While leaders in smartphone technologies Apple and Samsung are touting ion-strengthened glass screens and 4K displays on their devices, a group of four visionaries believe the next revolution is about to happen on the user's own skin.
A four-man team from France has come up with the idea for a bracelet that can be used to turn the wearer's arm into a smartphone screen. While the bracelet is still in its concept stage, the team already has a name for it. The Cicret bracelet, a slim wristband that resembles the Jawbone Up, projects images into the skin of the wearer using a picoprojector and has a line of eight sensors that detects where the user places his finger.
"With the Cicret Bracelet, you can make your skin your new touchscreen," says the Cicret team on its website. "Read your mails, play your favorite games, answer your calls, check the weather, find your way... Do whatever you want on your arm."
A promotional video made for Cicret, which has amassed nearly 4 million views on YouTube, shows the bracelet, if it ever becomes a real product, in action. With a simple twist of the wrist, users can turn on Cicret which is connected to a mobile device via the Cicret app, also still in development.
The video shows users swiping, tapping and pinching the skin on their forearms to read emails, play games and view maps as well as take a call on their connected smartphone by tapping their forearm to turn on the speaker phone features. Apparently, the bracelet is also going to be waterproof, as the video shows one user checking his email while taking a bath.
"The video we put online is an illustration of what our Cicret bracelet could allow users to do," says Guillaume Pommier, Cicret co-founder and in charge of press and marketing.
The Cicret, whose prototype is still in the works, will also have a vibrator, an accelerator, USB port and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, according to the Cicret website.
The team at Cicret is currently raising funds to make their vision a reality. Currently, Cicret says it needs a total of 1 million euros to develop both the prototype and the Cicret app. As of now, more than 3,200 people have donated to the project. Anyone interested can make donations of any amount through the group's PayPal account instead of a standard crowdfunding campaign.
Pommier says Cicret has opened its own Indiegogo campaign earlier this year. Cicret tried to raise $500,000 to fund its project, but Pommier says the team decided to close the campaign after lukewarm response because they would not be able to deliver pre-ordered prototypes if they were unable to reach their half-a-million-dollar goal.
