Olio's wearables might not be as fugly as the rest

It’s quite shocking that, until Apple finally unveiled its Watch, the smartwatches we’d seen were all so … shall I say, fugly.

The problem with smartwatches so far is that they’re analogous to gym shoes. They have rubber and some sporty design, and are relevant to only about five percent of our day, just like the one hour per day we wear our gym shoes. At the gym.

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But Olio, a company coming out of the shadows today and announcing that it has bagged about $4 million in seed funding, is making some bold claims about finally creating wearables — “premium connected devices” — that look damn gorgeous.

Led by Steve Jacobs, a former iPod/iPhone engineer who’s also worked for Google, Amazon, Ammunition (Beats’ design agency) and who most recently left HP, the company is largely keeping mum about its future products. Jacobs did, however, let me know that they will all be marriages of technology and fashionable design. The first product will be unveiled later this year, and let’s just say it’s in a very obvious category of wearable devices.

Jacobs added that the company will be building hardware, software, and a platform for third-party services, raising the question of what operating system its devices will run on. Will they sync up with iOS? Android? The company’s own OS?

Olio cherry-picked its team — designers from Movado and other fashion brands, back-end engineers from Box, user experience designers from Pixar, and so on.

But will all of this potential and seemingly perfect assemblage of team members, investors, and advisors result in a smashing success?

Jacobs certainly seems as committed to design as he is to engineering. His Apple pedigree means that he’s been inculcated with a deep belief in design and immaculate engineering.

“We just want to make, first off, really well-made products, as opposed to try to stick a cellphone on your wrist,” he told me. “We aren’t only developing tools anymore. We’re enabling elements of self-expression to do things for us.”

Olio’s devices will generally be a bit more expensive (and premium) than what’s currently on the market, but the company won’t be selling $5,000 watches either. And, of course, lowering prices as processes and materials become cheaper with volume and improvements is definitely a goal, said Jacobs.

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When I asked if Olio’s devices will have cell chips (meaning, will they be able to make calls and such on their own), Jacobs said that some might and some might not. “Philosophically, the end game is to really help people focus, again, on the stuff that matters most to them,” he said.

Beyond that, Olio will also have to be on par with the capabilities other devices are already providing, such as fitness tracking, heart rate monitoring, and so on. We’ve found out that Olio has retained the services of Schox PLC, a boutique patent agency that specializes in startups, though we haven’t seen much detail about what the company is up to with its IP.

Along with Schox PLC owner Jeff Schox, CrunchFund, Serra Ventures, Box Group, PCH International, NEA’s Rick Yang, and Lux Capital’s Shahin Farshchi also contributed funding. NEA led the round.

Olio was founded in 2013 by Steve Jacobs and is based in San Francisco, with an additional office in New York City. Olio participated in Founders Den’s coworking space and entrepreneurship program.

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