14 DAY TRIAL // HTC is one of the major tech brands that was announced as an official partner for Android Wear. With this in mind, we should be seeing HTC wearables arrive into the wild soon enough and company officials have confirmed they are working on it.
But as we wait for that to happen, you might want to check out a futuristic HTC wearable design imagined by Barcelona-based designer, Petrangelo Manzo.
The device he imagined has been dubbed the HTC Neo, and it is a wearable that looks like it stepped out of a Sci-Fi movie, possibly Star Trek or Robocop.
The HTC Neo arrives with a smartphone-like screen, which you can wear around the wrist. The device looks sleek enough, but it’s hard to believe that mainstream consumers would take to such a product en-mass as it looks pretty otherworldly.
Wearable bracelets haven’t been particularly popular with the public, so it seems quite unlikely that a smartphone-looking device such as this will have better luck.
The product comes with a 4.5-inch display that seems to be crisp enough, although we’re not given any specifics about it. There are a few capacitive buttons added to the mix and we can see the device draws design cues from HTC Sense.
However, there would be major disadvantages to wearing such a bracelet. First off, you won’t be able to bend your hand properly. On the other hand, there are some aesthetical properties to consider. For example, people might make fun of you for wearing a smartphone on your wrist.
It could be argued that the bracelet might be used as a smartphone replacement, allowing users to place phone calls right from their wrist, but we have serious doubts that the HTC Neo would be comfortable to wear in the long run.
The concept doesn’t provide us with any details to suggest what sort of functions the HTC Neo might bring about. We can speculate that the bracelet will be able to relay notifications, aggregate health info from different apps, and even let you browse the net a little bit, since its screen is pretty huge.
But the main trend in wearables should be about shrinking them and making them almost indiscernible. Some activity trackers today have managed to achieve this feat, disguising their main utility under a classy watch design (like is the case with the Withings Activité) or fantasy necklace (like the Misfit Bloom Necklace).
So what do you think of the HTC Neo?
