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Charmed Announces Crusoe-based Linux Wearable

Posted by timothy on from the gargoyles-take-heed dept.

isdale writes: "Charmed Technology, founded by MIT Media Lab graduates, announced what it claims is the fastest available wearable computer -- 800Mhz Crusoe TM5800 processor. The CharmedIT comes standard with a 266 Mhz Pentium MMX for about $2k. The Crusoe upgrade costs another $500. The OS is extra ($250 for RedHat or Debian), as is the display, input device, carrying case, battery, charger, usable application ... if that isn't enough options, you can also get a DIY kit."

9 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. Prices please? by Rampant+Atrocity · · Score: 3, Funny

    The Crusoe upgrade costs another $500. The OS is extra ($250 for RedHat or Debian)

    *cough* *sputter*

    1. Re:Prices please? by tenman · · Score: 4, Informative

      Note: I reply here because I looked down the threads, and there are no real answers to the "who would buy this" questions

      Before you go any further, realize that this device is built for commercial applications. This is for a nurse that needs to know who and where all of her critical care beds are. This is for the contruction worker that is out on side, and can look at the land and see a 3D outline of the building and can punch the earth in the right spots. Devices like this could even be good for museums who want to give ppl an interactive tour.

      The only people who would buy a box like this are the people who can use these boxes to make (or save) money with them.

      Also note, that in the 70's few really saw the use of having a whole floor of your building dedicated to bulky computer, and almost nobody could afford one.

      Think about this as you read all the I337 H4z0r'z post about "who would buy..."

    2. Re:Prices please? by tftp · · Score: 3, Informative
      Adding to tenman's comment above. They are competing with Xybernaut - who charges even more obscene prices for the very similar hardware. Indeed, this is a wearable commercial market, not geek's market. Any geek can make very similar wearable from any PDA, like Zaurus.

      Strength of this offering is in industrial grade ruggedness, modularity and completeness - businesses are not likely to buy a one-of-a-kind wearable from a geek next door; they want volume, reliability, FCC, CE and UL approvals, repairs and support, and much more - something that only a stable business can offer.

  2. Reminder of Osbourne by standards · · Score: 3, Insightful
    For some reason, this very much reminds me of the old Osborne "portable" computer.

    At the time, it was pretty darn cool. But soon we laughed hard at the people who bought one.

    See Osborne History

  3. Finally. by Soko · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Here's an OEM that shows the true cost of Windows 2000. Directly beneath the RedHat price is the price of Windows 2000 pre-loaded - $450, which means it's $200 more.

    This is likely an off-the-shelf, non OEM price (since our Redmond frinds aren't too kind to PC makers who don't feature thier OS exclusively)

    Nice to see.

    Soko

    --
    "Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
  4. Charmed? by Nathdot · · Score: 3, Funny

    Charmed Announces Crusoe-based Linux Wearable???

    I liked the episode last season better, where the three sisters fought the Gnu Debian C# compiler.

    :)

  5. Why not.... by pennsol · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Put one of these http://www.theregus.com/content/54/24709.html in your pocket i'm sure it will run your favorite flavor of *nix and it's half the price..with the docking station...

    --

    Just Limin' Mon

  6. Why do this..? by zeno_2 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    From what I can see this is a company that is just starting up. This thing that they are selling, in my opinion, is pretty overpriced. With the money that it took to buy all the accessories, you could probably make yourself for cheaper. I hope they do well, but I don't see the masses of people buying any of those, let along a single person.

    I would do something like this:

    Make a wearable computer for lets say.. people that stock large amounts of stuff in warehouses. Would be pretty handy to have the full inventory at the press of a button, without having to look away. Make a few of these units, approach some large company who have a lot of these workers, and see if you can get a few of them to use it for a few days to see if its useful. It probably will, or they didn't make it right. Do this to a few different companies/different markets, and you have quite a base of users out there, and you then market it to the public, using the above examples of how good it works.

    I read thru their website a bit, didn't really see much of any of that going on. Like I said, I hope they do well, but I don't think they are doing it right if they want it to take off..

  7. This is open hardware! by jpatokal · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I'm seeing a lot of griping here about how they dare to charge $250 for installing Linux and how the entire system is overpriced -- well hey, build your own then. The hardware design is open source and available right here, and the full list of commercial components used to build the kit is available here.

    Also, the $6000 price tag is not particularly unreasonable for a commercial wearable computer, eg. Xybernaut's stuff isn't much cheaper. Last year I had the job of purchasing a wearable for our lab -- we almost went with the earlier model of CharmIT, but in the end decided that we needed a bit more power and expandability, so we rolled our own. Had the Crusoe version existed then, we quite probably would have chosen it.

    Cheers,
    -j.