Charmed Announces Crusoe-based Linux Wearable

isdale writes: "Charmed Technology, founded by MIT Media Lab graduates, announced what it claims is the fastest available wearable computer -- 800Mhz Crusoe TM5800 processor. The CharmedIT comes standard with a 266 Mhz Pentium MMX for about $2k. The Crusoe upgrade costs another $500. The OS is extra ($250 for RedHat or Debian), as is the display, input device, carrying case, battery, charger, usable application ... if that isn't enough options, you can also get a DIY kit."

And for that extra $500?..

[Anonymous Coward]

You get a chip that runs as fast as the Pentium 200 MMX.

Look! I'm cool cuz I run a Transmeta backpack computer! Freaking l337 d00dz!

Finally.

[Soko]

Here's an OEM that shows the true cost of Windows 2000. Directly beneath the RedHat price is the price of Windows 2000 pre-loaded - $450, which means it's $200 more.

This is likely an off-the-shelf, non OEM price (since our Redmond frinds aren't too kind to PC makers who don't feature thier OS exclusively)

Nice to see.

Soko

Why not....

[pennsol]

Put one of these http://www.theregus.com/content/54/24709.html in your pocket i'm sure it will run your favorite flavor of *nix and it's half the price..with the docking station...

Why do this..?

[zeno_2]

From what I can see this is a company that is just starting up. This thing that they are selling, in my opinion, is pretty overpriced. With the money that it took to buy all the accessories, you could probably make yourself for cheaper. I hope they do well, but I don't see the masses of people buying any of those, let along a single person.

I would do something like this:

Make a wearable computer for lets say.. people that stock large amounts of stuff in warehouses. Would be pretty handy to have the full inventory at the press of a button, without having to look away. Make a few of these units, approach some large company who have a lot of these workers, and see if you can get a few of them to use it for a few days to see if its useful. It probably will, or they didn't make it right. Do this to a few different companies/different markets, and you have quite a base of users out there, and you then market it to the public, using the above examples of how good it works.

I read thru their website a bit, didn't really see much of any of that going on. Like I said, I hope they do well, but I don't think they are doing it right if they want it to take off..

This is open hardware!

[jpatokal]

I'm seeing a lot of griping here about how they dare to charge $250 for installing Linux and how the entire system is overpriced -- well hey, build your own then. The hardware design is open source and available right here [charmed.com], and the full list of commercial components used to build the kit is available here [charmed.com].

Also, the $6000 price tag is not particularly unreasonable for a commercial wearable computer, eg. Xybernaut [xybernaut.com]'s stuff isn't much cheaper. Last year I had the job of purchasing a wearable for our lab -- we almost went with the earlier model of CharmIT, but in the end decided that we needed a bit more power and expandability, so we rolled our own [u-tokyo.ac.jp]. Had the Crusoe version existed then, we quite probably would have chosen it.

Cheers,
-j.

remembrance agent; augmented reality

[esnible]

I saw Thad Starner demonstrate a Charmed prototype last year.

I really want one. When the color display becomes affordable I'll buy one.

What makes a wearable computer different from a palm or laptop computer is that you don't have to look away from the real world to see the display. The display appears to float within the real world. Wearable computers have long battery life and keyboards that allow you to type at near full speed while walking.

If you only use your wearable computer to run regular programs or play music it isn't worth the extra money. The only benefit is an extra half hour to do email as you walk to your office.

The target audience for the Charmed kit is people working on wearable-only applications, like the "remembrance agent" or "augmented reality."