Intel is getting into the wearable game with a new smartwatch and smart earbuds. They also announced a wireless charging bowl and a new Bluetooth headset called Jarvis. These new devices, announced at last night’s Intel keynote to officially kick off CES, are ones that Intel hopes will propel it into the consumer spotlight. The Jarvis headset looks like a Bluetooth headset that wraps around your ear. It’s got built-in voice recognition and is supposed to work with just about any Bluetooth device currently available. “The system will work with any existing personal systems,” said Brian Krzanich, Intel’s CEO. “It’s seamless, no buttons, low power.”
Intel’s new smartwatch is a true smartwatch in that it does not need to be tethered to your phone or tablet in order to work. It’s a completely stand-alone device with added features like geofencing and GPS tracking. “The watch will know when kids are supposed to be at school, how they get there, and the watch can notify parents if the child goes astray,” Krzanich stated. Not many details were provided about Jarvis, Intel’s smartwatch, or the other newly announced products.
Krzanich did go in to some detail about Intel’s new chipset, dubbed Edison. It’s similar to a Rasberry Pi, but more powerful. It’s a dual-core, 22nm SoC that has built-in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, is designed to run on very little power. Intel is aiming the chipset at small consumer products that it thinks could become “smart” products, i.e. a smart baby blanket or bottle warmer. It’s all packaged in a chip about the size of a regular SD card, and should be available sometime in the middle of 2014.
The company is also holding a contest to push other new products and ideas that use the Edison chip. Krzanich said they “didn’t want to limit Edison to what we could think of,” so they are giving out $1.3 million in prizes for great ideas on how to implement Edison. The top 10 best implementations will be put into production and brought to market. Official contest rules and details were not announced but should be available soon.