NEX Band from Mighty Cast – modular geek chic smart jewellery

Mention wearable tech these days and you’re more likely to envisage either a smartwatch or some gadgety eyewear. The NEX band is totally different. Could it be called smart jewellery?

Montreal firm Mighty Cast has unveiled the latest in geek chic with the NEX. This hi-tech charm bracelet has five spaces for customisable smart modules.

One module might be set to provide light-up notifications from social networks (colour coded, so Facebook’s notifications would be blue and Snapchat’s would be yellow), while another could be set to activate a special ability in a game you’re playing on your phone. Another might work as a fitness tracker. There are even plans for modules that are merely decorative, like actual jewellery.

The idea is that mods can be changed round and customised as required: you might not need the activity tracker one day, so you could pop in a decorative spacer mod instead.

The Band itself connects to iOS and Android devices via Bluetooth, and Mighty Cast is releasing a software development kit and API so that third-party developers can create their own modules.

Mighty Cast makes no secret about the fact that everyone realises that the modules are collectible and swappable.

The NEX Band is primarily aimed at teens and young adults, and the company wants users to swap mods like Panini stickers, Pogs, Pokemon and the like.

To encourage people to do so, each mod contains a record of which countries it’s been in, how far it’s travelled, how many users’ wrists it’s been worn on and other bits that could possibly be used in a Top Trumps style battle. Each NEX Band is also aware of other nearby NEX Bands, so it can be a way to meet new people too.

Because the mods are hardware devices, NEX Band can fight obsolescence longer than a lot of wearables. After two years your smartwatch will be pretty behind the times – but with the NEX, you can simply pop in a new selection of up-to-date mods.

It certainly looks like modular tech could be the way forward as there’s already Google’s Project Ara smartphone making waves and the NEX Band could well be a part of that future.

The Mighty Cast NEX Band will be available from the autumn, with a price of around US$100 (£60).

Thanks to Ant for letting me know about this 🙂