The Moov wins the Wearables to Watch award #ShinyShinyAwards

A year ago wearable tech amounted to some lame-looking, bright wristbands and the exceptionally geeky hype around Google Glass. Twelve months on and the world of wearables is exciting, much better-looking and seems to have a great deal more sticking power than any of us ever expected. Next year we predict the Apple Watch will suck regular consumers into the wearable trend and all of the big tech brands will likely be vying to keep up, but what about the smaller wearable devices that are pushing boundaries and will be bringing us all something a little more unique over the next year?

Well, the winner in the Wearables to Watch category is Moov. Wearable fitness fans have been eagerly anticipating the launch of the Moov gadget because unlike so many other similar devices on the market, this wearable promises to actually do something genuinely useful with all of the data it tracks and collects. In our eyes the Moov was a clear winner because it interprets information about your workouts and provides you with real-time ‘coaching,’ telling you when and how to adjust your form, shorten your stride or work on your balance. It also handles multiple activities, too: strap it to your wrist when you swim, your shoes when your run and your arm when you’re perfecting your yoga poses. We believe the future of fitness wearables will be all about providing us with data that actually means something, rather than making us feel terrible about only taking 300 steps each day!

You can pre-order a Moov for $79.95 from the Moov website.

Honorable mentions:

The NFC Ring

The clever NFC Ring uses NFC tech to unlock your phone just by tapping on it. And if you have an NFC-enabled door lock, they can do the same for your house. We love this new piece of kit, but feel its lacking in the looks department and needs a bit of a makeover before it becomes a household must-have.

Cuff

Designed to look like stylish jewellery, Cuff (read our announcement of Cuff) is a fashion wearable with notification and safety features. Get buzzed every time you get a call or text, and press the jewellery in different ways for different functions, including notifying friends and family if you’re in trouble. There are so many wearables entering the market at the moment promising to do everything Cuff can do that we were reluctant to name it as our winner. However, it certainly looks the most wearable of the bunch, so we’re interested in seeing whether this stylish-looking device will be able to outshine the rest in the future.

Olive Bracelet

The Olive bracelet sits on your wrist, tracking physical indicators of stress like changes in heart rate, reactions in your skin, and trends in temperature, as well as understanding your lifestyle through your calendar. It’s fascinating to see a wearable being used to track and help us manage stress and we can’t wait to see what the team achieves in the future. But for now this area feels far too much like unchartered water and many of our team weren’t sure whether extra notifications to tell us we’re stressed will really help calm us down in the long run.

Well done to our winner – we can’t wait to get Moov-ing next year.