![]() The process takes heat from your wrist and expels it from the other side of the watch. The whole secret is maintaining a temperature difference between the part of the watch that touches your skin and the part on the other side. And its thermal design is built to harvest the small amount of heat available to the wearable device.īoukai said the outside of the wrist is a bad place to harvest energy because it doesn’t produce nearly as much heat as the head, the bottom of the feet, or even the inside of the wrist. It created more efficient conversion circuitry to power the electronics and charge the internal battery. Matrix Industries engineered its advanced thermoelectric generators to operate with extreme efficiency. ![]() The original model harvested energy from body heat, using a chip with a thermoelectric energy converter. “If you go out for a run, the solar helps take over the power, and so if you use GPS for 45 minutes to an hour, it should be good,” Boukai said. It isn’t that bulky, with a diameter of 44 millimeters. PowerWatch 2 will also integrate third-party fitness platforms like Apple HealthKit and Google Fit, and is water resistant up to 200 meters. ![]() With the introduction of HR and GPS functionality, PowerWatch 2 - and its iOS/Android companion apps - can now provide users with even more useful health and fitness metrics, including pace, distance, steps, sleep, cadence, and what the company calls the most accurate calorie count industrywide. It allows you to leave your smartphone at home. PowerWatch 2 introduces the first full-color LCD display powered by thermoelectric and solar energy, as well as always-on GPS so you can map out your run, hike, or ride. Some of the early interest so far came from individual members of the military, who said they could use the watch while on deployment without having to worry about charging it. “We were able to integrate an amorphous silicon solar cell in the shape of a ring around the watch dial, as part of the display.” ![]() “The main feedback from our first generation is that people wanted more enhanced graphics and other features like GPS, and the solar cell is the way to help with that,” said Boukai. The previously announced PowerWatch is also $200, and PowerWatch X (with notifications) is $280. PowerWatch 2 is available for preorder today, starting at $200 for early bird preorders ($499 at retail). The solar cell brings an increase in power, allowing the PowerWatch 2 to come standard with a completely new set of functions, including features like built-in intelligent heart rate monitoring capabilities, a full-color display, and onboard GPS, said Matrix Industries CEO Akram Boukai, in an interview with VentureBeat. ![]()
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