There’s a new Kickstarter campaign for a product called “Carah” that seeks to fundamentally change the game in terms of the both smart watches and connected personal safety devices. To begin with, Carah doesn’t come with a digital display to show users the time or pop-ups with their latest notifications. It does feature notifications of a type for all of that, but its primary purpose is a quick, stylish, and functional way for people to send out alerts when they are in an unsafe situation.
To that end, the watch’s creators have separated smart interactions completely from the timepiece functions. Time-keeping is, instead, analog and dependant on a “high quality” Japanese Quartz movement. Smart functions, in the meantime, are tied to a smartphone application that makes use of a low-energy Bluetooth connection and sensors attached to a fully customized chipset within the watch. To clarify, the wearer will still receive notifications from their device, but those will be provided via vibrations and an LED, rather than on-screen prompts, saving quite a bit of battery life. In fact, according to the campaign’s page, accessible through the source link below, the battery can last as long as a full month without a recharge, with its built in GPS functions turned on and as long as 3 months with them turned off. That’s also thanks to two separate power sources, with power for smart functions provided by a 110mAh battery and standard SR626W watch battery for timekeeping. As to smart functionality, there is a total of four functions controllable by either touch or covering the entire screen. For starters, there is an SOS function that plays a disableable emergency siren, sends a text to a designated guardian including the wearer’s exact location, and sends a call out to guardians while recording audio. That’s activated by covering the entire screen for a set period of time. Aside from that, touch functions linked to specific spots on the watch allow Carah to send a GPS location to friends or family, camera control for the synced smartphone, audio recording, timers, and phone locating function. To top it off, Carah also contains sensors to measure fitness activity. All of that will be accessible via an associated application.
As of this writing, Carah is on Kickstarter, having obtained around 7% of its $25,825 goal. The watch itself is already completed, with components for mass production already sourced and firmware already finished. Funding is needed to enter mass-production phases for the product. There are currently 3 different styles of Carah wearable, meant to be worn across all genders and most age groups. Each is built from quality materials, such as “stainless steel 316,” and styled to match current trends so that it can be worn with nearly any outfit for nearly any occasion, according to the company. It has also been ruggedized to IP65 standards, providing splash resistance and, beyond that, Carah has been coated with a “special coating,” so that it scratch and drop resistant. Backers of the current Kickstarter can pick up a watch in any of its styles – described as Rose Gold/White, Silver/Black, or Gold/Brown – for a minimum pledge of £75. Rewards for backers go up from there in terms of the number of wearables received.
