Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Addressing my Poor Cell Phone Etiquette


The mantra "The User is Not Like Me" sometimes makes me wish the user was like me so that products would be designed to fit my strange behavior. One of these strange behaviors is that I always have my cell phone on vibrate, no matter if I am in a quiet environment or not. I usually have my cell phone in my purse (sometimes in my pocket), and I don't have a landline phone at home. Needless to say, I miss probably 90% of my calls, and this includes the important one. While I find that my phone's vibrate setting is loud enough to wake me up in the morning, I frequently miss incoming calls even when the phone is in my pocket. This mainly happens when I'm on the go- either walking around or on my bike.

At last, I have decided to do my friends a favor and try to address my problem of frequent missed calls. I Googled "cell phone call notification bluetooth wristband" and found out about two products: BlueQ and the LM959. This reminds me again of why I love Google- you can think of something you'd like to design, and chances are if you google for it, you will find it already exists.

These two products are designed for the same function: they vibrate to let you know when you are recieving an incoming call. Each device communicates with your cell phone via bluetooth. You need to recharge them with your computer via a USB adaptor. The BlueQ looks more comfortable, and you can create your own skins for it with a downloadable template. The LM959 looks like it sounds- very high tech. Because of its design, I would not want to wear the LM959. Ideally, I would like something that was made out of soft fabric that I could easily attrach underneath an existing bracelet. I wear a lot of cuff bracelets, and this type of detachable design would easily mesh with my accessories.

While I like the BlueQ's aesthetics better than the LM959, I'm not sure when it will be out on the market. A few websites say "later this month" but that was back in July 2007. I emailed BlueQ; I'm hoping they will let me evaluate one.

2 comments:

La Chounie said...

Have you considered wearing your cell phone on a belt, like a sort batman utility belt? Perhaps this is a fashion faux pas.

Shannon said...

Yes, this is definitely a 'fashion faux pas.' Utility belts are not my style.