Gadgets

That phrase has basically become an in-joke here at The Verge, because it’s so obvious that the technology industry has reached an inflection point. The smartphone has dominated attention for so long and spawned so many other industries that it felt that’s all there would be. Everybody had a one-track mind, even if that track has led us into beautiful and strange new vistas.

But eventually, the track hit the coast, and now we’re looking for where to go next. We spent so many years creating the pieces that made the smartphone possible, but it turns out those pieces can make so many more things — things that we’re just now beginning to figure out. Tablets came first, but now there are electric skateboards, intelligent thermostats, flying cameras, virtual reality headsets, and wrist-mounted computers.

Gadgets are back. And they are messy, complicated, and sometimes terrible. But they’re also wonderful; full of potential that everyone can see and nobody has achieved. That’s why we are launching Circuit Breaker, because tracking all the strange new things happening in technology day-to-day is going to be a blast. We don’t have to wait for the slick and integrated Next Big Thing, we get to watch it get built together in real time.

But before we do, we wanted to see where we’re at before we embark toward where we’re going. All aboard.

Wearables

The notion of wearing technology on our bodies is not a new one; you could even argue that the smartphone falls into the category of wearable tech, since a lot of us treat our smartphones like an appendage. But wearable tech goes much deeper — in some cases, literally — and much weirder than the common smartphone.

A smartwatch that tracks biometrics and also pings you when your Uber has arrived and also pays for your overpriced coffee? Check. A "smart" sports bra, or a pair of pants that can measure electromyography, something that usually requires multi-thousand-dollar equipment? Check. WiFi-connected glasses (or headsets) that display contextual digital information about the world around you? Check. A "patch" that can measure UV exposure, unlock your hotel room door, or act as an interactive tattoo on your skin? Yup. A magnetic chip implanted in your finger that lets you perform some pretty great party tricks? We’ve done that.

Wearables are trying to do almost everything you can imagine

To be sure, some of these are fringe cases. When most people think about wearables right now, they’re mainly thinking Fitbit, or maybe Apple Watch. The former over the past eight years has helped pioneer the whole connected-fitness movement, and became a bellwether in an industry that still offers surprisingly little sales data: once Fitbit — the Kleenex of fitness trackers — went public in 2015, there was suddenly a benchmark for success. Apple Watch, while still widely acknowledged as a first-gen device, has achieved a cachet that few other smartwatches could.

Meanwhile, Google’s Android Wear operating system is showing up on everything from blinged-out Huawei smartwatches to dedicated surf watches. There’s also Pebble, the upstart that turned a successful Kickstarter campaign into a series of smartwatches that are way better than something you’d expect a tiny company to be able to create.