Skip to main content

The Rufus Cuff is a giant tablet for your wrist

Less is more has reigned supreme as the tech industry’s design aesthetic, especially when it comes to gadgets and gizmos that seem to get progressively smaller and thinner. But breaking with tradition is Rufus Labs, which is actively embracing a very different motto — bigger is better. At least, that would appear to be the case with the company’s flagship product, the Rufus Cuff, which has a 3.2-inch screen that takes up most of your forearm’s real estate. The company, which first launched an Indiegogo campaign for its product in 2014, is now finally up for pre-order, starting at $249. So if you want to own a giant wearable, now’s your chance.

Branded as a tablet for your wrist (because really, you can’t call this an enormous smartwatch), the Rufus Cuff claims that it “ends the era of the watch and ushers in the Wrist Computer.” You can send emails, texts, play games, surf the Internet, watch a movie, play music, or do any number of activities that you could do with a smartphone or Wi-Fi-enabled device. And thanks to its speaker, front-facing camera, and dual microphones, you can also make voice and video calls on the Cuff.

Recommended Videos

But best of all, perhaps, is the fact that the Rufus Cuff is water resistant, which means that yes, you can check texts in the rain. All I’ve ever wanted.

To customize this behemoth of a wearable, Rufus Labs is offering you “swappable bands in a variety of colors and band styles, including the sport band (“designed with industrial grade velcro”) and the Exo (“a ruggedized protective case [that makes] your Rufus Cuff dust, water, and shock-proof”).

“It’s not just a glorified notification center, we eventually see everyone ditching their phones,” Gabe Grifoni, Rufus Cuff’s CEO and co-founder, told USA Today. “This will replace the need for smartphones, wallets, watches, fitness trackers, everything.” And for the people who have helped raise over $750,000 to bring the Cuff to fruition, that may be true. The wearable tablets will start shipping in early 2016, and there certainly are at least a few eager patrons awaiting their latest toy.

So if regular watches, smart or not, just look too small on you, consider the Rufus Cuff. You’ll never have to squint again.

Lulu Chang
Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…
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