The Top 10 Tech Brands to Watch in 2015
Out of the many categories we cover at HYPEBEAST, technology has by far the most wide-ranging
Out of the many categories we cover at HYPEBEAST, technology has by far the most wide-ranging impact on our contemporary lifestyles. The world is undoubtedly in the midst of an unprecedented and exciting leap in many technological fields that have arguably fallen short of their potential — until now, this failure was made all the more painful when compared to the encouraging vision Hollywood laid out for the year 2015 in the classic film Back to the Future II. Things look set to change this year – if the slow but steady progress that has been consciously made in the last half-decade is indicative of anything, it is that all the pieces are now in place for us to enter The Future with vigor this year, all the while clad head-to-toe in wearables aglow, flanked by drones and self-driving electric cars.
However, the tech brands and products featured here are all but bombastic in their approach. Rather, it is with measured optimism and a wariness (or wisdom) borne from the experience of overstepping what they could actually deliver in the past, that has led to these brands having spent precisely the last few years in seemingly endless rounds of beta testing and developers’ releases. It also doesn’t hurt that a general nostalgic yearning for simpler times has infused contemporary tech designs with graceful, humanistic design elements tried and tested by the passage of time, far from the garish blinking lights and over-engineered world envisioned in the aforementioned film. As such, we present 10 brands below that are on the cusp of revolutionizing their respective fields in tech this year, both subtly and on the scale of continents. In reaching a ripe stage of maturation in their product development, 2015 will reward the tech companies chosen here for their thorough approach thus far – a reward the world in general will also reap.
Be sure to also check out the rest of our 2015 predictions at The HYPEBEAST Watchlist.
Motorola
Once a pioneer in the nascent mobile phone industry, Motorola has come back with a vengeance, having been rebranded and restructured via an acquisition by Google, and now a subsidiary of Lenovo. Its current smartphone and wearables lineup has been called one of the most consistently strong product ranges within its class — the flagship second-generation Moto X‘s adherence to an untampered version of Android has won over critics and consumers with its refreshing lack of bloatware, seamless user experience, customizable exterior, and the speed at which system updates are made available. The same winning formula has been translated to lower price points with the Moto G and E, as well as upsized to become the Google Nexus 6. On the wearables front, Motorola changed the conversation surrounding the aesthetics of smartwatches with its beautifully rounded face and Google Now experience, although poor battery life hampered its marketability. With a solid, dependable range of offerings, Motorola is set for mainstream success to compete with the likes of HTC and Samsung in the coming year.
Withings
Better known as a home electronics brand, Withings surprised the tech world with the introduction of the Activité, which on first impression resembles a tastefully designed Swiss-made wristwatch. In reality, the Activité gracefully combines a classic analog watch face with the innards of an activity tracker, thus pushing the envelope in this novel, yet grounded reinterpretation of a smartwatch. However, realizing that the Activité’s $450 USD price tag was limiting its desirability, Withings unveiled the more democratically-minded Activité Pop at CES 2015, which – priced at $150 USD – is sure to do its part in pushing the general populace towards widespread adoption of fitness trackers, all within a beautiful, ingenious package. Otherwise, Withings’ products for the home include a home HD video monitor with speaker and air quality sensors, a light and sound sleep sensor, and a smart scale among others, all combined into one domestic ecosystem through the Health Mate app. Through this ecosystem, the user is able to formulate an all-encompassing and holistic view of their lifestyle and its effects on their health, to a degree never possible before. Here’s to hoping that 2015 will see the company continuing to innovate with its products at even lower price points.
Slack
Seemingly coming out of nowhere in early 2014, team messaging tool Slack has experienced a meteoric rise to tech startup stardom, marked by its announcement in recent months that it has garnered $120 million USD in funding from big-name Silicon Valley investors and venture capitalists, which ups its valuation to over $1 billion USD. While upon first glance Slack seems like an unassuming, albeit slick chat room, the beauty of the product lies in its mission to simplify your work life, which means bringing all your fragmented communications across 65 supported platforms like email, Google Hangouts, Skype and Twitter under one roof (with plans for 250). Made all the more powerful with its deep search function and integration of web services like Google Docs, Dropbox and Asana, Slack is definitely not resting on its laurels, announcing at the end of January its plans to add video chat, voice chat and screen sharing via the acquisition of teleconferencing company Screenhero. With all its ambitious designs for the future, don’t be surprised when Slack arrives in a workplace near you in 2015.
Xiaomi
Possibly the largest smartphone brand that you’ve never heard of, China’s Xiaomi has virtually no market penetration in the West, yet can claim a yearly revenue in 2014 of $12 billion USD and sales of 61 million phones – a 227 percent increase from phones sold in 2013. While it has been blamed repeatedly for profiting from its blatant ripoffs of Apple products, Xiaomi has pricked up the ears of many a tech observer around the world with the release of the Mi Note, a direct competitor to the premium offerings of heavyweights Apple and Samsung, while boasting a much lower price point. It also seems to mark a new direction for the company away from copying directly from Apple, which hopefully will translate financially into market share within the domestic Chinese market. Single-handedly changing Chinese perception of homegrown cool, prepare to hear much more about this company in the coming months.
