If you had polled one hundred people on the street just a year ago, how many of them would have said that 2012 and 2013 would be the years of the watch? Probably not that many. Watches were supposed to be deader than disco, an ironic artifact from a time long past. Why hobble ourselves with a gadget on our wrist when everything we could ever need in this world can fit snugly in our pocket? Well, the naysayers were wrong. Smartwatches, aka timepieces that do the same sort of thing your other gadgets do, are just about the hottest thing going right now. Since they go on your wrist, that makes them especially adept to help monitor fitness. It’s easy to drop a phone, not so much with a watch.
A company called Leikr is throwing their smart-hat into the smartwatch ring with the pending release of their, well, Leiker GPS-enabled sports watch. Â Sure, other watches have GPS installed but none of them feature a beautiful 2″ screen that is nigh indestructible. What’s the use of GPS, after all, if you have to squint to even see what it is, um, GPS-ing you toward.
About that screen. It’s made using a brand new type of protective covering called Gorilla Glass. This glass hasn’t even been officially unveiled yet but, still, products are begin to start appearing that feature it. Rumors tell of it being so sturdy that not even a drunk Williamsburg hipster on a bender could hope to crack or scratch it. In short, this is pretty cool tech(particularly for something you wear while running.)
But being as how this is the Internet, this watch is not yet fully funded. They have taken to, drumroll please, Kickstarter to finish securing funds. For around $230 you can secure yourself one of the first batch. Check out a video and more images below. Let us know what you think.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DtgFghKPiY
