Skip to main content

Where are they now? Looking back at the hyped-up wearables of last year’s CES

This is going to be a big week for wearables. Sound familiar? You’ve definitely heard that one before. It’s exactly what we were saying this time last year, as we were ramping up for CES 2014.

But what became of all those promises? As we prime our immune systems for the convention onslaught, let’s take a quick look back at what was unveiled at last year’s event and, more importantly, who delivered and who didn’t.

Recommended Videos

Pebble Steel

Pebble Steel Watch front left angle
Digital Trends

While practically all of the major manufacturers at CES last year bumbled around one another to demonstrate just how committed they were to the emerging wearable space, the little hardware startup that practically defined smart watches for so many early adopters simply waltzed right in and defined the conversation. What’s more, it did so without any profound changes to its existing device. The Steel wasn’t a revolution, it was just much nicer looking.

The smartwatch delivered when it was released later that same month. While practically every review led with a mention of the fact that the device didn’t actually offer any new functionality, the wearable still managed to score high marks in just about every review, earning a place as one of the most celebrated wearables of the year, yet another remarkable feat for such a fresh-faced company. Then the expected happened: The Apple Watch was finally made official in September.

Pebble spent the rest of the year refining the watch’s firmware and celebrating a growing number of available apps. Toward the end last month, the company also embraced Google’s wearable push by bringing Android Wear notifications to its ecosystem. But for all of its accomplishments, Pebble hasn’t yet been able to strap its watches to the wrists of mainstream consumers — a goal that becomes all the more distant as companies like Google and Apple enter the fray. Once again, Pebble needs to make another big show at this year’s CES if it’s going to be heard about the noise.

Garmin Vivofit

Garmin-Vivo-push-displayGOAL2
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Garmin continued to leverage its GPS prowess with fitness devices last year, offering up its first band in the form of the Vivo. When reviewers finally got the Vivo on their wrists, it scored pretty decent reviews, owing to accurate and comprehensive stat tracking, plus some bonuses like remote music control aimed at fitness buffs. Since then, however, the reigning king of the fitness band, Fitbit, has given the company a run for its money with the Charge, and even Microsoft has thrown its massive weight into the fitness band arena.

Sony Core

Sony Core smartband colors back
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Sony opted to focus its CES wearable conversation inward with the Core, a tiny chip it said was destined to serve as the “heart” of its wearable play, signaling a fresh start for a company that had already been dabbling in wearables for some time. The announcement led to plenty of goofy “hands-on” photos with a small, nondescript internal component and little else, as the company wasn’t exactly forthcoming with details. Sony focused on its comprehensive Lifelog app to differentiate itself.

The SmartBand SWR10 arrived several months later to little commercial fanfare, and critics seemed to deem it an imperfect step in the right direction for a company rethinking the way it does fitness tracking. Perhaps CES 2015 is the year the company really delivers on its Core promises.

LG Lifeband Touch

LifeBand FB84 BM on wrist 12
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The first crack at a fitness band from this established consumer-electronics giant failed to make a huge splash beside the countless wearables that debuted alongside it last year. When it arrived months later, the results were fittingly lackluster.

People seemed to want to pat LG on the back for giving the whole fitness-band thing a shot, but a poor display and uncomfortable design no doubt sent the company back to the drawing board. Hopefully this year’s model will make the company more competitive, now that it knows precisely what not to do.

Epson Moverio BT-200

Epson_Moverio_BT-200_2
Image used with permission by copyright holder

A surprise entry from a company more closely associated with printers and projectors, Epson’s Moverio BT-200 took an unexpected swipe at Google Glass. At $700, the augmented-reality glasses are, if nothing else, considerably cheaper than what Google has offered up. And when reviewers finally got their hands on units in August, the consensus was that they were pretty OK — for a first-generation product with no perceivable consumer application. If you haven’t heard of the things since those heady days of CES 2014, it’s for a good reason — these Epson goggles aren’t really for you.

Razer Nabu

Razer Nabu fitness band
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Another wholly surprising entry from an outlying manufacturer, gaming peripheral manufacturer Razer took a brisk power walk into the world of fitness bands with the Nabu. The product was much more notable for who made it, than what it actually brought to the table. However, the real reason you didn’t hear much about the product all year was due to the fact that company didn’t actually release the product until early last month. A visit to Razer’s home page, where you still can’t buy on, will confirm that even the company wasn’t putting too much stock in its new fitness wearable.

Brian Heater
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Brian Heater has worked at number of tech pubs, including Engadget, PCMag and Laptop. His writing has appeared in Spin…
Digital Trends’ Top Tech of CES 2023 Awards
Best of CES 2023 Awards Our Top Tech from the Show Feature

Let there be no doubt: CES isn’t just alive in 2023; it’s thriving. Take one glance at the taxi gridlock outside the Las Vegas Convention Center and it’s evident that two quiet COVID years didn’t kill the world’s desire for an overcrowded in-person tech extravaganza -- they just built up a ravenous demand.

From VR to AI, eVTOLs and QD-OLED, the acronyms were flying and fresh technologies populated every corner of the show floor, and even the parking lot. So naturally, we poked, prodded, and tried on everything we could. They weren’t all revolutionary. But they didn’t have to be. We’ve watched enough waves of “game-changing” technologies that never quite arrive to know that sometimes it’s the little tweaks that really count.

Read more
Digital Trends’ Tech For Change CES 2023 Awards
Digital Trends CES 2023 Tech For Change Award Winners Feature

CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:

Samsung's Relumino Mode
Across the globe, roughly 300 million people suffer from moderate to severe vision loss, and generally speaking, most TVs don’t take that into account. So in an effort to make television more accessible and enjoyable for those millions of people suffering from impaired vision, Samsung is adding a new picture mode to many of its new TVs.
[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.

Read more
How does Garmin measure stress, and is it really accurate?
Garmin Vivomove Sport dial close up. Credits: Garmin official.

Garmin watches are known for their robust activity tracking, but that's not all these fitness watches can do. Over the years, the company has been adding wellness features to its lineup of watches. These new health-focused metrics allow people to analyze their fitness and identify outside factors affecting their performance. One such factor is stress, which is something Garmin watches actively measures.
But you may be wondering—exactly how does Garmin measure stress? In this article, we break down how Garmin measures stress and delve into the accuracy of this metric. Should you trust your stress score? Read on to find out.

Is Garmin's stress score accurate?

Read more