Last year, this website had written about how mobile maker BlackBerry was planning to go down the Internet of Things (IoT) road on its path to recovery. We proved correct.
At the 2015CES in Las Vegas, USA, the company showed off two smartphones and also formally announced its intent of getting into the world of wearables and the IoT.
On the wearables front, the beleaguered Canadian firm showed off a version of its BlackBerry Messenger client that runs on Android Wear smart watches.
In a blog post, BlackBerry marketeer Jesse Ariss said, “With BBM for Android Wear, we’ve taken some of the most common BBM activities out of your pocket and onto your wrist.”blog post, BlackBerry marketeer Jesse Ariss said, “With BBM for Android Wear, we’ve taken some of the most common BBM activities out of your pocket and onto your wrist.”
The wrist-mounted BBM client allows users to flip through recent messages, review and accept contact invites from other BBM users, and send canned responses with a few swipes. It will also integrate with Google Now to support sending messages via speech recognition.
BlackBerry had, some time ago, decided to launch a special IoT project called ‘Project Ion’.
This, claimed the mobile telecom company, was a series of measures that would help businesses connect people, devices and machines, and derive value from these connections.
BlackBerry also showed off the Hbox, a new device based on its technologies that Nanthealth, the gadget’s creator, described as “a hub for the Internet of Medical Things.”
The Hbox runs on QNX Neutrino, the real time operating system that BlackBerry recently acquired. Both, the QNX and the BlackBerry data network are core components of the company’s IoT efforts.
But before we get your hopes too high, the company has not yet given the release date for its range of wearables, yet.
For full coverage of #2015CES, click here.
Image Credit: BlackBerry blog
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