Check out getinPulse.com for more info about the world’s first BlackBerry-connected smartwatch

Thanks for stopping by! We’re glad you’re interested in inPulse. If you have any questions about the world’s first BlackBerry-connected smartwatch, feel free to drop us a line at info@allerta.ca or post a comment right here. We read every single email and comment. If an important question comes up, we’ll try to feature them right here in this post, so keep your eyes peeled.

Okay, Eric from Allerta here to answer some questions:

1. BBM: Plans are in the works to get this integrated. What do you want to see? Just that you’ve got a BBM message waiting, or the full text? Don’t you think this might get a slight bit annoying? We are also have plans to disable alerts while you’re already using your BlackBerry, but so we might be able to limit BBM message alerts that way.

2. Voice call answering will not be supported…no speaker or microphone on the watch!

3. Timers and Alarms will be supported at launch. More info on other features will come soon!

4. No touch screen, sorry…

5. Bluetooth works to a max of 8-10m, but this is completely dependent on your house/office/wall situation

6. YES! You will receive an alert when your phone is out of range. But again, this is customizable and you can disable this alert.

Follow the ongoing evolution of inPulse. Catch up on what you missed from our first post.

May 2009 - New prototypes! The first electrically complete inPulse prototypes roll off the assembly line from our early prototype manufacturing partner. Keep in mind that the following two pictures are of early stage prototypes; the actual watch is crafted of high grade metal and glass, not rapid prototyped 3D plastics!

We started experimenting with different user interface designs at this point. We can’t say too much about this, but make sure you sign up for our mailing list at www.getinPulse.com or follow our progress on this blog/twitter/facebook. You’ll want to hear about some of the crazy things we’re planning to do with inPulse!

July 2009 - With the financial support of Ontario Centres for Excellence, Allerta partnered with the Advanced Interface Design Lab and Professor Catherine Burns at the University of Waterloo. Her team studied inPulse and designed an extremely creative one-button interface that meshes perfectly with the main purpose of inPulse: to provide you with instant, handsfree access to incoming messages from your smartphone. Check out some of the sample screenshots below. The final interface may be modified before final release.

August 2009 - inPulse is getting closer to completion. In order to ramp up for production, we switched to working with an overseas manufacturing partner with experience in watch casings. Final renderings and technical drawings are created.

September 2009 - Pre-production prototypes began to arrive from the manufacturer. Brass was selected as an easy prototyping material to work with initially. Here’s an example of a pre-production watch case milled out of brass. It’s missing the glass lens, but gives a good idea of the dimensions of the watch.

Current status - Launch day (today) coincides with the roll-out of Ontario’s new cellphone driving ban. inPulse is designed to be a handsfree method of checking your BlackBerry. Perfect timing, eh!

You can get in line to purchase one of the very first inPulse smartwatches right away. Just head on over to www.getinPulse.com and put your name down! It’s only $149, what a deal!

inPulse started about a year ago. A group of engineers from the heart of BlackBerry country (Waterloo, Ontario) decided to invent the coolest BlackBerry accessory possible. Tired with constantly missing calls on their BlackBerry while bicycling or running, they envisioned a device that would give instant alerts to new incoming messages and calls.

This is a short summary of our development process…

Dec 2008 - First ‘real’ working prototype is created. Earlier prototypes exist…but let’s just say they’re not as ‘camera-ready.’ While inPulse v0.1 still has its fair share of electrical tape, it was the first version to actually work! It connected via Bluetooth to a custom-built BlackBerry daemon running in the background which sniffed for incoming emails, SMS and calls. This was the last prototype that we were able to hand solder. Micro BGA components are not hacker-friendly.

Jan 2009 - As you can plainly judge by our previous prototype, we were in dire need of a great industrial designer. We found our guy in January, a graduate of Carleton University’s School of Industrial Design. Instead of thinking like engineers (build, build, build…test) we started thinking about which type of people will use inPulse and how could we make that experience spectacular. We iterated through several levels of design. It all started from this type of sketching, though!

April 2009 - Our designs were heavily influenced by current BlackBerry trends. We wanted to create an accessory that complemented new BlackBerry devices, like the Bold and the then-rumoured Javelin. We decided to create a sleek metal and glass watch, featuring a custom band that could be easily replaced with any standard 22mm watch strap. In order to get a feel for the device, we made 3D prototypes of several sub-designs and tried them on!

To be continued!

We’ve appeared in a number of publications and had success in business plan competitions over the past few months. Here are a few of the highlights to check out:

• Back in October 2008, Eric pitched our concept during Entrepreneurship Week at Communitech and took home the top prize. The Record published a nice article about it, and the University of Waterloo’s Daily Bulletin caught wind of it too.

• In November 2008, the Allerta team entered the Entrepreneurship Challenge through CBET (Centre for Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology) and took third place. Read about it in the University of Waterloo’s Daily Bulletin here.

• Also in November 2008 was a demo of the VeloCity Mobile+Media Incubator projects. inmedia mentioned us in their blog, and so did Global Nerdy in their blog.

• Earlier this month, we were runner-up in the LaunchPad 50k Venture Creation Competition technology stream. Exchange Magazine covered it here.

We’ll be heading to Toronto this week to show off our prototypes.  Come talk to us and check them out for yourself! We’d love to hear what you think. We’ll be stationed at the VeloCity Mobile+Media Incubator booth Monday and Tuesday at the OCE Discovery Exhibition in the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.