Fasetto’s Link is easily the ugliest wearable at CES, but it’s the only one that puts a solid state drive around your wrist.
The Link carries up to 1TB of storage and serves your files to nearby devices over Wi-Fi. Users will have access to their files through a Web-based client or through native apps for iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, and Linux. Fasetto promises read-write speeds of 530 Mbps and 470 Mbps, respectively.
Oh, and the Link also includes fitness-tracking features—because why not?—and is waterproof up to 15 meters in case want to take your precious files for a dip.
Given the drive’s portable nature, Fasetto is putting an emphasis on security. Users will have to authenticate through email or text whenever they connect a new device to the Link, and any files they access are stored in the device’s RAM, so there’s no trace of them left on local storage. The idea is that users could access their entire file collection on a public or shared computer without compromising their data.
As for battery life, Fasetto claims the wearable drive can stream up to 12 hours of video, or last up to two weeks on standby. Instead of charging through conventional cables, Fasetto plans to offer a wireless dock.
Wearing the full terabyte won’t come cheap, however, as the maximum storage will cost a cool $800. Smaller storage options will cost $200 for 128 GB, $280 for 256 GB or $449 for 512 GB. Fasetto is taking orders through an Indiegogo campaign, and plans to ship the finished product in September.
I asked to try on the Link myself during CES, but the company wouldn’t let me, citing previous thefts by other attendees.
Why this matters: Given the rise of cheap cloud storage, Link’s promise of anywhere access to files isn’t as intriguing as it might have been a few years ago. But if you’re worried about cloud security or don’t have fast Internet access—and you don’t mind looking kind of silly—perhaps the Link is the wearable you’ve been waiting for.