New Wearable Technology: The return of Nokia: buy Withings and launches of smartwatch and e-health

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

The return of Nokia: buy Withings and launches of smartwatch and e-health – Il Sole 24 Ore

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This article was published April 26, 2016 at 12:39 hours.
the last change is the April 26, 2016 at 17:05.

Nokia takes another step to return to being a consumer electronics. With 170 million euro buy the Withings French, one of the most interesting realities in wearable, the protagonist from some editions of the CES in Las Vegas (this year its Bluetooth thermometer to test the temperature of the children was awarded one of the innovation awards). Withings has a wide range of products e-health: monitoring tools, thermometers, scales, blood pressure monitors, control monitor for homes and children, and the software side, is building a digital platform to help people make more informed decisions on their well-being.

There is also one smartwatch that has the aesthetic features of a regular analog clock but actually using sensors behaves like a mix between Apple watch and Fitbit, except that the result is not see the display on the wrist, which is not digital, but on your smartphone via app. This way you can virtually forget to recharge the battery. Withings, founded in 2008, has its headquarters in Issy-les-Moulineaux, France, and employs about 200 people.

The French company will be part of Nokia Technologies division. From 2013, the year in which the Finns have sold to Microsoft’s mobile division, Nokia is primarily a company network infrastructure and strengthened a year ago by buying Alcatel-Lucent (acquisition which was followed by several staff cuts). Here the division, with maps, was instead sold for US $ 3 billion to a consortium of German auto manufacturers.

The agreements with Microsoft Nokia predicted that the mark was not used on new mobile devices until 2016. The renewed ambitions in the consumer world could lead to an Android smartphone later this year, difficult challenge in such a market competitive. More interesting is the path that is undertaking in wearable and IoT. Up to now the return to the device saw OZO, camera for virtual reality, and the N1 Android tablet for the Chinese market.