A new wearable branded with a familiar fruit is about to take the tech world by storm. No, not the Apple Watch; that’s old news. This is the new generation of wearable technology, the kind that you can eat.
Dole Food Company, the world’s largest producer of fruits and vegetables, has decided to get in the wearable tech business (And why not? I mean, if Will.i.am can do it…). Its entry into the field is the Wearable_Banana. If you’re imagining just a regular banana strapped around a person’s wrist, you nailed it. It’s pretty much exactly that.
The gadget-food hybrid has all the makings of your standard model banana (the banana, the peel) but has been infused with the fitness tracking technology that one would expect from a Fitbit. Behind the yellow casing of the “device,” is a series of ultracompact LEDs that display information like heart rate and lap time. It also provides considerably more potassium than most wearables on the market (if eaten).
Wearable_Banana
Runners will also be able to receive encouragement from social media users who tweet their support. The messages will show up on the peel, encouraging them to carry on through their incredibly strange journey of running a marathon with a banana strapped to their wrists. Others can send their support via the Wearabe_Banana website, though they are capped at 20 characters. It’s the first generation model of the device, it has its limitations.
Wearable_Banana
After the race, the users of the Wearable_Banana will be able to eat the device—though it is not suggested to try to digest the electronic parts. Users could opt to not eat the banana and save it for a later race, though if you think the shelf life on most of technology is short, you’ll be sorely disappointed at how little use you get out of the Wearable_Banana before it expires. Of course, it can always be turned into a delicious loaf of LED-illuminated banana bread should it get too mushy.
The creation, which almost assuredly will lead to new questions about just how far the genetically modified food market has gone, will make its debut at the Toyko Marathon on Feb. 22, 2015. Will it mark a new era for wearable technology? No, definitely not. No. Come on, it’s ridiculous.
H/T Runner’s World | Photo via torbakhopper/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
