Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan recently acknowledged that the company's Nabu wearable tech will not arrive at the end of Q1 2014 as previously reported. Instead, the device will make an appearance towards the end of May. Nabu, if you remember, is the smartband with two OLED screens, one that displays a message and one that displays an icon.
"We heard about the difficulties with other wearables out there causing skin irritations and while we're 100-percent confident that there won't be any problems with the Nabu, we've engaged medical professionals and are running medical tests to make doubly sure that by the time the Nabu gets on your wrists, it is fully certified hypoallergenic," he said.
"We want you guys to wear our device worry-free of skin irritations and the like," he added. "We have always followed our belief of making sure the product is ready for mass use rather than ship a less-than-perfect device, so it is no different with the Nabu."
MORE: Razer Nabu Smartband Video Preview
Users wear the band with the smaller screen facing up and the larger screen facing the floor. As an example, if the wearer receives a call, the top display will show a phone icon, and the bottom screen will display the caller's name. If the caller decides to send a text message, the top icon will revert to the message icon and the bottom screen will scroll through the contents of the message at a user-defined speed.
The public-facing OLED screen notifies users of incoming calls, texts, emails and app updates via icons, and the private screen shows a bit more detail. The band is also capable of collecting data such as location information, bio data feedback (steps walked, distance traveled, stairs climbed, etc.), sleep data, band-to-band communication and much more.
Razer says the Nabu is an open platform, meaning software and hardware developers can use the SDK to update their existing applications to work with Razer's smart band, or develop third party apps from the ground up. Min-Liang Tan points out that the delayed unit is the developer version, not the consumer one.
"The Nabu will launch when it's perfect," he said. "Stay tuned for more updates."
