VELDT launches ultimate luxury watch that keeps you connected — but focused!
The next generation of smartwatches are set to transform consumers’ lives. However, staying connected 24x7 is a blessing and a curse at the same time.
Whilst smartwatches jam-packed with features have undoubtedly increased our productivity, ever-present connectedness seems to be having a troubling impact on our daily life. Jin Nonogami, CEO of VELDT, believes weaving constant availability into our conception of private space negatively affects human mental health. ‘Urban citizens are too stressed by such a hyper-connected environment and disturbed by noisy emails and non-stop alerts’, he says. In order to reduce chances of looking into smartphone screens without any purpose, Jin came up with a new concept to create luxury smartwatches different from typical IoT devices.
VELDT smart watch has a LED interface embedded in the analog watch dial with short text display. Only important notifications are displayed — Jin’s personal priorities include messages from his family and project members’ updates. Information is shown intuitively to let users see the next schedule or weather forecast at a glance.
‘You can access your smartphone only when it is important and this will give you more time to look around the real world. The product name “SERENDIPITY” express the capability we are losing so fast today and most of us would like to get it back’.
Unlike typical smart watches, luxury VELDT watches are designed for watch lovers, not for gadgets fans. Jin strives to provide a great quality and long life for his product that will ensure a positive feedback from global customers. So far, manufacturing has been done in Gunma prefecture by skilled Japanese artisans who polish stainless steel for the cases, while high quality watchbands are brought from other areas of Japan, like Kyoto and Okayama. Considering European materials, Milanese mesh comes from Germany, rubber from Austria, and leather from France and Italy. ‘Our makers are providing bands to luxury high end watchers who aim for the best- in-class’, proudly announces Jin.
On these days, understanding the importance of hardware and software integration attributes to a buzzword of IoT. However, as venture capitalists tend to invest in software and not hardware, Jin found it challenging to raise funds for his startup.
In the last couple of years, VELDT was successful at securing funding from venture capital companies, as well as other private angel investors.
And since last September, VELDT became part of MBC Shisaku Fund portfolio startups, abd Kyoto Shisaku Net will be providing prototyping support for the next rounds of their product development.
According to 2017 wearables report, the revenue from the global smart watch market will increase up to US$ 30,811 million by the end of 2027, representing a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 16.6% when comparing 2017 to 2025.
As the first stage of launching a new brand is done, VELDT plans to expand its business channels and collaborating with partners’ network. ‘We are seeking more sophisticated materials to fit to our body and more fashionable ways to use new technologies’, says Jin. Not only has he launched a successful business, but also turned the knowledge he gained along the way into a book titled ‘How to create IoT products for services’. Working on the IoT product development, he discovered that Japan is blessed with human resources to create IoT products and services. There are skillful electronic engineers and artisans, especially in the area of Kyoto.
‘I want to inspire Japanese people to challenge hardware and software, digital and analog, design and technology integration. I’m a workaholic and I like my job’, confesses Jin.
