Sony designs FES e-paper smartwatch

December 6, 2014 by admin
Filed under Choosing Lingerie

A smartwatch fully-faced with e-paper will be launched in 2015.

Named the FES, it incorporates the flexible electronic material for its face and strap to turn the watch into an infinitely customisable fashion accessory.

Sony
The face and strap of the FES can be personalised due to its conformable e-paper surfaces - Source: Fashion Entertainments The device has been made by a design team from Sony operating through a spin-off company Fashion Entertainments. This has allowed the Japanese manufacturer to keep the Fez’s development low-key, and discrete from its existing SmartBand and SmartWatch brand products.

Consumer demand, in Japan, has already been confirmed. The FES has secured 3.4 million yen (€21,900), over 300% of its initial total, via the Japanese crowd-funding website Makuake. Fashion Entertainments will use this cash to fund an initial product run which will ship in Q1 2015.

The pre-order price for the FES watch is 19,800 yen (€134).

E-paper
E-paper materials are used principally in e-readers, like Sony’s PRS-505 or Amazon’s Kindle line. However the market for these devices is now to declining rapidly from peak in 2012. A report published by Research and Markets on 21 October forecasts a market contracting at an annual rate of 29.6% for the period 2013-2018.

Detecting this decline, Sony announced in August 2014 that it was stopping production of e-readers.

Fashion not function
The FES and Fashion Entertainments may be an attempt by Sony to explore a new market potential for its expertise in e-paper. As a display material its slow refresh rate means it performs poorly in comparison to LCD or OLED screens found on other wearable platforms.

E-paper does have some advantages, the low refresh rate means a longer battery life – estimated at up to 60 days on the FES. And the material is conformable for bending surfaces like the watch strap.

Choosing e-paper is indicative that Fashion Entertainments’ offering to the wearable segment will not follow other smartwatches in trying to replicate smartphone functions on the wrist. Images of prototypes show a series of designs that can be loaded to both the face and strap, to give different visual effects, customised by the owner.

This approach – to create a repeatably customisable fashion accessory – is more prominent in some of the other products listed on the new company’s Facebook page. These include an e-paper bow tie, smartphone covers, shoes and even e-paper lingerie.

By John Nelson, follow John on Google+