Former Apple, NASA and Pixar developers launch beautiful Olio smartwatch

By Samantha Murphy Kelly From Mashable

The Apple Watch is a high-tech timepiece from a powerhouse company, but what do you call a smartwatch designed by some of the brightest alum from companies like Google, Pixar, HP, NASA, Movado and, of course, Apple?

Let’s start with the name: the Olio. The sleek smartwatch has a promising advantage of standing out in an increasingly saturated market if it’s all-star team of founders, designers and developers is any indication.

Co-founded by Steven Jacobs, Evan Wilson and AJ Cooper, the San Francisco-based startup is taking on the smartwatch industry with a clear objection: It wants to save you from a notifications nightmare.

Rather than it acting like another smartphone for the wrist, it’s purpose is to filter out distractions and only notify you on important matters (i.e., it won’t distract you).

The Olio’s built-in assistant keeps track of things that matter to you, like your calendar, location and the weather. It also learns your preferences and habits, so it can make better suggestions over time.

And rather than pushing out every notification and update coming your way, Olio packages everything in a series of streams that let you look at what you’ve missed and what’s on your plate for the rest of the day. Like competitors, it’ll let you take phone calls or reply to texts with swipes but also remind you to respond later too.

Building on the “smart home” trend bubbling up across the industry, the Olio can also work as a hub for products like thermostats, lights, garage doors and speakers Building on the “smart home” trend bubbling up across the industry, the Olio can also work as a hub for products like thermostats, lights, garage doors and speakers, so you can tap the watch’s display to control these products. While a lot smartwatches promise this type of functionality is coming, Olio said it will ship with the capabilities when it launches this summer.

Among the other things its doing differently: Olio hasn’t jumped on crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo to gain visibility, nor has it embraced Google’s Android Wear platform like most smartwatches out there (it runs on its own OS).

While the circular look is easy on the eyes and looks more like jewelry than a mini computer, it’s also rugged — it promises to handle soaks in the pool and dust like a champion. It comes with a stainless steel casing, rear crystals and a full color display. The watch starts at $595 for the Olio Steel Collection and the Black Collection version costs $745. Watches can be paired with other straps too, including ones made from leather and steel.

IMAGE: OLIO

For more on this story and video go to: http://mashable.com/2015/03/27/olio-smartwatch/?utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29&utm_cid=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial&utm_medium=feed&utm_source=feedburner&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher