Hug Innovations unveils Hug smartwatch built on Microsoft Azure

NEW DELHI: Hug Innovations, an Indian technology start-up, announced the launch of its gesture control enabled Hug Smartwatch at Future Unleashed, Microsoft’s customer conference in India. The Smartwatch is built on the Microsoft Azure platform and is designed to help users control their gadgets with motion of hands.

Hug is the first Gesture Control Smartwatch in the world to integrate customer experience in Virtual Reality with the Oculus Rift. Hug Smartwatch is built with traditional features for users to make calls, track physical activity and nutrition, play music and find devices. Personal Safety is another feature of Hug with elements such as an SOS button, continuous heart rate monitoring, and fatigue detection. Safety can also be activated with a gesture-based security feature which can also interpret a hand gesture as sign of trouble for situations.  Consumers can also do simple tasks like playing music, dimming room lights, surfing videos online, among others.

Raj Neravati, Founder and CEO, Hug Innovations said, “At Hug Innovations, we constantly endeavor to bridge the gap between humans and technology through our wearable technology products. By embracing our products, one can experience technology that is relevant, meaningful and easy to adapt. Through this new wearable technology, we aim to provide our consumers a touch free experience while interacting with devices, helping make their lives simpler.”

Commenting on the company’s plans, he added, “We plan to reach 2.2 million units of sale over a period of three years and aim to sell 3,50,000 units in the first year”.

Describing the Microsoft Azure platform, he added, “Microsoft Azure is a great platform for start-ups like us as it allows us to work around the platform and customize the same as per our business requirements without costing much. Azure offers integrated tools, unified services and proven solutions that help build faster solutions. Further, Microsoft’s data-centers in India have given us confidence that our consumers’ data which now will be locally stored is safe and secure”.

The Smartwatch enables interactive gestures using proprietary algorithms that fuse data from High Resolution 9 axis IMU (3Axis Accelerometer-3AxisGyroscope –3Axis Magnetometer) sensors. With a 1.6-inch, 240x240 pixels, Transflective LCD display protected by Asahi Glass, the watch runs on the Nucleus RTOS operating system, based on the MediaTek MT2502C system-on-chip which is optimized for power and performance.

MediaTek Labs has built a platform LinkIt, which enables IOT customers with faster time to market. Hug Innovations has built a sleek (11.2 mm thickness) watch, weighing 46 grams, using MediaTek MT2502.

“Hug smartwatch has been developed in India with support of MediaTek Labs Partner Connect, our supply chain partner program, and we are proud to have been part of that journey. It’s our belief that that this watch’s unique features such as security and gesture recognition will make the Indian consumer’s daily life simpler, smarter and more connected. We look forward to supporting more IoT startups in India go from idea to commercial reality,” said Ashish Bedekar, Head of MediaTek Labs, India.

The Hug smartwatch is compatible with Android, iOS, Windows devices and uses standard Bluetooth 4.0 connection to pair with devices. It comes with 2GB built-in storage and 128MB RAM.