LINE
It cannot be denied that the once-humble messaging app is coming into its own, as it becomes the dominant form of communication over traditional phone calls and SMS, and even eclipsing social media channels in some spheres. Leading the charge is LINE, a messaging app by the Japanese arm of internet company Naver Corporation, which boasts 560 million users worldwide. Its huge success, especially in Japan and the Asia-Pacific region, has led to its monetization in the form of direct brand-to-user advertisements via private messages, which has proven to be more effective in user engagements than Facebook or Twitter. LINE has proven to be such a successful revenue stream, in fact, that the spinoff Line Corporation has cashed in on the app’s cast of adorable mascot characters who feature prominently as chat stickers, by placing them front and center in everything from paid sticker packs to standalone selfie apps, and games to and physical toy product lines. This comes alongside more practical apps such as dictionaries, phone customization apps, utility apps, and a burgeoning mobile payments service. In short, look for LINE to take over your phone in the very near future.
Wink
Borne out of a partnership between crowdsourcing platform Quirky and GE, Wink made tech headlines in mid-2014 when it brought to attention the last great hurdle to widespread adoption of the smart home — that is, the medley of competing standards between manufacturers of connected appliances that prevent them from becoming, well, truly connected. Beginning with the Hub, a module that translated disparate connectivity technologies to communicate with a single smartphone app, Wink rolled out the Relay last September — a control panel that installs into the place of a light switch for a physical nerve center to control your smart home from. What this means for the consumer is the ability to (finally) control the entire house with a single tap, whether it be simultaneously opening the blinds and turning the radio on as a wake-up call, or setting the garage door to open and the lights to turn on when you arrive home from work. As such, by giving the consumer confidence to buy products as they see fit rather than investing in an entire system at once, Wink may have unlocked the potential of the smart home trend to take off in 2015.
Microsoft
While Microsoft has reestablished itself as a relevant player among the tech giants over the years with concerted pushes on the desktop and mobile fronts (and in the process creating an entirely new UX paradigm with Metro), it was not until the recent unveiling of Windows 10 that the company has reached the verge of a complete renaissance in its trajectory. The key here is consolidation and continuity — Windows 10 reimagines its range of devices into one consistent user experience, with the same patterns of interaction across the board. Deep voice control integration via Cortana, as well as the reintroduction of the familiar and much-missed Start menu, show Microsoft’s willingness to reach into both the past and the future to meet its consumers halfway. The most exciting development, however, was the announcement of the HoloLens alongside Windows 10 – a holographic goggle headset still in development which, by initial reports, seems to already be formidable in its capabilities at this early stage. In its more grounded ventures, Microsoft’s Lumia, Surface and Xbox product lines have also performed strongly in 2015’s second quarter, with much more room for growth this year.
Leap Motion
Motion control still sounds foreign and futuristic, but in 2015, no one does it better than Leap Motion. The company manufactures computer hardware sensors that aims to replace your mouse, by allowing users to control their computer with gestures in 3D space. With near-zero latency, virtual reaction to your physical action is seamless and immediate. Its flagship product is the Leap Motion Controller, a small device that lies on your desk and above which your actions are translated into points, waves, reaches and grabs on your computer. Leap Motion is also foraying into virtual reality with the development of a mount on the Oculus Rift for a fully immersive virtual reality experience, by eliminating the use of game controllers and allowing you to directly interact with the virtual environment. With the controller module being integrated into desktop keyboards and laptops now, look to Leap Motion to integrate motion control into your next laptop in the near future.
Oculus
With virtual reality a much maligned technology, with multiple attempts to make it feasible for mainstream use ultimately falling short, the Oculus Rift is the first viable attempt at making VR a widespread reality. With its small size, low price, high availability, immersive stereoscopic experience and impressive rendering technologies, the Rift has won legions of fans, but has so far only been available in limited quantities as developers’ kits. However, Oculus received a massive injection from a $2 billion USD acquisition by Facebook in July 2014 — since then, the release of bridging iterations of the VR headset, such as the Samsung Gear VR, have demonstrated Oculus’ determination to bring virtual reality to the mainstream. Due to be released sometime this year, look for the Oculus Rift to not only change the way we game, but the way in which we interact with the world.
Tesla
Often hailed as the Apple of the automotive industry, Tesla has shaken up the traditional notion of electric cars as staid and unsexy with its covetable reinterpretations, in the process revolutionizing car manufacturing processes. Having identified and addressed the problem of the appearance of the electric car with the sleek curves of recent models, Tesla CEO Elon Musk also targeted concerns with battery life with a lithium-ion battery design in the Model S that spans the entire chassis of the Tesla car for maximum capacity, while improving upon the user experience immensely with the addition of a singular generous touchscreen built into the center console. Innovations in the car assembly process have allowed Tesla to slash the prices of its vehicles to a level affordable to the average consumer, while its competitors remain prohibitively expensive. With the Model X slated to begin deliveries the the third quarter of 2015, here’s to hoping that Tesla will be the one to successfully kickstart the trend towards electric cars, in the coming year and thereafter.
