. With the LiveView you could download a few apps like Gmail notifications or different music player controls. Hopefully the Smart Watch will have more of a following this time. I really like the idea behind it. Lets hope this time the software is better.
They also announced a Smart Headset which allows you to read text messages, look at missed calls and basically handle notifications without having to get your phone out. It also doubles up as an mp3 player and radio when not connected. Again a great idea, I can’t wait to get my hands on one.
Lastly they introduced Smart Tags which are NFC tags that will trigger different profiles within the phone. Such as one in your car for a loud profile or a tag at work to mute your phone. Now this is a great idea. All you need is a NFC enabled phone like the Xperia S and a few of these and you can make your phone do allsorts. A really clever idea using a new technology.
If you want more information about these products click the links below to go to the Sony coming soon sections.
Smart Watch Smart Tags Smart Headset
The Smart Headset sounds good, but the rest of it sounds like flannel. LiveView would allow developers to create custom software, so that’s not a new feature, and it was basically a remote desktop to a VM running on the phone. If the Smart Watch is the same thing then they’ve basically repackaged LiveView in a bid to try and sell it under a different banner. As for the Smart Tags, don’t even get me started on how 90s that is. I didn’t realise that Sony took lessons from Apple on how to repackage old crap as new gold, but they apparently do!
I own a Liveview and a MetaWatch but all I can say about the new Sony product is, if they haven’t addressed the BT issues with this thing – it will be received the same way as the LV is currently thought of: Broken! There has been some light at the end of the tunnel with the LV though…
Smart Ideas (http://goo.gl/KyycR) recently released their LiveView Manager app for Android and it’s pretty much improved the LV’s connection issues by about 80%. The problem was the BT pairing requests, when the connection dropped, needed user intervention (i.e. it wouldn’t connect automatically). This app actually fixes this and makes the LV usable.
Now if Sony haven’t sorted these issues out (especially with non-Sony handsets) and start releasing decent usable apps (they released next to nothing for the LV), then this will die just like the LV has. The LV is now £25!
I love the LV when it works (battery life is improved with the above app as well) but Sony need to try harder to make any splash with it’s new wearable tech.
I still wear my old SE MBW-150 music edition bluetooth watch. Sadly the Oled screen, like most others, is now failing, so its hit and miss as to when you’re doing anything on it! A bit of an error on SE’s part, as its the only way to know if you’re switching BT on etc. When the Oled was working Ok, it was fine for knowing if you had a call/text when in a noisy pub. I’ve bought a liveview, but its not as reliable as the MBW paired with openwatch app, and VERY flimsy. Hopefully this new one will be a bit better all round.