Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am clearly has more money and ideas than he knows what to do with. He also uses words like “screenager” and “fashionology.”
His latest tech product is a smart “cuff” called Puls, and it comes equipped with a 3G cellular radio for making calls and using data. The Puls looks like an early Apple Watch (then dubbed ‘iWatch’) concept gone awry. It features a Siri knockoff called “AneedA.”
What’s most telling is that will.i.am and crew have yet to announce pricing and availability, although it’s supposed to be on sale in select AT&T and O2 stores for the holidays.
From a pure specs perspective, the Puls is kind of interesting. A cellular connection, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, 1GB of RAM, and 16GB of storage make it far smarter than most of the wearables out there right now. But then there’s the odd-looking software, laughably squished onscreen keyboard, and an “emotion detector” app that somehow senses your mood based on the tone of your voice.
“My first thought when I saw the Puls was: This thing is chunky,” said Gizmodo’s Jordan Kushins after a demo. “My wrists are not small and when I snapped it on—it opens like claw and is held together with magnets—it still looked large.”
Yet an AT&T executive thinks that the Plus is “enabling a millennial to fashionably tweet from her wrist while clubbing.” Whatever that means.
Another glorious excerpt from will.i.am speaking to Gizmodo:
The other issue is: how much power are you gonna have? We have 780 milliamps. How many is in an iPhone? 900? Cool. We’re good then. Eight hours. But I need more. If we have mophie that gives us more. Jackets, bro! Jackets. The sleeves touch the watch and give you four days; 4000 milliamps.
Jackets, bro!
Anyway, not much to see here. Will.i.am’s last contribution to the tech world was a $475 “i.am+ foto.sosho” iPhone 4 camera case, in case you forgot.
Alex Heath is a journalist who works for Tech Insider. He’s the former co-host of The CultCast. He has been quoted by the likes of the BBC, KRON 4 News, and books like “ICONIC: A Photographic Tribute to Apple Innovation.” He lives in Lexington, Kentucky. If you want to pitch a story, share a tip, or just get in touch, additional contact information is available on his personal site. Follow him on Twitter.
31 responses to “Will.i.am’s new wearable looks like a terrible Apple Watch ripoff”
Please get the name of the product correct before you start dismissing it.
please don’t smoke before writing an article’s headline, drugs are bad umm-k.
Southpark. The student counselor. Correct? :D
duh, lol
How is this an iwatch ripoff? Not only does it look nothing like the iwatch, the design is far superior. This is the design that I HOPED the iwatch was going to look like.
Not some gaudy looking wrist square with a dial on the side. The iwatch looks like a cheap trinket.
This Plus watch looks fantastic.
Say you. No one nerd enough to wear this on their cousin wedding. Whereas Apple Watch… mmm… sexy.
3 words – sar cas ummmmm.
Please tell me your F’ing kidding me.
How does this look superior? Maybe if it had more display on it, but this is just a huge ugly bracelet with a smalls screen.
No matter how great it is, I’m not buying one because I’m not sure they’re going to be around a year or two from now. That’s the problem faced by any startup who tries to compete against the established behemoths. And I like Will.I.Am.
Right, just like Dre and his crazy idea for headphones! Silly people trying to disrupt
Remember Beats were just (largely) rebranded Monster headphones , sooo the small startup argument is invalid.
When I call tech support regarding any issue I may have, is it gonna be will.i.am on the other end?
It looks more like a shackle, not a watch.
By far the worst article I have read. We get it, you love the apple watch.
Oh look,. Alex Heath wrote a completely misleading headline to get page views.
Pretty much the standard here at CoM.
I’m all for calling out and bashing companies and designers who try to knock off Apple products, but this looks nothing like the Apple Watch. I even looked at the other photos at The Next Web. Nope. Not an Apple Watch ripoff. Click-bait.
On the surface the design is great until you start thinking about how it;s gonna react against your body. There’s a reason why watches look the way they do, the strap mechanic which is used by nearly every watch on the planet is there for one simple reason. It really does work. And I mean work in more that merely keeping the thing on your wrist. Straps have the ability to perform the 2 most important roles, security and comfort. Sounds stupid but these 2 things are integral to the success of the strap as the de-facto way of binding the device to the body.
I really like the look of this device but I guess that with prolonged use or if you have boney wrists it’s gonna slowly lead to fatigue. Discomfort cannot be in any way part of the equation with something like this. As it’s a set size this means it;s more likely to happen. I want to love it but the sensible part of my brain keeps telling me it’s a well polished turd.
A very bitter sounding ‘article’. Sad really.
It’s called Puls….Not Plus.
Auto-correct might have screwed you when writing this.
Will.i.am has always been raving bonkers as it is. You know he hasnt designed this, he just stuck his name in something he believes in. As for charging in a jacket, I didn’t understand that at all.
Hideous thing…
Would that make the iWatch a rip-off of the dozen or so smart watches already out there? Of course not, the authors logic is extremely flawed. Poorly written and does not even get the “so called” rip off’s name correct. BTW, it is coming out BEFORE, not after. SMH on so-called journalism these days.
Yes, the world needs “me too’s”
I personally think this is great. The screen tech is top notch and the band is solid. Unlike other wearables that only have bluetooth, this includes a full on cellular radio to REPLACE your phone, not compliment it. It is funny to think these days, that not everyone needs a devices with a ton of options. As long as it can make/receive calls and do basic functions, it will sell. Perhaps of the generic QWERTY keyboard, a T9 keyboard might be better for this situation.
The “Puls” (not Plus) looks nothing like an iAnything……?
Cultofclickbait.com
I was able to play with this watch 6 months back, and it was really cool. some of the things I really liked about it were:
1. The fact that the watch was independent from the phone
2. The maps and directions were really good
3. The watch strap was padded and very comfortable. although I have big wrists and it was too small to close on my wrist, I would assume they would have different sizes that would accommodate different sizes of wrists.
Apple fan here… actually this looks nothing like an apple watch ripoff. I didn’t go crazy with the interface but I think they nailed the hardware design. Having the battery in the wrist strap makes sense. Battery power is the biggest reason I don’t wear my Pebble every day. Also, the jacket and backpack are brilliant and bold, albeit gimmicky. I’m looking forward to it. Just wish it was running a better interface.
PS sending a heartbeat to someone is as lame as the mood detection.
It’s great that Alex Heath loves the Apple watch. I get it. It’s pretty, but the Apple watch is also pretty useless for me. This watch would give me the functionality and storage I want, the screen’s smaller than the Samsung Gear, which also does everything I hoped that an Apple watch would do …
So you wanted a smart watch that looked like a 3rd grader developed it then?