W|W: The Wearable Weekly – Eating VR for breakfast

Welcome to The Wearable Weekly, your trusted guide to all things wearable tech. If you only have time to read one thing about wearables this week, this is it.

Industry Highlights

Would you like some VR with your morning coffee? Folks in New Zealand who like Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain cereal can finish their bowl and then turn the cereal box into a Cardboard VR headset. Kellogg’s provides everything you need to construct your own VR headset, including an app with 360-degree experiences such as wingsuiting and a downhill mountain bike ride. But if room service is more your breakfast style, not to worry: there is a VR option for you too! Marriott is testing out in-room VR service or “VRoom Service” in partnership with Samsung Electronics. Guests staying at the New York Marriott Marquis in Times Square and the London Marriott Hotel Park Lane can borrow a VR headset for 24 hours to experience some travel videos shot in 360-degrees.

How do you capture a virtual Pokémon in real life? With a wearable of course! At a recent rare press event from The Pokémon Company in Tokyo, the company debuted the Pokémon Go Plus wearable for its new Pokémon Go game. The game is developed by Niantic, who was behind the Google AR game Ingress. The wristband is a Nintendo built Bluetooth device that buzzes and flashes to let you know when there’s a Pokémon nearby.

Go beyond steps with Quitbit, the wearable that will tell you will die. Mount Pleasant Group joined forces with Toronto agency UNION to create a marketing campaign featuring a wearable concept “Quitbit” that keeps track of your activity and uses this information to tell you how much longer you have left until your body “quits”. Although this is just a creative viral marketing campaign, Quitbit does a great job at portraying a possible future where wearable data could give us better insight into how our actions directly impact our overall health.

Statistics & Forecast

Apple Watch app catalogue now over 10,000 (MobileSyrup)

Only 20% of Fitbit owners intend to switch to Apple Watch, according to Morgan Stanley July Survey, down from 29% in May (Barrons)

Device Announcements

Runtastic debuts Moment smartwatch (Apple Insider)

Android Wear and Moto 360 launching in China (9to5 Google)

Apple debuts new Apple Watch colors and straps including (PRODUCT) Red band (MobileSyrup)

Apple partners with Hermès to offer Apple Watch Hermès in three styles (Quartz)

Moto 360 now available for pre-order at Best Buy Canada (MobileSyrup)

Narrative Clip 2 gets video before it ships (CNET)

Razer open-source VR developer kit and mice available in October (VentureBeat)

GoPro is now selling its 16-camera VR rig Odyssey to professionals (The Verge)

Pokémon Company and Niantic debut Pokémon Go Plus wearable or Pokémon Go (The Verge)

Major Milestones

watchOS 2 for Apple Watch will hit devices September 16 (MobileSyrup)

Pebble rolls out firmware update with “Quiet Time” and new standby features (MobileSyrup)

Native Facebook Messenger and GoPro apps announced for Apple Watch (MobileSyrup)

Google and Zac Posen partner to put an LED dress on the runway at NY Fashion Week (Mashable)

Marriott testing in-room VR service (Variety)

Rebecca Minkoff releases VR headset (VR Focus)

Kelloggs offers consumers the ability to turn their Nutri-Grain cereal box into Cardboard VR headset (The Verge)

Rumours

HTC reportedly working on a round Android Wear smartwatch under code name Halfbeak (MobileSyrup)

Google may be working on self-adjusting smart glasses (Daily Mail)

Samsung Gear S2 pricing expected to be around Apple Watch Sport (9to5 Google)

Samsung may extend support for the new S2 smartwatch to iOS (BGR)