The Uno Noteband brings speed reading to your wrist

We’re at the point where the market is saturated with wearable devices that all do pretty much the same thing. So if you’re someone developing a wearable gadget, how would you make it stand out? The folks behind the Uno Noteband certainly think speed reading will help things along.

At first glance the Uno Noteband is just like any other wearable device. It links to your phone for notification alerts and it functions as a fitness tracker. The difference is that it’s designed to display your notifications one word at a time using Spritz’s speed reading technology. This negates the need for a scrolling display and can hep you read much faster (Spritz’s software is designed to go up to 700 word per minute).

The Uno is capable of receiving the notification alerts you’d expect, as well as connecting to Xbox Live, the Playstation Network, and Steam to let you know what’s going on there. If you’re more interested in the fitness side of things, the Uno syncs with Apple’s HealthKit and Google Fit to store and visualise your data.

To get one you have to pledge $84/£54 to the Indiegogo campaign, with the developers aiming to have the Uno released by April. It doesn’t seem like such a bad deal either, since you get an easy-to-use device with an OLED screen and a five day battery life. Plus, improving your reading speed will help you blast through your backlog of books in no time.

Tom Pritchard