There are “smart” versions of everything from watches to light bulbs, to toothbrushes these days, for better or worse. So it shouldn’t be surprising that someone decided the pins you attach to your backpack or shirt could be smarter.
BEAM is a smart button/pin with a 400 x 400 pixel AMOLED display that can show images, slideshows, or even animated GIFs.
You can use a mobile app to upload a picture of a smiley face, peace sign, band name, or just about anything else. And of course, since it’s “smart” there are social features as well.
The $99 smart button also helps justify its price by offering another feature: a panic button.
Press and hold the button for 10 seconds and it’ll send a panic text message and your GPS location to up to 4 people in your emergency contact list. I can’t help but think that in an emergency, a 10-second press might be difficult, but there’s certainly some merit in the idea:
BEAM isn’t the first company to launch a wearable panic button. It’s just kind of nifty to see it hidden in a wearable display that appears to be something else at first glance.
Anyway, back to the social features, you can browse images from other users, follow friends or organizations including schools, social causes, or bands, and share content to social media from BEAM.
The smart button can hold up to 100 “Beams” or images at a time, it has an ambient light sensor to adjust brightness, and it gets between 24-hour and 48 hours of battery life on a charge.
It communicates with your phone via Bluetooth and it’s compatible with Android and iOS.
Is it worth $99? I don’t know. You could probably find a cheap smartwatch with much more functionality for that price these days. But it’s always kind of neat to see someone combining a bunch of existing tech into something that actually seems new.
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